The generic store version of this is good.Now the V8 is cheaper than off brand. In Acai.
Posted on 07/24/2011 1:08:37 PM PDT by Mamzelle
All of my usual stores are rearranging and changing what they put on their shelves. I'm sensing that the big uptick in prices will start to arrive shortly, maybe before Christmas. I'm interested to hear what the impressions of FRugal Freepers. What are you seeing? What will you be buying in quanity before TSHTF?
Along with the dog food(bilo 5.99 a bag) I posted earlier we have built up a huge stockpile of food.
Also I now have a total of 4 cords of firewood split and stacked. And you can never have enough .22 ammo.
Same here. Someone on FR mentioned a few months ago they'd noticed it and sure enough there's less and less in a small can. I'm having to open twice as much. It's all water. I used to just have enough drained water to give to the cat, but now there's enough for the two dogs as well and we're talking bowlfuls. That tells me a lot.
We only have one grocery here in podunkville and there seems to be less and less variety. We've lived here forever so I know to keep the grocery list to just the basics but I've been coming home with 2/3rds of the list not filled. Twice in the last two months I've had to travel out of town to try to complete my plain simple boring grocery list and I still can't find some items. During the past 6 months, they've also been playing at not having advertised specials. This is HEB, which is a Texas chain so they should have what's advertised. Something else, they've been cutting back on the "regular" two brands (HEB and Hill Country Fair) and adding their higher priced "big city gourmet" brand (Central Market). Excuse me, but this is a retirement community and the customers have limited incomes and can't afford these higher priced products.
I've been trying to stock up on .50 cent canned goods but it's been hit and miss if they have any stocked that week. One week they may have corn but not peas but the next week they may have peas but not green beans. It's all rather strange and aggravating.
And prices ARE going up. The Blue Diamond almonds I was getting for $1.98 are now double what they were three weeks ago. Milk and eggs are up. Meat is out of this world. Any weekly ads on meat are also in tight supply as they'll put out 2-4 packages and that's it.
But the freezer is full. Now, please don't let the heat kill the freezer.
The generic store version of this is good.Now the V8 is cheaper than off brand. In Acai.
What I do is keep buying fresh at the best price I can find. When I have used up a couple of weeks worth, I replace it and also buy some for the current period. So, we have about 30 weeks worth in storage and 2 weeks worth open and in use.
Yes, the price has increased dramatically. However, when I do a monthly shopping, I go to several different stores and I can still find coffee for $7-8/pound, buying in 12 oz packages. Aldi’s has Costa Rican beans for $4.99/12oz, for example and Walmart has Sumatra ground for $5.48/12 oz. 2.5 pounds of Fair Trade Arabica Expresso roast at Sam’s was (IIRC) around $14.
Rotate and replace. Watch for specials. With food, you have to learn to use it if it is not something you normally buy, so I will buy one or two of something and try it out before stocking up.
My grandmother had something like 800 rolls of toilet paper and 600 rolls of paper towels. That was back when a roll of tp lasted more than a couple days. The big double rolls of today are like a third of what they used to be.
I got in a line with somebody on one of those cards and WIC stamps etc....Cashier kindly said it might take a while and I might want to pick another lane.
Lady behind me very angrily proclaimed her disgust at the welfare recipient, before changing checkout lanes.
There is a palpable anger out there to those on the dole.
For milk, look in the Mexican food section for Nestle brand powdered whole milk called NEDO. It’s an excellent product I keep on hand because we live so far from town.
No comparison to MOO MILK available in 5 gal buckets which is an artificial milk substitute which is made from soy and tastes terrrible.
Ammo ... especially .22 and appropriate shotgun shells in several different size shots (buck & 4 or 6 for small game, maybe some bird shot too)
Rifle ... have calibers that are common and they will be like cash in your pocket (that gains value as time goes by)
Fish hooks and line ... especially small hooks that will work on smaller panfish that you can find in any body of water (what we call brim or sun-perch) protein is protein.
A Brita (or equal) water purifier that you can pour not so clean water in and get clean water out as well as a few gallons of bleach to do the same with.
Good knives, folders and belt plus a good machette or two as well as axes.
For longer term, some non-hybrid seed for gardens would be a nice thing to have ... I think they are called heirloom seeds ... of stuff you like to eat and that is know to grow where you will plan on being.
Cords, ropes, twine, string, baling wire, pliers, screw-drivers, hammers & nails, hand-tools.
A nice bit of fuel, both propane for cooking and light, and gas or diesel for the generator, 4-wheeler, car, truck or what have you that requires fuel.
Good footwear and outerwear especially if you live where weather is liable to get cold (the good footwear is applicable anywhere)
Just a few things off the top of my head.
... and OK, to satisfy those that think this way, lots of solid gold coins to buy stuff with.
I prefer to go ahead and spend the paper money now for what I would have to spend the gold on then.
In my life-style, pretty much everything I’ve listed above is stuff I will be using even if the TSdoesn’tHTF so I’m not wasting my money on a maybe.
Beans. Black 13.69% Beans, Pinto 12.13% Beans, White 11.88% Milk, Non Fat Dry 25.00% Rice 38.99% Sugar 33.81% Wheat, Red/White 44.54% Apple Slices 24.53% Carrots 21.31% Macaroni 40.25% Oats, Quick 48.90% Oats, Regular 49.19% Onions 21.60% Potato Flakes 33.33% Spaghetti 38.99% Beans, Refried 27.72% Cocoa Mix 40.69% Flour 29.70% Fruit Drink Mix 26.20%
Too lazy to fix the paragraphs but you get the idea - prices are on the rise since the first of the year.
Yess bgill,
but todays extra soft cottonelle is so very fine on me delicate tousche.
I have no need for wine but I have a plan for my hubby.
One pkg of yeast
One gallon glass bottle
12 oz of fruit juice or if need be, rehydrated raisins and some dandelion flowers
4 cups of sugar
3 cups of water
One large balloon.
Fill the glass bottle with yeast, sugar, juice. Mix.
Place the balloon, tightly on the top and secure with rubber bands or duct tape.
When the balloon inflates then deflates, you have wine. (about six weeks) My mom did this all the time. Once, she made orange. She didn’t like the taste after the first deflate, so she added more sugar and tried again. The balloon popped and spewed orange everywhere. What was left was nearly pure alcohol!
And remember, it’s better to age it. The younger it is, the yeastier it is.
milk: any store with a large Hispanic section has dried Nido whole milk. It has a 10 year shelf life. Drawback: it only is available in my area in 10# cans. When it is opened, I will parcel it out and vacuum pack smaller portions.
I also buy gallons of whole milk when they are on sale and repackage them in 8 oz portions and freeze them in double bags. There are only two of us and we don’t drink a lot of milk, so it lasts a long time.
I also buy evaporated whole milk and, again at the Hispanic stores, Nestle’s Media Crema, which is close to heavy cream. It can be diluted to taste. Both have 2-3 year posted shelf life.
Hershey’s reported right before Easter that they were raising their prices because sugar had gone up so high. But doing a search for that article, I saw that Hershey’s has reported every year since 2008 of a price increase.
>>A Brita (or equal) water purifier that you can pour not so clean water in and get clean water out as well as a few gallons of bleach to do the same with.<<
Cotton socks.
Pour water through cotton socks before adding the bleach.
Diapers:
Check out Kawaii baby diapers on the internet.
It’s a whole new technology in cloth diapers.
When my kids were babies we used disposable because they were cheap...long,long ago!
I tried old time cloth about 2 days and said, “Enough of this ****!! And went back to disposable.”
Recently, my DIL showed me Kawaii’s she’s used on 4 kids. They are wonderful! Over time they will save you tons of money! No comparison to the old time cloth routine.
That’s what I like, self-reliant Freepers!
I think a whole milk product is available in Canada that can be stored at room temperature (it must be irradiated). This might be something to look for if you are close to the border.
Since the early part of the 20th Century, America has had an overabundance of food. So it is always very tricky trying to predict both food prices and availability. The last three shortages with high prices show some of the range of variables.
1) UBEC. With the success of the Carter-era oil embargo, the short-lived Union of Banana Exporting Countries (really, they do exist), decided to stick it to the wealthy people of wealth, by jacking up the price of bananas. They did this when there was a glut of bananas (interesting mental image there) on the market, and Americans shrugged and stopped eating as many bananas. The embargo collapsed, for that and other reasons. The bananas must flow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBEC
2) The great sugar shortage. Most Americans saw this in restaurants, as they removed sugar packets from tables, and asked patrons to request it if they wanted it. It was caused by high USG tariffs to protect the US sugar industry, on top of a poor harvest. Didn’t last.
Today, a lot more countries grow a lot more sugar cane, and the US grows a lot of sugar beets, though it had a set back recently when some federal judge decided he didn’t like sugar beets, especially if they were GM sugar beets, so he ordered that nobody could grow them. A bit of a problem since almost all sugar beets grown in the US are GM.
But other countries are just itching to sell us as much sugar as we want, so no real biggie there.
3) High priced coffee. In 1977, Brazil got hit by a bad freeze that wiped out most of their crop. But since then, production in other countries has taken much of their market share.
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