It looks like this is the time to hoard up some food, if you havesomeplace to store it anda few extra bucks. CBS MarketWatch reports that deflationary pressures have pushed prices about as low as they’re likely to go. Everything from soup & nuts to automobiles is marked down.
Earlier this week I found some very nice seven-bone chuck roasts at the Safeway: $1.47 a pound, a buck less than hamburger. I bought two and had them ground into burger (I’m not nuts about stewed beef; and I can feed hamburger to the dog as well as to myself).
If you have some money or some credit, now is the time to buy a car or a house. I sure can’t afford that and don’t know anyone who can…but somewhere there must be a retired banker or two who could manage it.
Seriously: As the piper comes around asking to be paid for all the rescues the taxpayer is subsidizing and for all the money the government is minting to engineer those subsidies, we’re likely to see some serious inflation. If prices go up and none of us can get work, we’re all going to be in deep trouble. Helle’s Belles: if prices go way up—or, to put it another way, if the value of the dollar goes bust—it won’t make much difference if we are working, because our wages won’t buy us a heck of a lot more than unemployment benefits will.
This weekend I think I’ll see if I can find a small freezer that will go through the door to the spare bedroom I’ve devoted to storage. It wouldn’t take a lot of extra freezer space to hold at least a couple months of food for me and the Corgi. Then as food comes on sale, I’m going to start buying, wrapping, and storing.
It looks like I’m going to need a new washer one of these days—have you seen the prices on the frontloaders at Costco? They even have one of those top-loading high-efficiency washers with no agitator at an almost affordable price (good-bye wadded up sheets and ripped shirts!).
The problem with buying a big-ticket item before one really needs it is that in these uncertain times it feels like a real bad idea to part with whatever cash you’ve managed to sock away in savings. And you can be darned sure racking up debt to take advantage of rock-bottom prices is a bad idea. But…if things get as bad as they could get, a freezer would pay for itself. So would some “futures” in rice, beans, and canned goods.
I am a stocker-up of food, but do not have a freezer. Perhaps that’s because I have a colleague, who, post-Katrina, donated 7 years of turkeys to the food bank! They were gratefully received and used, but still . . .I think you could have the same savings with canned items, which do not need special equipment.
Most of my stocking up is thanks to Big Lots, which gets some wonderful canned goods, many organic or “gourmet.”
I *love* my freezer and highly recommend a chest freezer. The cost of running one is very low per month, and by buying on sale, you can stash away alot of food.
Here’s the trick though, rotation. Only buy food you normally eat, break it down into portions you normally use, take a sharpie and date it, then rotate it. If you buy a pound of burger to use, take the previous pound out of your freezer and use that, replacing it with the new pound. It will become a habit in no time.
The guy who had seven years of turkey in his freezer had too much Old Food in his freezer. The freezer can really help with the portions — I routinely cut up chicken into stirfry slices and package it in a big ziplock with frozen veggies so it is meal in a bag. I make 5 of them at a time as a hedge against going out to eat cause I am too tired to cook (not frugal). Check out once a month cooking sites also, people have systems for freezer use. Have fun!
Hm. I like the idea of putting the frozen veggies in with the cut-up chicken. You should blog about that: it’s one of those ideas that’s so obvious it’s genius.
LOL! Seven years of turkey? Ick.
We have a Big Lots just across the freeway, over in Gangland Central. I’ll check it out.
I always cut up meat into serving-sized pieces before freezing it. It’s the only way to deal with Costco’s lifetime supplies. Even ground chuck I plan to feed to the dog (and myself, along the way) is divvied into patties that would serve just fine for a human dinner.
Probably it would be wise to have a generator to keep a freezer going, if you can afford it. I wonder how much one costs? And wouldn’t a solar-powered generator be ideal? 😉
Around here, we don’t often have natural disasters, although when the monsoon-that-was-not (ohhh hevvins no!)-a tornado came through, parts of downtown Phoenix were without power for days.
A generator costs around $600. I got one well after Hurricane Katrina. Those who had them before Katrina were like royalty, inviting the neighbors in for brief moments of cool air!
After the storm, we were the recipients of a lot of great food from freezers–people gave us tuna, steak, etc. We cooked what we could eat on a little camp stove.
For me, a freezer wouldn’t be a saver: I can’t even seem to get through the stuff in my fridge freezer.
I can’t bring myself to stock up on food. I spend about $40.00 in groceries for my self at WalMart or HyVee each week, and that seems to do more than enough for me. I always end up wasting stuff if I buy more than that.
I have a second hand freezer at home and I love to stock up my food during weekly purchases. It may be a huge one-time shopping expenses but I save more in the long run.
It is important to buy only those items which we really need, not because they are cheap. And, not to forget, consuming the perishables first.