Grocery Help for Family of 7....

[aukxsona]

Well, food wise May ended up being a lot better. I ended up being given almost 200 dollars in meat. I harvested 12 heads of loose leaf lettuce. I have turnip greens ready to pick. I have potatoes well on their way to becoming delicious and purple. I have kale and dill ready to harvest. I have onions half way to harvest, and garlic in the ground. Our radishes were not so great this year. The cabbage didn't grow, and only one little pea plant did.

Our small chickens are finally outside the house, so now they can catch bugs and eat grass! (Less chicken feed.) This also means we won't use electricity to heat them with a heat lamp.

We have 3 roosters ready for butcher any time. Our oatmeal and rice is low. But we have a lot of beans and potatoes now. We have some frozen peppers the neighbour gave. The black berries are starting to show up, along with the passion fruit. We eat the passion fruit every summer. It calms the kids down literally. They will all snack on a fruit and take a two hour nap.

I found some walking onions the other day. We also have 9 fruit trees planted. They won't grow for a couple years though.

[LuxLiving]

Have you ever collected polk/pokeweed? It's up around here right now.

edited to add: Proper preparation of this is necessary or it is hazardous to your health.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Collect and recycle everyone else's cans. It pays money, my mom used to do it growing up for food money.

[LuxLiving]

Aukxsona, I don't know if you can get to a local library or not but you might want to add to your wild food knowledge by trying some of these books thru the inter-library loan system:
Wild Foods Bibliography and Useful Books

or you may have already seen this but others may not have:
FORAGING THE EDIBLE WILD !!!!

Do either you or your husband hunt and fish?

[aukxsona]

Husband lost job. Herniated groin at work. With in 24 hours they "laid him off". Now he is too hurt to work, can't get medical care to get better to work, and his job won't pay for it. Food is going to have to be cut more to pay bills on my meagre 300 dollar a month salary.

[LuxLiving]

Wow Aukxsona, that's awful. Is there a labor board you could contact? Seems like worker's comp should kick in? Will he be able to apply for unemployment benefits?

[GoodBuyGirl]

Looks like he got laid off so they could get out of paying workmans comp.

[LuxLiving]

I'd think most workers comp attorneys would take you on for little to nothing and get paid after they've collected for him. Worth a go to do some phone calls.

[LuxLiving]

There may be some relevant tips here:

On layoffs
Tough Times Series: Steps Before, During Layoff Make It Easier to Cope

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Do you ever read this either???

Hillbilly Housewife

Totally forgot how to feed a family for $45! It does work.

[aukxsona]

"I've seen various places around the web claim that in an emergency you can feed your family for only $10 or $20 a week. While I appreciate their intentions, I have noticed that they all assume you have certain supplies already on hand. In my experience this isn't always the case. Forty-five dollars will seem outrageously abundant to some, while it will seem miniscule to others."

That's 45 dollars a week for a family of 4 to 6. That was also written before the food inflation this year where some things went up by 20%

Currently chicken is not 29 cents a pound and hasn't been for 2 years where I live. It is in the 1$ to 2$ range per pound. In fact everything on her list is a dollar or two more expensive now. Plus, I have it paired down to, with the boards suggestions, about 220 a month. Which is a little over 30 a week for a family of 7.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

She discloses that it varies by area. Arkansas is not HCOLA, but food prices have gone up outrageously. It's a good menu for fixing cheap, but healthy foods. I can't even come close 1 year ago to 29 cent/lb chicken! Now, no way.

But I think she does a pretty good job of listing menus and items to buy. Do you have a costco? Pay the $50/year and become a member.

Once a year it's Buy One Get One free whole chickens, load up. It works out to 45cent/lb. I never get chicken for less anywhere. Also boneless, skinless breast @ costco is always $2/lb, but whole chicken is .89/lb (used to be .69/lb.

Ground beef 12% used to be $1.79, it's now $1.99/lb. But if you buy frozen with coupon it can get close to $1. Same with cheese from costco.

These prices rarely vary by region, in anything Arkansas is likely cheaper than MA and CA.

[Clair Schwan]

First, it seems like your food budget is thin enough already. I can't imagine trying to feed a family in such a frugal manner. Congratulations.

Second, I would focus on finding ways of growing and raising more food without making a large investment. It seems like you have the vegetable and chicken department handled well enough (but perhaps you could expand in both areas if you have room for that). Have you considered rabbits? They reproduce well, are easy to clean and they can forage for their own food. Plus, they don't require a large area for housing.

Third, I would consider finding more food. There are wild plants that are edible, but you need to know what you are eating because some have side effects if eaten often. A call to your county extension agent might be a good start.

Fourth, I would consider harvesting wild food, like rabbits. In our area, there is no end to the rabbits year round.

This doesn't help now, but thinking a bit into the future, you might also consider winter gardening to keep that vegetable produce as a viable option all year long. Eliot Coleman has done lots of research and has shown that there are many cool and cold weather crops that can be grown fall through spring with just a little basic protection, and no added heat. His book Four Season Harvest is enlightening and instructive.

On my homestead, we are focused on eliminating the cost of all vegetables this year by building our own greenhouses. I have two finished and the third will be finished in a few weeks.

Bob and Margaret at Northern Greenhouse Sales in Neche, ND (204) 327-5540 have lots of ideas about growing vegetables and creating greenhouses cheaply. They are focused on fugal living and you might get some ideas from them.

Also, there are folks building greenhouses and high tunnels from PVC pipe and greenhouse film, I have heard that they withstand the elements rather well and have lasted for 8 years or more. People are talking about costs in the area of $1 per square foot. I have no contacts to share, but I believe that a university in New Mexico is doing quite a bit of research in this area.

Lastly, I would start sorting out what kind of work could be done by members of the family to create revenue streams. This option is influenced largely by skills and experience, resources and circumstances, so I can't make anything other than this general suggestion.

I hope that something here helps,

Clair

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Gosh, I hope your husband is going to be okay. Hernias cannot always be safely ignored.

Clair, aren't your greenhouses going to require a lot of energy input there in Wyoming? What temperature ranges will you be requiring? Will you be set up both to heat and to pull heat out?

[aukxsona]

Thank you for the links. I will check these out. I did think of rabbits, but I think Q fever is very prevalent here. We have deer here, but we don't hunt. My husband doesn't fish, but I do. However getting to a fishing hole is hard.

[Clair Schwan]

Joan:

Sorry for the late reply.

My greenhouses will have minimal added heat, and we will use cold weather crops that can survive most of the coldest winter nights. Kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and others are very cold weather hardy.

I've done some experimenting this spring and the lettuce and peas did just fine in the teens, with limited covering and no added heat. I will have solar panels for each greenhouse that take the sun's warmth and pipe it underground, but this will just take the edge off. I don't expect it to heat up the greenhouses much.

Even cold frames, row covers and other simple coverings make a big difference as long as you start the crops during the last of the traditional growing season and don't water much during the winter.

Clair

[braxton]

Wow... I wish I could limit myself to $250/month. Then I'd be able to save a lot more!