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Our $100/ month for entire family (since 1980) has rapidly increased to $150. But still quite comfortable (and includes eating out + entertainment).
We do eat far less as we age. Fasting 2 days / week cuts out a few meals.
I'm nuts about BBQ / smoked turkey. I just cooked another one yesterday.(free turkey if you buy a spiral ham (~$22)... So now I'm all set for a couple months.
Turkey stock makes 12 servings of soup.
Costco chickens supplement when I'm low on turkey. That's a ways out since a friend bought me 6 turkeys last yr for $0.11 / lb. I take frozen turkeys as carry-on luggage and trade / barter for local foods.
Edible landscape... We get 200-300# of blueberries/ yr + apples, pears, persimmons, plums, prunes, cherries, grapes.... And a lot of wild berries. (A freezer full at the moment)
Bob's Red Mill is close by, so get 25# sacks of various meals and flours + have our own flour mill / grinder.
We volunteer at homeless / community kitchens, so often get leftovers.
We raise beef, and used to have lamb, but neighbors have plenty of spare everything, including huge gardens.
Salmon / steelhead / sturgeon are 5 minutes away.
Wild game? 22 deer in the front yard tonight, but have had 3 various herds this week including some exotics. (Currently at Texas home) Washington home has plenty of deer, elk, bear (and Sasquatch)
Making homemade ice cream every Sunday night is a luxury expense and our neighbors and friends love it, especially during berry season.
Potlucks! We do lots of potlucks, once / week when possible. Did a huge one with Master Gardeners yesterday. I'm still stuffed.
Sounds just as unbelievable as the last time you posted something similar
Quote:
Originally Posted by StealthRabbit
$100 feeds us great (2 of us), used to be (5)... also includes our entertainment, and we cook for, and serve elderly neighbors too within that $100/month. No problem
As has been the case since 1980.
Fresh fruit and veggies every day!
Fresh salmon and farm beef and lamb as often as we like.
Costco? We can get over 20 servings from (1) $4.99 rotissiere chicken. Burritos, soup, salads, ... @$0.25 / serving... That's about 5x as expensive as our staple of Bob's steel cut oatmeal.
I do miss the $3.99 Costco cinnamon rolls of yesteryear.. (circa 1985). But I got 8 for $3.49 today at local grocery. Not cream cheese frosting tho.
We put our $100 in an envelope on first of month. When it's gone, we get creative or go without. When we have extra food money we buy stuff for the needy in community. There are plenty of those.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowexpectations
This is only happening if you don’t like farm beef/lamb very often if ever or you are bargaining/bartering labor or other things
Well Costco chickens run 3ish lbs cooked on avg that’s larger than most retailers. Whole chickens yield 60-70% meat/skin giving you roughly 1.8-2.1 lbs of meat. To get 20 servings out of that you would be getting roughly 1.5 ounces of chicken per meal or woefully under even a small a serving. And you aren’t making burritos, soups and salads at .25 per serving when your undersized chicken portions alone cost that much.
Your numbers don’t add up. I don’t care how you eat but something is off here and you are either exchanging other things for your food like you have done for room/board before or the numbers are completely false.
Sounds just as unbelievable as the last time you posted something similar
When people fast and cut out meals, as StealthRabbit does, that saves a ton of $. Not sure why you are not believing him. He seems to do a fantastic job of stretching his food budget
When people fast and cut out meals, as StealthRabbit does, that saves a ton of $. Not sure why you are not believing him. He seems to do a fantastic job of stretching his food budget
Well he isn’t discussing fasting in his post but I also simply do not believe his prior post that he spent 100.00 a month on food for two(used to be 5)entertainment and providing for elderly folks in the community. A lot of his post are unbelievable or seemly unnecessarily overly exaggerated
I almost had a panic attack a few days at the grocery store. I had to walk away from items I usually purchased. For example, paper plates. No way I can afford them now so I will wash my dishes more often. Butter, cheeses, eggs, lunch meat, and many more items have increased so much. A container of presliced lunch meat is $7 to $8 dollars. I was wondering if this keeps up how one survives. I live in town and getting chickens are prohibited. The good thing for us is we have our house paid off. My husband told me to relax and that we will make it and figure out what to do. We use to easily buy $65 a week for groceries and still have food left over. Now we spend $200 or more a week. Being retired this is nuts.
Food is actually not that expensive if you shop mindfully. I spend <$50 per week on groceries (U.S.) while still being able to eat a healthy diet.
Look at foods from a macronutritional standpoint. Look at the back of the label and see what you're getting for your money.
Examples of foods that offer a lot of macros per dollar:
* Protein: Eggs are dirt-cheap. Protein powder, if bought in bulk. Tofu, dairy and nuts too.
* Fats: This is the most calorically dense macro. Protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram while fat has 9. This means that many fats, even if it doesn't seem like you're getting high volume per dollar, are still affordable from a calorie per dollar standpoint.
* Carbs Breads, pasta, rice, oatmeal, etc. are all dirt cheap.
Use these as a base for the majority of the calories. Then add in fruits, veggies and herbs to your dishes to complement them.
Carbs and fat aren't inherently bad for you. You can eat complex/low-glycemic carbs (i.e. whole wheat bread) if satiety and blood sugar are concerned. You can eat unsaturated fats like canola oil, olive oil, avacados, nuts, etc. Saving money on food doesn't necessitate always having a diet of soda, fast food and walmart brand icecream.
You can mix less calorically dense and more calorically dense foods together to get a good mix of value and nutrition. For example, sauteeing veggies with oil. It has enough calories to be filling, while also having micronutrients and the overall cost isn't too high.
The other factor is not exceeding the calories/macros reach your goal weight/physique. Many people in developed countries are overweight; I know this sounds crass, but people can save money on food by eating normal human portion sizes instead of the large portion sizes Americans have been accustomed to.
Calorie-dense foods don't inherently make you fat; you can get fat on them quickly if you eat them mindlessly, but if you track your calories/macros, you can eat as much as you need without going over.
I save money on food by deer hunting instead of eating so much beef from the grocery store.
I almost had a panic attack a few days at the grocery store. I had to walk away from items I usually purchased. For example, paper plates. No way I can afford them now so I will wash my dishes more often. Butter, cheeses, eggs, lunch meat, and many more items have increased so much. A container of presliced lunch meat is $7 to $8 dollars. I was wondering if this keeps up how one survives. I live in town and getting chickens are prohibited. The good thing for us is we have our house paid off. My husband told me to relax and that we will make it and figure out what to do. We use to easily buy $65 a week for groceries and still have food left over. Now we spend $200 or more a week. Being retired this is nuts.
Do you have several stores you can shop at? I've found that shopping at several different places helps me maximize my savings. And do watch the weekly circulars. I sometimes buy in advance of needing something and freeze it.
Well he isn’t discussing fasting in his post but I also simply do not believe his prior post that he spent 100.00 a month on food for two(used to be 5)entertainment and providing for elderly folks in the community. A lot of his post are unbelievable or seemly unnecessarily overly exaggerated
I don't know him personally, but I don't doubt him either. Stealthrabbit is someone who appears to be pretty resourceful. He's the guy I picture picking the blackberries in season or helping someone do a project at their house and getting paid in buckets of fresh fruit or fishing and making a meal or two out of that and stocking the freezer. I have people in my family like that. My dad was telling me a story last month about his family used to get ripe peaches from the peach shed at a reduced price because they couldn't be shipped. My grandma and aunts would can them along with produce from the garden. I remember one year when my dad broke a bone in his foot and needed to sit down a lot, I'd go out to our garden and pick these black peas he had planted. He would shuck them and we ended up with more than a year's worth.
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