Showing posts with label local. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Local Produce
You can see here what came in my local produce box today. We get different things every week but it's all kinds of delicious!! I believe they're still accepting members, and you can get a winter box too, so if you're interested here is the link again.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Buying Local
I absolutely love buying local. Ever since the Sandhills Farm 2 Table was created I have been a huge fan (and member) and it has really had an impact on me buying locally. I really used to not ever think about where I was buying produce and other things from. It was too much trouble for me to go to the Farmer's Market - I can never remember the days and times and all that stuff, plus dragging my two kids along - not usually a fun venture when it's so hot outside. So the food co-op was the perfect thing for me. Yes, it is a little costly. But I am eating all the fruits and veggies I should have been eating anyway. I still supplement our produce with clearance items and things I need for recipes, as well as produce that's out of season. But I love knowing that 98% of my produce is coming from local farmers.
I also bought a watermelon from a roadside guy today. He sits on the corner of US1 in Pinebluff and a road that goes to Addor that I don't even know the name of. I decided to stop because Brianna loves watermelon and I thought it would be a good snack food for us, also like I said I am trying to buy everything from local farmers and individual people to help them out. This watermelon weighs almost 17 pounds! Actually I can't remember the last time I bought a watermelon so I have no idea if that's big or not but believe me it's big for us! It was $5 which means it was about $0.31/lb. The best I've seen in the store lately has been about $0.79/lb. I'm sure it dips down lower than that in the store but I consider this to be a great deal I have gotten!
I started getting eggs from a guy at church, which helps him out with a little money on the side and I'd rather spend the money on him than at the grocery store. He also supplies me with beeswax from his hive, so even better!
So how do you buy local? Farmers markets, produce stands, your own garden? (Our garden is at a dead halt thanks to the heat in the past few weeks so I'm not getting anything from it right now.)
I also bought a watermelon from a roadside guy today. He sits on the corner of US1 in Pinebluff and a road that goes to Addor that I don't even know the name of. I decided to stop because Brianna loves watermelon and I thought it would be a good snack food for us, also like I said I am trying to buy everything from local farmers and individual people to help them out. This watermelon weighs almost 17 pounds! Actually I can't remember the last time I bought a watermelon so I have no idea if that's big or not but believe me it's big for us! It was $5 which means it was about $0.31/lb. The best I've seen in the store lately has been about $0.79/lb. I'm sure it dips down lower than that in the store but I consider this to be a great deal I have gotten!
I started getting eggs from a guy at church, which helps him out with a little money on the side and I'd rather spend the money on him than at the grocery store. He also supplies me with beeswax from his hive, so even better!
So how do you buy local? Farmers markets, produce stands, your own garden? (Our garden is at a dead halt thanks to the heat in the past few weeks so I'm not getting anything from it right now.)
Sunday, May 2, 2010
$100 Grocery Challenge
Okay, April has come and gone, so let's check in and see how our $140 grocery challenge went this month....
MADE IT!!!
The numbers for this month don't look great - I spent almost all of the $140 and didn't save as much as I'd normally like, but I also added in the bill for Brianna's birthday party. So it could have been much worse!
April:
Final shopping total - $402.79
OOP - $130.09
Saved - $272.70 (about 68%)
(Without adding in Brianna's party costs I would have saved 73% which is about normal.)
Soooooo, on to a new month! May! 2010 is flying by already. This month I am going back to my $100 budget, mainly because we are doing something new this "growing season". A while ago Jenn blogged about our local food co-op. After a slight deliberation, Stephen and I decided to try it out this year. We paid $189 for 17 weeks of local fruits and vegetables, although we will get a box delivery only every other week. I want to make sure we don't have any food going to waste, but you can definitely choose to get a box every week. It will come out to being just over $40 per month. For this first month I am still going to set our budget at $100 but it would be really cool if I could lower the budget during the summer months since I (hopefully) won't be buying as much produce!
It will also be cool just to be able to support our local growers, which I never do even though I want to because the farmers markets are not really close to me, and they're only at designated times, etc. I also think it will be awesome for our diets to eat more fruits and vegetables, although we do already eat a lot, I'm not sure we eat the real amount we should.
I'll let you know how it goes! You can go to the website for more information. I'm not sure if they're still accepting members or not but I only signed up a couple of days ago, so they probably are.
MADE IT!!!
The numbers for this month don't look great - I spent almost all of the $140 and didn't save as much as I'd normally like, but I also added in the bill for Brianna's birthday party. So it could have been much worse!
April:
Final shopping total - $402.79
OOP - $130.09
Saved - $272.70 (about 68%)
(Without adding in Brianna's party costs I would have saved 73% which is about normal.)
Soooooo, on to a new month! May! 2010 is flying by already. This month I am going back to my $100 budget, mainly because we are doing something new this "growing season". A while ago Jenn blogged about our local food co-op. After a slight deliberation, Stephen and I decided to try it out this year. We paid $189 for 17 weeks of local fruits and vegetables, although we will get a box delivery only every other week. I want to make sure we don't have any food going to waste, but you can definitely choose to get a box every week. It will come out to being just over $40 per month. For this first month I am still going to set our budget at $100 but it would be really cool if I could lower the budget during the summer months since I (hopefully) won't be buying as much produce!
It will also be cool just to be able to support our local growers, which I never do even though I want to because the farmers markets are not really close to me, and they're only at designated times, etc. I also think it will be awesome for our diets to eat more fruits and vegetables, although we do already eat a lot, I'm not sure we eat the real amount we should.
I'll let you know how it goes! You can go to the website for more information. I'm not sure if they're still accepting members or not but I only signed up a couple of days ago, so they probably are.
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