I have to remind myself every so often that not everyone cares or is interested in what’s going on with the Beta Site. Sure, there’s a lot of folks here who are kinda living vicariously a bit…and I’m happy to feed that. But there’s also a contingent that are probably tired of hearing about it, so I need to remember to post about stuff other than the Beta Site.
Todays noteworthy event was scoring more ground beef at 50% off.
My job requires me to do bank deposits daily. When I’m out running that errand I usually make a fast pass through ALbertson’s to check for remaindered meat. It’s paid off pretty well over the last several months.
Prices rarely go down on ..well..anything. And ground cow is still one of the most versatile animal proteins I can buy. Meatloaf, hamburgers, spaghetti sauce, tacos, etc, etc. Plus..who doesn’t like beef?
As it turns out, my other favorite animal protein – chicken – can be had by the case at WinCo for something like a buck and a half a pound if I dont mind getting a plastic sack full of 40# of boneless/skinless chicken breast. True it is probably the least flavorful part of the chicken, but I almost always just wind up turning it into stir fry or chicken tenders anyway.
I’ve never regretted having a freezer full of food. In my entire life I have only had one freezer failure and that was about twenty years ago. I’ve been much more careful about those sorts of things.
And, of course, you never know when, for whatever reason, trotting down to the supermarket for some 85/15 may not be in the cards. At that point youre living offa whats in your freezer and fridge and hopefully you’ve loaded up. Since Im a cautious sort, and never know when the next EOTWAWKI (personal or national) is coming, I always stock up when I can find these sorts of bargains.
And when that personal EOTWAWKI, with its accompanying financial spiral, hits your life, it’ll be nice to not have to worry about things like groceries while your frantically trying to keep whatr you have left as you scramle to get your life back on the rails.
I believe if the Iran (not a war) war drags on much longer there will be a lot more people experiencing their own mini EOTWAWKIs.
On your original thought, keep putting out Beta Site updates. Its still new and fun. I may change my mind if in three years you are still prattling on about whether to paint your guesthouse khaki or olive drab.
Pro tip; until freezer is completely full fill 2 liter or pop bottles 90% full and fit into freezer until full. In case of failure the ice bottles will help keep valuable contents frozen longer. The ice bottles also help the freezer run more efficiently as the already frozen bottles reduce the need to cycle the freezer unit. Lastly the frozen bottles can provide a source of cold water or ice in case of medical need or heat wave
A deep pantry is better than money in the bank. Canned and dry food stored carefully is fine for years. I made spaghetti last night from pasta over 4 years old, no complaints.
My “High Yield” savings account gives me about 4% APR. my receipts from just the last 4 months shows food bought and stored properly a higher rate of return.
The groceries you’re buying today is mostly LAST YEARS harvest.
About August-September the current year’s harvest is rolling in.
Unless you’ve been ignoring the Hormuz Strait affecting fertilizer and oil you SHOULD be expecting much higher groceries this fall.
What are your freezer protocols like?
That’s something I’ve been meaning to do myself.
Not sure what you mean by freezer protocols. I try to keep it full and tightly packed. Any voids are filled with water bottles. There’s a freezer alarm in case of failures. The plug is screwed to the outlet so it isn’t inadvertently unplugged. And I keep enough jars and lids on hand to give me the ability to can as much of it as possible if it looks like the power isn’t coming back.
What kind of alarms did you go with?
Man, I bought them so long ago I couldnt tell you much about them. Ill have to track through my Amazon purchase history and see if I can find it. Im pretty sure I got it off Amazon.
I’d be interested in this too if you have the time to dig up the info.
Amen and Amen. I stopped by one of local Raleys the other day-after 4 pm no less. I found ground steak (97% meat, 3% fat) on sale at $10 off a package. I scooped up everything that they had. I can do thousands of things with ground meat-including feeding the dogs. I keep my freezer full at all times. None of us know when the next C-R-I-S-I-S is going to happen. Whatever that crisis is. (Including unemployment.) I am appalled at the folks that I know that only keep a weeks worth of groceries in their houses. “I don’t have any storage room” is a frequent complaint. Well, 2 weeks into a civil war will probably get you a lot of storage room that you don’t want. I also found Arrowhead puffed wheat cereal-2 pound bags-on clearance for $1.89 each. Yep, I shopped them all.
We just lost our big chest freezer 2 days after putting $450 in halibut (in season) in it. Looking into a freezer alarm. The only other time I lost food from a freezer failure was from the Clinton inaguration day windstorm near Seattle. No power for 2 weeks. I lost about 50lb of my first elk. I now have generators.
Can anyone recommend a good freezer alarm that I can have notify me when travelling? A quick call to the neighbor will then set things right.
Google ‘Bluetooh freezer alarm’. I’m sure there one that links to your home network and that you can check in with remotely.
I’m running these: https://www.thermoworks.com/products/node?variant=46033896243362 In both my chest freezer and kitchen freezer. wi-fi and cloud. They have been very reliable so far, with a graphing function in the app.
Good brand recommendation, Ralph. I’ve been running a Thermoworks Smoke remote barbecue thermometer for at least 10-12 years and love it. I swear I think I’ve only replaced the batteries twice in all that time. VERY efficient and solidly built.
When you started posting about reduced price meat we jumped into it. Buying it has saved us a ton of money and we’ve had no bad experiences with it.
Unfortunately over the last few monthly they’ve greatly reduced the amount that they put out. It’s to the point that we almost never see any available.
It was great while it lasted and we appreciate you bringing it to our attention.
You have to strategize. Its a bit of work, but what I do is I find the bricks of meat that I want…say, 85/15 ground beef. THey have, maybe 15 or 20 bricks of it in the case. I look at the ‘sell by date’. The day before the Sell By date, they mark it to 30%. That tells me that the next day, which is the Sell By date, they’ll drop it fuirther to 50% off. SO if the Sell By date is, say, Saturday, I know to be in the meat depart around 8am Saturday..late enough that the manager has gone around and hit the packages with the new sticker, but early enough that there havent been many people passing through the meat department. Then I grab a basket and scoop up all the 50% I see.
We’ve kept our freezer stocked for years, with no damage to food. A few things seemed lose flavor after many years, but were still safe to eat, no problems. I have a couple of small roasts down there that will be ground into burger, likely. We’ve gotten much older, and some foods we either don’t like anymore (looking at you, asparagus), or can’t eat due to medical or dental problems. Once in awhile the coyotes get a little of those things.
I wish my safeway had 50 percent coupons , they only have 30 percent.
Albertsons/Safeway/Vons. Terrible company. I despise doing business with them anymore, but they are the closest store to me, and the folks who work at that one are fantastic! We joke about the name, Slaveway!
I have a pork shoulder I got on sale for $1/pound on the smoker as I type. The other one went into the freezer for Independance day. If they go.on sale.again before that, it stays in there, and will.have another new one next to it!
2 weeks worth of pulled.pork and green chili! Oh man! For under $15 total!
Tom762
Great deals.
My little local grocery store has started a daily deal meat section. Last week I got a bunch of 80/20 ground Angus for $3.50/ lb which is a steal here.
Sometimes they have steaks or roasts for less than ground – pricing seems odd here at times.
With a well stocked freezer and cabinets, I can choose when I go shopping, especially to the bigger stores in the nearby towns.
Brother… you (errrr… some of your readers) have no idea.
I went through a life-change a few years ago, and tried striking out on my own. Always wanted to work for myself. After about a year, the math wasn’t mathing. I re-doubled a few efforts, tried to increase advertising… business slowed! After 2 years, the writing was evident for anyone wanting to admit it. I started looking for work. You know, jobs that sounded good, hey, I think I’d like that?
After a year of that and hearing nothing back… I started applying to stuff I was simply qualified for. Or I at least thought I was. After a year of not hearing back, savings was running thin! Well, lets find some work, I’m still able bodied, even if it’s a lower wage than I’d like, it’ll slow the bleed!
It took another year, but I finally got a job. Decent one, too, thankfully.
My coins are all sold, I have 2 credit card companies up my ass, and the freezers are almost bare… but if they hadn’t been full at the start of this affair, I wouldn’t have made it this long. Some of that shit was 4-5 years old. Tasted great! Thankfully we put it up when times were better. Now we’ll focus on filling it back up again, post haste. But thank God we had it there in the first place.
Simple steps, when it’s on-sale, buy 2, or 3, put a couple up. It’s not hard!