And Another Thing...

The Great Grocery Extravaganza :: Procurement Part 1

 


A current picture of our big pantry.  We were lucky that these shelves were already installed in our basement when we moved in because they are the perfect place to store all this food!  Anyway, here' a run down of what we have procured so far.  The top shelf is storage for my empty glass jars, the second shelf down holds more storage containers, my stock pot, iced tea packets, several items from CLNF and my homemade applesauce.

At Meijer - 10 boxes of cake mix bought on sale for $0.99 per box.  I have found that the need to make a homemade birthday cake is something that I can let go of and I am okay with this.

At Target - 5 packages of 36 rolls of toilet paper.  Combined with what we already had on hand, this should get us through the year.

From Costco - mustard, 7 boxes of raisins, 14 cans (106 ounce) of tomato sauce (we need 6 more, but we cleaned them out when we were there, I'll have to go back when they've recovered), 40 pounds of white flour, 50 pounds of white sugar, 2 boxes of trash bags, 2 liters of EVOO, 4 boxes of ziplock bags and 4 gallons of white vinegar (for cleaning)

In the freezer (also from Costco) - 5 bags of green beans, 5 bags of corn, 8 packages of baking butter (4 pounds per package), 6 packages of Irish butter, 4 packages of breakfast sausage, and 4 bags of shredded cheese (this is not a year's supply, but all that would fit in my freezer).

This is only about 1/4 of the shopping that we need to do, so we still have a long way to go.  Stay tuned for more updates coming along soon!

The Great Grocery Extravaganza :: Preparation

So, after acceptance we can then start working toward a solution.  In this case, the solution is to make the best choices we can while spending cautiously to maximize the benefit of this experiment.  I started in the most logical place in the world.  With the Mormons.

Yes, that's right.  Mormons are well known for food storage and if you do a little investigating and have smart friends , you'll find out that non-LDS members (at least in this area) can utilize their home storage center.  I am able to obtain quite a bit of what I need for the year; wheat, oats, beans, dried apples and onions, at very reasonable prices.  I figured out during this process that I spend about $1000 per year on flour if I buy it already milled and at the cheapest price I can find it.  I make all of our bread and pizza dough, so we use a lot of flour.  But, if I buy whole wheat berries from the LDS home storage center, I get 25 pounds for $7.80.  This makes each loaf of bread and each pizza crust almost negligable in cost.  Therefor, I start with the Mormons, and I think them.

The next place I gathered a list from is Country Life Natural Foods.  I have been buying monthly from this distributor for several months now, so I was quite familiar with what they had to offer and I knew that I would be buying the bulk of my bulk here.  50 pounds of rice, 40 pounds of popcorn, 2 gallons of coconut oil, etc. will come from Country Life.  The organizer of my co-op is beyong thrilled that she will get to sort out all of that.

I'm also putting in a small order with United Natural Foods Inc. for chocolate chips, ketchup, and cod liver oil mainly.  I have had a really hard time finding ketchup in bulk that does not contain HFCS and chocolate chips in bulk that are not from Nestle.  I'm definitely paying a bit more here then I would if I lowered my standards, but both of those things are important to me to avoid, so I'm taking the hit.

I have quite a substantial list of items to buy at Costco.  Also Meijer and Target have a select few items that I consider a good deal.  We're getting 1/4 grass-fed cow from a local farm later in February and I'm still on the lookout for chicken at a good price.  It will take me several more weeks to get everything collected, but with any luck, I will only need to buy a few things every month from March on.  My goal is to keep our produce and dairy under $100 per month.  I know we will need to buy another 1/4 cow in a few months, but our current freezer space will not allow for a 1/2 cow all at once.

Stay tuned because I have an update coming up in a few days with the first of our Great Grocery Extravaganze purchases to share!

The Great Grocery Extravaganza :: Acceptance

 

Those of you who know me, know that I do not get excited about grocery shopping.  I shop for 7 people, 2 dogs, 2 cats and a guinea pig every 2 weeks.  I go to the same stores every 2 weeks.  I get the same food every 2 weeks.  We are not adventurous eaters here at the Eikenberry Nuthouse, so there is very little variance in my grocery shopping forays.  This leads to a condition I call "grocerious apathetica" or in laymen's terms, grocery boredom.  When I am bored, I get resistant.  When I get resistant, people here go hungry.  Not good when it concerns a houseful of children.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am incredibly thankful that we are able to purchase such a large quantity of (mostly) quality food.  Yeah, I know the Mickey Mouse shaped chicken nuggets were not a great choice, but the children loved them and didn't complain.  I am grateful everyday that we have the means to feed our children healthy, nourishing food.  That doesn't mean I'm grateful for the long lines of crazy shoppers at Costco, or getting bumped into in every aisle at Meijer.  However, in my perfect world, food would just appear in my pantry and fridge.  Sigh.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine mentioned that she only really grocery shops once a year, in order to stretch her food dollars as far as possible.  Yes, once a year.  I dismissed this idea, thinking it could never work for us.  Then I started looking into co-ops and bulk buying because of the influence of another friend and I slowly realized that it might actually be feasable.  Once I actually sat down and thought about the money we spend on food every year, I became obsessed with the idea.  We spend approximately $10,000 every year on groceries.  I know, it's a huge number, isn't it?  Once I started crunching numbers and doing research, I realized that I could feed our family for thousands less if I was just a bit smarter about it. 

I have spent the last few weeks making a list of all the staple, non-perishable or freezable items that we use on a regular basis.  Remember that our grocery list doesn't really change from week to week, so this was fairly easy.  Guess what?  The list filled exactly one page of wide ruled notebook paper.  It also totaled up to right around $2000.  For the year.  I was shocked when I saw that.  And I was convinced.  We were going to give it a go.

In my next post, I'll expand on our preparation for this extraordinary adventure.  Stay tuned!