Saving money at the market; Buy in bulk

The Law of Provident Living - in action

Touring our homestead would leave you with the impression that we are unusual, if not outright touched.

In our pantry we have a corner stacked high with five gallon buckets. One of our bedrooms has been converted to a deep larder. The walls are lined with 55 gallon barrels
filled with dry goods. Wheat, oats, barley, sugar, salt.
This is our normal use supply. Our emergency rations are
elsewhere and not to be touched. That is long term stores with shelf lives of twenty years...

We are blessed to have a restaurant supply nearby. Our standard purchase is by the five gallon bucket, the 25-50 pound bag, or the #10 can. After doing this now consistently for a while we only go to the market once a month for routine use items. Our goal is once every three months...

Once you get going it is amazing how much money you can save. We do keep a small freezer and it allows us
to shop the loss leaders. We are still eating Easter ham,
for example. By watching for the loss leaders and buying ahead when you can it is possible to get a leg up. Chicken on special .88 cents per pound is a call to arms.
We will be the ones in the queue line with a trolley full of it.

Don't think that you can't do this because you are an apartment dweller, or on a very tight budget. It is just as easy to buy a fifty pound bag of rice and beans as it is to buy the little boxes of mac and cheese. I've heard stories of folks who ditched their box springs and placed their mattress on top of food stores. Thirty gallon barrels
full of edibles being used as end tables is as functional as
tomato plants on your balcony....be creative

Mind you, we are rank amateurs. Here is a video done
by people who were raised in the art
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...Ag&vt=lf&hl=en

In an environment where paper investments are worthless, and inflation threatens your very existence, what is it worth to have an inflation proof hedge among the cards that are dealt you?
When we first started doing this a fifty pound bag of hard white winter wheat was nine dollars and about 10 dollars to ship it to our door. Today that same fifty pound bag will cost you twenty five dollars and about twenty five dollars to ship it to your door.

Enter the Alpha strategy...
http://www.biorationalinstitute.com/...a_strategy.pdf

[arcora]

Food in the freezer is better than money in the bank.

[Bigfatfurrytexan]

I live in west texas, so i get great deals on prime cuts of steak. at the local cattle auction they have a slaughter house that sells freezer packs. Every several weeks i buy a new freezer pack (they have different ones, so i change it up to rotate out different types of food) and save about 50 bucks (i get 200 dollars worth for 150). Even better, things like the ground beef come freshly ground in 10lb bags. So i can repackage them into sizes that i need (usually 2lb each for a family of four).

Of course, i also go in "ad hoc" to get black angus ribeyes. they are about 1.5 lbs each, and i pay just under 7 bucks apiece for them. They truly are of a quality high enough to be in a five star restaurant, usually (occassionally you get one that was grazed near a lower quality feed...but even then it is still black angus, and far better than Wal Mart carries for 30% more).

I have three freezers. I freeze everything, even potatos. I don't eat canned stuff if i can help it (i hate gray green beans and metallic tasting corn), but i have bag upon bag of frozen, fresh fruits and veggies.

i don't do it for survival, i do it for budget and flavor. I mean, when you get a bumper crop of tomatoes, the only way to keep that fresh tomato flavor is to make 20 gallons of marinara. Or about 1 year supply for the cost of raising a dozen tomato plants during the summer.

And in El Paso (where my family is "from") you can buy 50lb bags of things like onions for dirt cheap. A quick round through a food chopper, and you can end up with countless bags of diced onions for the next years cooking. Just freeze them.

[Ampgod]

Food stocked is fine for the immediate future but the end result is the food will run out. So start thinking along the lines of getting back to earth and what she can do to fix your situation on a long term basis.

Buy Seeds.
Plant and grow vitamin rich vegetables and fruits. This will sustain you long term.

"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day"
"Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"


Ampgod

[MargueriteBee]

Baggywrinkle you inspire me.

Ampgod, you are absolutely correct. I suggest buying 5 years worth of seeds in bulk. So even if you have crop failure and couldn't harvest seeds, you still have some for next year.