The best part about living in our new temporary house is that we are able to get back to basics like we wanted to. We are 30 minutes from the nearest chain grocery store and 45 minutes from our favorite grocery store (Lucky’s), which makes grocery shopping a lot more of a chore. No more quick late night runs to Kroger to get dessert!
C got paid yesterday which meant I got to run out and do our grocery shopping. I took out $100 which I would like to be our grocery money for the next 2 weeks (but i know we will probably spend another $20-$40). I was able to get enough food for 13 dinners, 7+ lunches, and breakfast is eggs and bacon which we dont need to buy. I also got food for snacks and making treats (like my son’s birthday cake). I know we will still probably need to buy more flour, sugar, and possibly cheese by the end of the 2 weeks. I am trying to figure out how much flour we need so we can buy it more in bulk than we already do. We would like to be like they did it a long time ago, buy the groceries we need in bulk once or twice a year and rely on our garden and/or barter for the rest. We have a friend I have been talking to about bartering our chickens for her bread (which would be great in the times we run low on flour).
I am hoping that by next weekend our garden will be tilled and mostly planted (or getting ready for planting with the smaller plants). Our goal is to have enough growing this year to sustain us until our garden is harvested next year. The most expensive thing that we buy at the grocery store are vegetables. if we can eliminate that expense all together life would be grand! I am also considering getting a few (maybe 10-20) heritage meat chickens that we will slaughter and freeze this year. We aren’t fans of the larger meat chickens because they don’t seem to have much of a good quality of life, in fact they seem pretty miserable to me. I am really displeased with the price of beef right now and would REALLY like to start raising a cow, but that will have to wait until next year. For right now I will have to be happy with what we’ve got, which I am, very much so.
