The weekends are my usual shopping days…WinCo, CostCo, gas, and maybe WalMart. This means that weekends are the time when I look at the price of things and go “Hey, wasn’t this cheaper last weekend?” For example, gas was up another dime to around $4.18/gal. Ground beef 85/15? $5.25/#. CocaCola? $0.388 per can in a 35-can case….that’s almost 30% higher than what i used to pay about a year or so ago.
I feel bad for people on fixed incomes. For them, their only choice is to find ways to get more income or start cutting things out of their budget.
And, as if inflation wasn’t bad enough, we still have the Wuhan Flu hangover, ‘mostly peaceful’ demonstrations, a heightened possibility of WW3.1, and whatever nonsensical activities the goobers in Washington have planned.
I’m starting to think there will never be a point in my life where I look at a lifetime of being a survivalist and say “Wow, that was a waste.”
So what’s on tap these days for yours truly? Well, not much really. Other than working on financial resources, I’m mostly comfortable with what I’ve got. And, honestly, I’ve virtually no room for more stuff. I guess now is the time to start polishing what I’ve got and refine the small details.
.Gov is upping the interest rates a bit in hopes of slowing down the economy and thereby putting the brakes on inflation. But that has it’s own separate problems. It’s like chemotherapy – it targets the bad stuff but there’s a buncha collateral damage. So you better shrink that tumor fast because if you keep up the treatment for too long you’ll kill off the healthy stuff. And that’s about the extent of my oncological background. But, you get my idea, yes?
So what are you doing to get ahead of this inflationary episode? Cutting back? Buying bulk in advance? Locking in prices?
Yep. Yep and Yep
I’ve already shifted my menu planning for dinners. My plan is to start having one explicitly “cheap” meal a week. I usually manage that anyway, just because a lot of what we eat and like is pretty cheap, but now I’m doing it on purpose.
I’ll follow that with one “nice” meal that I paid less for, and not worry too much about the others. Most of our daily eating is fairly cheap, I spend the time to get bargains and stock up, so per meal costs are usually low. Other than looking for bargains though, I haven’t been explicitly planning cheap meals.
We’re eating more canned goods, both to eat out of the stacks and to accustom the kids to those flavors and choices.
I’m rotating in some more of the stranger things I stack. I’ve got a lot of stuff in the pantry that is only there to combat appetite fatigue, if it comes to that. Occurred to me that I should start using some of that now.
And I shopped a store I haven’t been to in a while, just to confirm that their prices are still high, but they had a great “day old” pastry and bread rack. I’ll be hitting that more often.
Pork is cheap in Houston at the moment. <$2 /pound for pork tenderloin roast. I cut it into chops, and roasts. My thought is the farmers might be selling off herds as too expensive to feed and flooding the market. In any case, I'm buying and vac sealing and freezing the meat.
And I'm re-packing snacks like chips and pretzels into ziplok bags for the kids' lunches instead of just buying the little bags. Chips have gone up a LOT.
It's a lot of little things, and it's just more intentional lately, and they do add up.
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My wife and I have always spent less than we’ve made. We probably won’t feel the effects of this economic nightmare like those folks already living close to the edge. I walk through the grocery, see the price increases and wonder how some families are surviving.
I believe this “Overturning of Roe V Wade” is a ploy of the alto left to energise the failing Democratic Party in time for the Mid-Term Elections. Divert the attention of the angry masses with “Bread and Circus.” In this case the Circus is the battle between the Pro Choice – Pro Life crowd. The prospect of having your College Loan forgiving will mobilize many to vote Democratic.
Yeah, government intervening in personal lives rears its ugly head. Mom’s house, shared between my sibling and I (RIP Mom) had higher property tax levied on it this year. An additional $20,000 in property value – we didn’t do anything to improve it to justify the added cost. Just a ‘we can do this because its good for us’ from local tax district. Maybe good for us if/ when we sell, but not good if we decide to keep it. May a fire ant colony make a nest in their colons …
We need to move tax day to just prior to election day as a reminder we have a say in this.
My local little grocery store ran a case lot sale. Fill out their worksheet of offerings, which is a well rounded list of selections, then in about 3 or 4 weeks it comes in and you pay then. I got 21 out 24 items fulfilled successfully. About 350 bucks to fill up half a long bed truck with fresh cases of chow. Strategic buy at a better than sale prices, and deepening the pantry larder all at once. Also made a day trip to the city to the box stores and Walmart to advance buy all those expendable nonperishable commodities one uses throughout the year. It is stuff you will need anyway, so the adage of a bird in the hand versus the bird in a bush thinking. This hits the budget and savings all at once but one must think strategically and plan like the “Ant” versus the grasshopper analogy.
Stay frosty and stocked up.
The way you drink cans of Coca-Cola that’s going to add up to a big hit over a year.
Ever tried a Sodastream?
The next big .guv step is rationing: water, fuel, electricity, etc.
Securing water supply with a Bison pump installed on our well head. Bought some more Wavian jerry cans. Diesel in Maine is $6.50/gal.
Sweet Jebus.
Ditto’s to all of the above. No great insights to add, but we live pretty frugally already, so we recognize that we haven’t had to make any serious changes in our dietary habits…..yet. That time may come, but we continue to add to stocks in the pantry even if it’s only “today’s regular prices are next years screaming sale prices”.
We have networked our way into locally sourced beef, cut and wrapped, from quarter to whole animal. We have a couple of local egg sources for which we pay premium prices, far above their asking price because we know they’re selling that quality product too cheaply and we want to lock in the source of supply.
I hate playing the coupon game at Safeway, but as it’s our only local grocery, there’s really no choice in the matter. This weeks deal is “$10 off a tab of $50 or more”. That’s 20%!, and $50 will hardly fill a single sack any more. Last week was 93/7 hamburger for $3.99. That used to be “ho-hum, no big deal”, but now? I jumped on it, repackaged it into ziplocs and managed to cram it into an already full freezer.
I have long recognized that we’ve been living in an age of luxury and abundance that no King, Emperor, Sultan, or Chief could have dreamed of at any price. If you live in a city of any size, just name a food, from anywhere on the planet, and you can likely have it TODAY. Well, all of us here are expecting those times to come to a screeching halt, and sooner than later. When the truckers decide that “I’m not about to be the next Reginald Denny” is about when the cities explode.
We have a local chain (I think it’s local) called Sprouts. I go to the meat dept and ask for any trimmings they might have. They give them to me free. I trim off the meat, and render the fat into tallow. Great for cooking, making soap, etc.
I can usually get about 40% usable meat. Last time I went, I got 7 lbs of trimmings which gave me about 3 lbs of meat. I bought a grinder extension for our mixer, and I make ground beef out of it. Got 7 good sized burgers, and the meat is fresh and often a very good cut. Much tastier than and ground beef you can buy. Plus, you can control the fat content yourself.
All for free.
Got an email from a friend in Canada. Gas has hit ten dollars a gallon. True the Canadian dollar is worth a bit less then the US dollar. But the last time the Canadian dollar was almost parallel to the US dollar the Kenyan and. Ventriloquist dummy were in the White House. Give it time. In Canada their countries leader is dumber then Biden. And PM Blackface is even more repulsive.