I was recently interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune on the topic of how the recession has affected a family already stretched thin from trying to keep a medically fragile kid with special needs alive.
Below are some of the things discussed during that interview.
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I came home stunned.
I do a ‘big’ grocery shopping trip once a month. Then I try to save back a bit of cash to cherry pick the sales for the rest of the month.
My big grocery shopping usually happens at Costco where I get the same things each month. Usually items such as milk, cheese, laundry detergent, Kirkland fabric softener, organic carrots and a few other things are always cheaper.
Except this month.
Milk has almost doubled. The cheese and butter* were higher too. The once cheap frozen burritos my kids love so much were no longer cheap. I’ll be making my own if I can master that art of making my own tortillas. I can make up my own refried beans from the stash of dried beans I already have on hand.
Because I purchase the same items each month, I know exactly what the prices are and they’ve gone up.
Waaay up.
And I was stunned.
Anybody else experiencing sticker shock at the grocery store these days?
I’ve been employing every tactic I know to keep the grocery budget down. From Bountiful Baskets to double coupon Tuesdays at Walmart. But I’m running out of ideas and need to rededicate myself to tightening up my frugal black belt.
You know it’s bad when your 22 year old opens the freezer door and wonders why you didn’t buy as much this month as you usually do.
Except you actually went over budget by about $50.00.
My oldest daughter and her husband visited some family in Logan this weekend. They stopped by the Gossener cheese factory hoping for ‘ends’ at a good price. The Munster was $1.65 a pound which was good. Everything else? Not so good.
The recession really picked a rotten time to strike. It would have been nice if it would have waited until after we finished paying off the stack of medical bills Parker has amassed. That would have put the recession’s start date at some time after Hell Froze Over.
But it’s hit, and as far as I’m concerned it’s getting worse and I’ve got to figure some things out.
I was hoping to save up enough to be able to purchase part of a cow. If I’m going to do this I need to bring my overall bill down by a little over $100.00 a month for the next several months.
Which is going to be tricky to say the least.
Especially since we’re going to need to replace our fridge in the next couple of months. It’s being held together by duct tape and prayer right now.
One area that runs expensive is Parker’s blenderized diet. I’m spending close to $40.00 a month on goat milk alone. I’m wondering if by going directly to the dairy that produces the milk if it would be a bit cheaper. It’s just in Draper. Maybe passing over the middle man could help.
We’re coming into the time of year where fresh produce is cheap to free from my garden, but that still leaves the olive oil, protein and grain. Because Parker is a former IA kid, I have to be careful which grains I feed him. This blenderized diet has made all the difference for our Brave Hero, and I’m not willing to go back to the canned formula that Medicaid would provide him.
I can do this.
Cheerfully living on even less.
* One of our family’s traditions is to pop up big bowls of popcorn each Sunday. We use butter on that popcorn. Everyone in our family loves popcorn. Except for the 15 year old. We are still wondering if he was switched at birth or something. heh.
Tammy,
Have you checked out this place? It’s in West Jordan, so a bit of a drive, don’t know if they’re a good price or not…
http://goatdairy.weebly.com/
Melanie
Melanie,
The milk we have been getting is via Drake Farms. It’s not raw milk though. I had to promise about 50 people up at PCMC that I wouldn’t go the raw milk route with Parker’s immune system. Although I did use raw goat’s milk from a friend’s goats when Rigel was a baby.
You might be able to get a free fridge on freecycle or freegle. They are amazing! If you have something you do not need any more you offer it up and anyone who wants it can email you and ask for it. If you need something you can ask and people with it will email you back.
Last year I furnished my whole flat for nothing! Most was from freegle and the other bits were foraged. A couple of years ago we were given a lovely fridge-freezer that was much better than our old tiny fridge.
I just checked, freegle is UK only so I’ve given you the freecycle address.
Good Luck!
http://www.freecycle.org/
It’s hitting us hard too. Grocery shopping used to be a pleasant and boring chore. Now it is so stressful. I can’t cook their favorite meals as much and have begun inventing new meals that have less meat. And gas? Might as well hold a gun to my head.
Wendy recently posted..I Always Forget
Wendy,
Yup. Totally. Do you can or dehydrate or freeze? I’ll be employing this strategies big time for next winter.
I just finished reading a book about growing up during the Depression. Wow. What an eye opener. I was pretty humbled by the end of the book.
Tammy,
I can, freeze, pickle and make jams/jellies. I am wondering if the home owners association here would mind if I raised a pig…. The hardest part this year is that we are suffering through the worst drought on record and i had to for-go our garden. It would have cost more to water it than if I buy from the farmer’s market. I miss my garden! The other day, using coupons and store deals and everything else I knew how to use i saved $144 dollars off the bill, but still it wasn’t that much food. Not like what I would have expected.
Wendy recently posted..I Always Forget
Ah! Your garden! I’m so sorry. Have you heard of Bountiful Baskets? It’s a co-op kind of a thing where you can get a week’s worth (even for MY family) of fresh fruit and veggies for $15.00 a week.
I hope to open a new BB here by my house. I look at it as one way we can give back to our community.
Twitter: therextras
Jun 9, 11
I’m disheartened that my favorite living-on-less-Goddess is asking for help from the rest of us. Yes, I have noticed increases at the grocery store. You already do everything I could possibly think of….outside of your groceries – my ideas drift to ways to manage $$ – of which yours are none of my business. I am opposed to posting that kind of personal stuff online.
So ask I continue to pray for Parker and your family, I will also ask for new ideas and resources for you.
Barbara recently posted..Off Balance
Barbara,
heh.
Reed does the finances in the family. It used to drive me NUTS. But I’m so grateful he does. That man is a miser. Which in most cases would be an insult. But not in our case. It’s due to Reed’s handling of our finances that we are still in our house.
I get my monthly ‘budget’ and am responsible for making that last through the month.
And I can do this. I just need to put my thinking cap on. More importantly I can do it cheerfully. Okay. I think I can do it cheerfully. lol.
I’m working on some new ideas. I need to get better at my menu making. I may even do something radial like post my monthly menu or something. =:0
PS: I’ve missed you!
That is pretty awesome!!! Way to go… I want to read it now when it comes out. I don’t know if you are a Romney fan BUT I AM!!! And I sure hope he wins so he can help turn around our economy! I have heard great things about Bountiful Baskets, but there is no way we can eat all of that food and I have yet to find someone who is willing to go 50/50. It is brilliant though!!!
Did I read that you daughter got married? Congrats, that is such a joyous occasion!!
McKinley recently posted..Desserts Yes Please!!!
I’ll let you know when it’s published and whether or not my part ended up on the cutting room floor. ;D
Bailey did indeed get married almost a month ago!
Try butterless popcorn
It’s a start. We have popcorn on Sundays, too, with church movies. The little changes are the ways to start cutting. The more of them that you can do, the lower the final bill.
We’re back to living on food storage, and it’s tighter than tight. We can’t afford food. We couldn’t really last year, either (though I did get some things last year; glad I did; the 25# bag of oats at the cannery doubled in price since December).
We have made some big changes. Feeding the family for $2-$5 isn’t going to cut it anymore. We switched to $.50 to $1 meals that feed the whole family (of 8). I wrote about what we’re doing here.
A lot of times, the “frugal” suggestion is to eat 1 or 2 meatless meals a week. That’s not going to cut it for most people anymore. We need to eat for a lot, lot less.
This week I’m trading lettuce and swiss chard (that went to seed), and lots of weeds from my garden for eggs from someonw who has chickens. IHer chickens eat what I give her, and she gives me eggs. Loo for opportunities to barter.
It’s apricot season. Start knocking on doors and seeing if you can pick fruit that is going to waste. You can make jam, smoothies, freeze it, make tarts, dry it to use later, and make baby food with them. I hear there are a huge number of apricot trees up your way.
I have several cans of goat milk just sitting here. They are yours if you want them. THough I should check to see if they have expired yet…. interested?