More Debt Thoughts

The other day I passed on some Dave Ramsey stuff that had struck me.

In case you wondered if I was as smart as the people actually FOLLOWING the "car-payment-into-mutual-fund" plan, no.  Our budget doesn't have room for a $500 mutual fund deposit any more than it does a $500 car payment. :)  And who knows what mutual funds are doing these days, or will do...  I'm a little fearful myself...!

We are no strangers to debt, yet my natural cheapskate frugal tendencies have always served us very well in that area.  Our Camry, Mary Jane, had a payment for exactly 2 years.  She was used, of course, but we did finance her for 4 1/2 years, obviously paying her off early.  The payment was NOT $500, more like $275, but it was still debt.  I want to say the original pricetag was just under 12K or 13K.  Before that we drove a $2700 1989 Buick Century (that we pretty much gave away to someone in need when we got Mary Jane), and before that a 1985 Toyota Celica my dad had bought for $1800.  I think we sold it for a slim $700 to a family member, and a few owners later bought/dragged it back for $100.  Hubby has the engine stashed as a "spare" for his truck *sigh*, and the carcass is part of our Redneck Playground out front. ;)  The $900 tires that my grandma put on it had been swiped by a tire shop from one of the interim owners that was a bit clueless.  *double sigh*

How might our lives have been different had we gone out as newlyweds and bought a NEW car?  I can't even imagine.  We probably wouldn't have been able to buy our first little $53,000 home when we were married 6 months.  We certainly wouldn't have been able to step up into this MUCH bigger home and property.  Would we still be in that 500-square-foot apartment?  Would we have our four daughters??  Would we have been able to write a check for our (used!) van to seat them all?  Would I be able to stay at home and homeschool our children, if we had them???  Yikes, those are scary questions that no one but God really knows the answer to.  And I know it's by His very grace that we are where we are.  It's not by our own wisdom or skill!

I think about the rule of debt in people's lives.  I have seen it so often!  By some miracle I escaped two years of private college with something like $5,000 in debt.  It still took YEARS to pay off, but you know what?  There were other girls there whose course of life was considerably altered by the debt they had incurred for their "good, Christian education."  Most got married during or just after college, eventually had a baby... one in particular really, really wanted to stay home with that baby.  But you know what?  They couldn't make it happen.  I don't know the details of their budget, and whether I'd have made the same decision or not, but that student loan was a definite factor (he had one too, of course).  Ouch.  That baby would have had a different early childhood, had his Mama made different choices years before his birth.  That is so wild to me.  And so heavy.

I don't want to sound like I'm on some high-horse because we mostly eschew debt.  On the contrary, money is only one element in life, and there are certainly other things, other ways to enslave ourselves.  What am I planting today, what am I promising or dedicating myself to that will limit my options in the future?  Am I cultivating habits that could become bondage?  Am I killing relationships God would open up to blessing eventually?  In what areas am I choosing a "quick fix" to an end, that will cost me more later?  Esau sold his birthright - his future, the provision of possible generations!! - to soothe one day's hunger.  Where am I doing the same?

Lord, show us where we can make choices that open up our future instead of hindering what plans You may have for us.  Give us wisdom and strength to choose wisely, and always seek Your will* above our own.





*I don't mean to imply that God's will for us individually is ALWAYS no-debt.  My own dad claims to have followed God's instructions buying a (new!) car (on debt!) several years back.  While it flies in the face of my own black/white understanding and preference, it seems to have borne fruit, and I can in no way claim anything otherwise.

Live Life or Drive Fancy

I was listening to Dave Ramsey last night, and he started out his broadcast with a rant about cars and car payments.  He said a whole lot, but the thing that stuck with me was that if you took the average car payment (I think he said $484.. holy cow, that's more than the mortgage on our first home was!), and instead of "always having a payment*" invested it in some good mutual funds, from age 30 to 60 or 70 (I don't recall which), that fund would have... millions in it.  Millions, people!  Wow.

Today on facebook, Dave Ramsey linked to a short video that explains how you can get your dream car (and even a millionaire-retirement!) while avoiding the 25% hit when you drive off the lot (this is obviously for a 'new' car), all without having to walk everywhere. :)

The video is here.




*Believe it or not, I had never heard this "conventional wisdom" until a few years back when my mother-in-law mentioned it.  She said something like, "you know how they say you'll always have a car payment...?"  I had to look blankly for a moment, because I really didn't know "they" said that!  I had only briefly lived that way, and it certainly hadn't been the norm in my family.

Broiler Cost Breakdown 2010

last year's naked chicken

Before we get to the numbers...

We had to delay our chicken processing until Sunday, as Hubby's "on call" Saturday turned into one 12-hour workday.

To set the stage:  We have never managed to process all our birds on a single day.  Sometimes we split it between weekend days, other times we do all the big ones, then a week later do the rest.  And I think the most we've raised to slaughter was 35.

Oh. My. Gosh.  Let's just say I am so sore, the kids are sunburned, and the place hasn't even really been cleaned up yet.  I was done in long before all the chickens were.

Oh, and two more killed themselves on Saturday!  I told you they're suicidal.  After such a great record though, I tried not to get too upset.  One more keeled over by Sunday morning.  But, I was even glad, by the end, that I didn't have to eviscerate the beasts.  Even lifting my fork, to eat dinner at 8:30, was enough to send some of my back muscles into spasms.  Ouch!

We had a hard time with their wings breaking; usually the left one and usually when they started flapping as their nervous system discharged.  In fact, we even had two whose wings had broken earlier in life.  This was so heartbreaking to me.  One even had a spot where the bone was actually sticking out through the skin.  Both had a terrible knot of tissue and bruising in the area, and they were both among the very smallest birds.  I don't know how they didn't get infection and die (I did cut the problem wing off each carcass; the rest of each looked fine, if small).  I wasted one of Hubby's precious gizzards when I busted a gallbladder over it, and then another when I did the same inside the chicken.  I know this is BAD.  But I hosed the bird off well and quickly, and it looked fine, so we bagged it up...  I'll let you know this year if we find out it wasn't ok. :)

When it was all said and done, we had 42 chickens in the freezer.  Seven more than last year.  And about 45 total lbs more, at 226.5 lbs***.

Average weight per bird:      5.4 lbs
Range:                                  3.5 - 6.5 lbs
Mode:                                   5.75 lbs
Median:                                5.75 lbs

Cost (unlike last year, taxes are included in these figures):

50 vaccinated chicks:                    31.80
6 lbs unmedicated starter                6.34
50 lbs organic chick starter:          29.43
500 lbs game bird conditioner*   110.13
150 lbs organic grower:               88.29

wood shavings:                           10.ish**
light bulbs:                                    6.ish**

Total investment:                     $281.99

Price per lb of semi-organic chicken:  1.24/lb  [1.17 before sales tax]

I'm worried I lost a receipt, because apparently we used more feed last year.  These did seem to eat more grass and bugs, and we kept feed from them on occasional half days to facilitate scavenging, so perhaps that is the difference?  We also added apple cider vinegar to their water, but not routinely, and not at all after we made the self-waterer.

This price is just under last year's cost of $1.25/lb before sales tax.  We got a lot more this year, so input costs were higher, but mostly due to splurging on four bags of organic feed (by the way, we fed them the starter as soon as we got it from Azure, then saved the grower for their last days.).

Things I might do differently in the future:

NOT process all of them on one day.  I know others do it better and faster (Joel Salatin for one!), but as fast as I feel I am, i's still a long day.  Especially when there are kids to feed, baby to nurse, etc.  Maybe we could do 30, and then 30 more, in separate ages/batches.  This might cause a housing problem, however, if they overlap.  Barring that, taking two days or two weekends might be a better plan.  This year's schedule didn't allow for either of those options, but I don't want to allow that again.  :)

Inspect the flock more often and more closely.  It's a shame they're so weak that they can break wings in daily life, but there is no sense allowing them to suffer.

Use vinegar more routinely.  I hear it helps mineral absorption, as well as staving off certain health problems.  Not sure that's what helped this year, as I didn't remember to start using it until 3 weeks in or so.


If I can get at least 2 meals per bird, that's 84 meals taken care of for the year (well, except for the cooking, of course).  I can usually manage that easily, plus making stock, though the little ones might not go as far.

So yes, I'm still glad we did it. :)




*I chose game bird conditioner as it was high in protein like a chick grower, not medicated, and easier to distinguish from our hen feed. 


**I didn't really keep these records, but realized I considered these costs last year, so I'm adding them here again.  I am not counting the price of the chicken waterer (someday I'll get those pics on here), because that will be used and reused for the hens, turkeys, or other future feathered livestock.


***These numbers seem confusing, because 45 lbs of chicken among seven chickens is over six pounds each.  We did have some that size, but no more in proportion to last year's harvest.  I think perhaps my eviscerating is becoming less wasteful; keeping neck skin, belly fat, etc. intact instead of taking the time to trim it.  Hubby also did more eviscerating last year, and he takes longer and cuts differently, I think tossing more out than I.

Food, Inc.

Have you seen it?  It's a documentary on food production, and it's viewable free online through April 29 at pbs.  If you have a Netflix subscription you can watch it online there too.

I've heard it talked about and a friend advertised it's PBS broadcast on Facebook last week, and then a cousin mentioned he caught it and was wondering if I'd seen it.  I hadn't, but I arranged to.

It is a good intro to factory-food and it touches on many sides of the Eating Dilemma.

What I like:

Aside from a few clips that we've all seen (the downer-cow being prodded with a forklift to "qualify" to become part of our food supply), there was nothing crazily-over-the-top about the treatment of the animals or their environment.  Some might call that a criticism, but I think the regular run-of-the-mill nastiness is enough to make the point without distracting.

Joel Salatin is in it, and his methods/writing were the first reasonable exposure I had to the differences in organic vs. conventional food production.  I love his attitude towards his farm, his business, his animals, the industry, people...  It doesn't hurt that he's a Christian, and, I think, homeschooled his (now grown) children.  He makes a great point that cheap isn't necessarily good.  "Who wants to buy the cheapest car?"  In fact, "cheap" often means "very expensive" when you factor in the environmental costs, the medical/healthcare costs of an abused body, societal costs, and more. Many (most?) of the big crops are SUBSIDIZED.  Because we're paying for those via our taxes, the price tag at the grocery store can be smaller.  That doesn't make his $3/dozen eggs necessarily expensive (except that we still have to pay the IRS, even if we buy his produce).

As I said above, it touches on many facets of industrial food production, including the marketing/labeling, labor/illegal immigration, genetic modification, animal treatment, environment, nutrition, law/politics, farmer-supplier relationships, and more.

What I didn't like:

The politics.  One guy (the founder of Stoneyfield Farm yogurt, I think) actually says (in a "too bad" sort of way), "We're not going to get rid of capitalism.  Certainly we're not going to get rid of it in the time that we need to arrest global warming and reverse the toxification of our air, our food, and our water.... And if we attempt to make the perfect the enemy of the good and to say, 'we're only gonna buy food from the most perfect system within a hundred miles of us' we're never gonna get there."  He adds that "business" is the source of all the pollution, all the things that are "destroying this world."

While I'm sure he regrets using the global warming excuse now, I couldn't believe that he was so "anti" capitalist, considering the comment right before that, was, "organic had been growing over 20% annually.  It's one of the fastest-growing segments of the food industry."  Oh, and right after the anti-capitalism?  "Today, in 2008, we're not only the #3 yogurt brand in America, but we're among the most profitable."  Huh?  I thought he was against capitalism?  Or does he just blame it for all the environmental evils, and decided to play the game for the environment's sake.  So much for moral absolutes.

In one scene, on a nice, lush farm, a van pulls in and two super-smiling young men emerge, among others, and the lady of the farm asks, "help me figure out.. who are?  and ...where? are you from?" and they, still smiling too much, say, "We work for Wal-Mart."  She, "Oh.. okay..  Do you know that we don't go to Wal-Mart?  That we've never been?  Amazing, isn't it?"  They continue to smile, and the older man says, "and so we come to you."  She might've left it there, considering that it seems they are potential patrons of her farm products, but she says, "we just sort of started boycotting it years ago, and just kept riding in that boat..."

I don't like the "big = evil" assumption, although clearly some of the big ones (Monsanto, for one) could hardly be described otherwise.  I don't like the implication that desiring profit means that you have no morals whatsoever.  Of course businesses have to look at the bottom line.  What is with these types, do they think all our hard work should never amount to anything?  I don't see them begrudging Joel Salatin his $3/dozen.

They also follow one family in the grocery store, as they weigh pears and consider the price of broccoli, and are "forced" to consider the boxed, processed stuff as more affordable.  With some exceptions, you can eat very well, yet very frugally without succumbing to that idea.  Beans, rice, flour, butter, pasta, veggies and fruits in season...  Meat in small amounts, this is doable for most, if they take the time and learn to cook it.  A top of broccoli might not be much by way of a main dish, but cut up and added to a meal for flavor and nutrition, even in small amounts, is certainly a better choice than creamed corn.  Especially when you consider the price of the diabetes medication you'll need in a few years.

I am undecided yet on some issues.  The documentary portrays the stark difference between the "old" ways and the "new," contrasting the bushels per acre, the size of chickens and the speed of their growth, etc.  I'm not sure where they're going with this.  If my brother criticizes me for anything, it's that I'm always "against technology" in some fashion or another.  But seriously?  What should be done instead?  Should we go back to 10% of yield?  The benefits seem outweighed by the cost.  The cost being that a LOT of people won't be eating from that field.  And will they be eating at all?  Consider how many hours per day people once spent just to feed themselves and their families.  I'm willing to hear the debate about whether or not that is reasonable, but I'm not ready off the bat to advocate it.

Have you seen the film?  Did you learn anything you didn't know?  Did you like it?  Do you agree with my assessments?

Meat Mutant Breakdown

Well, after finally ridding ourselves of the scourge that is the Meat Mutants, I'm excited to have kept careful records of what it took to get these things to the freezer.  For once.

50 chicks @ $.50/ea (I think we actually came home with 52) = $25.00*

50# chick starter @ $11.30 = $11.30

9 bags (50# ea) chick grower @ $9.60 = $86.40

6 bags (50# ea) chick grower @$9.70 = $58.20

?? of ?? =  $8.00**

Wood shavings @ $10

Light bulbs @ $5

Total investment: $203.90

Total return: 35 birds, ranging from 4 to 7 lbs, totalling 181.25 lbs.

Cost per lb of dressed bird:  $1.25/lb***

~~~

To tell you the truth, I'm a little surprised by this.  I'm fairly certain I have all my receipts but it sure felt like I was at the feed store every time I turned around, shelling out dollars like crazy.  Of course, I was also buying lay pellets, grain, and dog and cat food, and that adds up too.  

The cost of hardware is not included here, as we bought it in years past, but it would be something to consider; the feeders, waterers, heat lamps and the like.  And obviously it doesn't take into account our work both in feeding/housing them and butchering.  And I don't think you could pay me enough to do that. :)

Considering how many birds died between bringing them home and putting them into the freezer (we even found one Saturday morning before trying out the plucker), I would expect we could get this price tag down considerably if we could keep more of them alive.  We also should have had them dressing out closer to 4 lbs than the 5+ we averaged, and that last pound or more of weight probably cost a whole lot more.  When eviscerating, there was a LOT of fat on these critters, and much of it was tossed.  I don't know how my eviscerating compares with the store (well, yes, mine's FAR more careful and cleaner than mechanical evisceration!), but I usually cut off the tail-feather thingy, and any hanging fat or skin.  These are likely included in the weight at the grocer's.  Also, Hubby keeps the gizzards and hearts (ew), but I didn't count them in the end.  *I* don't really consider them food. :)

Overall, I'm somewhat surprised that these didn't come out more expensive.  Considering our losses, and how long we left them alive, I expected the pricetag to be double a decent grocer's or more, and it's not (Costco had them for 99c/lb last I noticed).

[Don't read the following paragraph if you're eating commercial chicken for dinner tonight.]

And in comparison to the grocer's (other than that they're huge), they enjoyed fresh air and sunshine, green stuff (when they'd eat it), and weren't constantly medicated (the one bag of starter was) or breathing fecal dust.  In death, they were killed more humanely, eviscerated by hand (carefully keeping the poop from the food!), and chilled in a tank of clean water - that didn't have several inches of fecal matter settling at the bottom (how much of that do you think is soaked into the meat?).  Still hungry for chicken?  I am! :)

*This is far less than the 'usual' pricetag of $$1 - 1.50 or so.  But the local farm store was running specials a lot this year, and we ordered during that time.

**The last week when we still had most of the birds to feed, the feed store was out of chick grower.  We bought lay pellets and whole wheat, and they got some of this, in addition to what we had left of the grower.  This cost is an estimation.

***Also, I didn't include sales tax in the costs.  Consider the final price tag to be $1.25/lb "plus tax."

Azure Order

This week is Azure Order week for me.  I find I really enjoying seeing other people's grocery lists and menus, so even though this seems a mite silly to be writing it, perhaps it's just an issue of perspective.

If you don't know what Azure Standard is, click the link in my sidebar.  Even if you live outside their general delivery area (which is actually quite large), you can have things shipped UPS, as long as they're not frozen, refrigerated, or otherwise perishable.

Ok, here you go:

2 25.4 oz jars of Organic Sunflower Oil for $6.65 ea.  I can get this locally, but it's about $8-9/bottle, so I don't.  Last month I was almost out of all our oils.  I bought Safflower oil, Almond oil, Walnut oil, Hemp oil even (more on that later!), sesame oil, toasted sesame oil, six gallons of coconut oil (not from Azure), and forgot all about my trusty sunflower oil.  I buy olive oil from Costco, usually, and each thing is used for different applications, depending on it's heat tolerance and nutritive value.

2 lb of fresh, organic rhubarb for $7.  *choke gasp*  I know.  I grow the stuff, just not really well yet (I brought my transplant here from our last house, where the neighbor claimed it had grown there since 1960 when he moved in, and survived many, many residents trying to destroy it.  I figured that was my kind of rhubarb.  But I planted it in a bad place.  I'll move it. I will.).  I want to keep some frozen, and maybe have an upsidedown cake stashed for post-baby.  Right?

1 bunch of organic celery for $2.60.  Celery is one of those highly-pesticided items and I like to get it when I can. 

14 oz bag of Brown Rice Pasta in cute shapes for $2.85.  Yes, that's over $3/lb.  Which is why I'm not buying a barrel of it.  The girls love homemade macaroni and cheese, and I prefer whole grain, and even non-wheat when possible.  

1 lb box of Organic Vegetable Alphabet Pasta for $3.50.  See above excuse.  It's a splurge.

3 stainless sprouting screens for $1.95/ea.  These are for my neighbor.

2 1-lb packages of Garlic Granules from Oregon Spice for $4.45/ea.  Hubby knows no sense of moderation with this stuff at all.  I'm so glad he sleeps on his left side a lot...

1 lb Onion Granules from Oregon Spice for $3.85.  Ditto the above.

25 lbs Organic Evaporated Cane Juice Crystals for $24.55.  I usually buy the 5 lb packages, but this will save me over $5.  Sugar isn't prone to bugs or infestations, so storing it won't be too hard.

2 90-tablet bottles of Rhino-Vites for $5/ea.  The girls aren't too thrilled with Melaleuca's new vitamin flavor (and Gi-gi and I have cancelled our account anyway), so we're going to try these out.  I don't know if they're a good buy or not, but they're on sale this month, so I hope so. :)

1 lb Organic Sprouted-Grain Penne Pasta for $3.60.  Sprouted grains are by far the best for you, and while the taste can be lacking (in the few places/ways I've tried them), I thought we'd try out this pasta.  It's on sale this month too.

3 quarts of Bragg's Liquid Aminos for $4.70/ea.  IF they come in.  It's a healthy, non-GMO, no MSG version of basically a mild soy sauce.  They're on sale, so I try to stock up.

3 quarts of Organic, Raw Apple Cider Vinegar for $3.35/ea.  Also on sale.  Seeing a trend here?  This is the only vinegar Hubby can have on his diet, and he LOVES vinegar stuff.

1 quart of food grade Vegetable Glycerine for $6.70.  I found a different brand locally for $8/pint, but didn't buy it, even when this didn't come last month when I tried ordering it.  I'd like to try it out in a laundry detergent recipe.

2 2-oz bottles Alcohol-Free Stevia Extract for $8.60/ea.  I like this stuff to sweeten my prenatal tea, and even though I just bought a bottle last month (and it'll last me a while), they're 15% off this month, so I'm stocking up.  The alcohol-version is cheaper, but I like this one.

2 14-oz cans of Organic, Lite Coconut Milk for 1.70/ea.  These go on sale sometimes, but not now.  Hubby enjoys it in some of his meals, and I use it for curries or stir frys (fries?) occasionally.  The un-Lite version hardly can be scooped from the can, and has about as many calories as Obama's deficit, hence our choice here.

That's it!  My order comes to about $135 this month, not counting the 8% I add to cover shipping/tax and whatnot.  I also order through another gal who runs a 'buy club' so I don't need to worry about extra charges if my order is too small.  I try to keep my monthly order about $100 or so, but there are several 'pantry stockup' items this time, and with Hubby's OT I have some leeway.

I order a lot of herbs/spices through them, especially when they go on sale, and one of my favorites is Oregon Spice's Ranch Dressing Mix (try finding one of those without MSG on your grocery store shelves!  Or one that tastes good from the health food store!).  I also buy organic whole wheat berries from Azure, as well as pearl barley, barley flakes (like oatmeal, only not), rye flakes (ditto), organic corn starch, pasta in bulk (comes in 10-lb boxes), salt, molasses (Hubby loves it), sorghum (Hubby again), frozen strawberries in bulk, produce wash from Biokleen (on sale for $3.50 sometimes, regularly $4.05 or so -- still cheaper than locally)... I've gotten beef gelatin, lecithin granules, seeds for the garden, essential oils, half-gallon canning jars, seasoning mixes, diatomaceous earth (for killing squash bugs, etc), unusual flours (barley, triticale, spelt, garbanzo bean, etc), organic popcorn, rice-, almond-, hazelnut-, oat milks (they're sometimes cheaper locally, though), and more.  Their fresh produce is available in season, and while it's often still quite expensive, organic apples get really cheap in the fall.

They also sell a lot of organic pre-made stuff, like canned vegetables, fruits, soups, boxed dinners, baking mixes, books, meat & dairy items, pet supplies, baby care items, and more.  I don't usually buy those things from them (or anywhere), so I don't know as much about price comparisons in those categories.

A note about sales:  They run for 2 months.  I get a sales catalog with every other order, alerting me to their new and on-sale items.  For example, June and July have the same items on sale, but August/September will have a new catalog.  Stocking up on sale items really helps keep things affordable, and sometimes there's even a treat to splurge on (organic root beer, anyone?)!  Their sales catalogs always include a recipe or two, and a kind of 'editorial' about some nutritional topic, or even political (food politics is something to keep up on!).

Finally, from what I gather, the people 'at the top' of this organization are wonderful, good people.  Christian even, I think.  They started selling their bulk grains off their farm decades ago, and it just grew from there; families requesting this or that item and they became a 'distribution warehouse' of sorts.  They do sell certain products, by request, that they wouldn't personally recommend (soy stuff, for instance), but they depend on their customer's being informed and using their own judgment, which appeals to my libertarian bent.

If you haven't checked them out, I encourage you to do so.  If you're local, contact me and I'd be happy to add your order to mine, and even pick it up!

Grocery Budget Thoughts

I recently had a "law school graduate" leave an anonymous comment on my Budget Questions post.  Among other things, he suggested a 'reasonable' grocery budget might start with the 'food stamp allowance' number.  

I googled that, and came across the change.org challenge to "try it, I dare ya!" to shine the light on such dire circumstances.  They claim the per-person weekly average is $21.  Another site, writing about the same thing, refers to a $5.68/person daily limit, which is nearly $40/week.  Michigan apparently has a higher amount - $5.87/person/day, but other factors come into play, such as assets and income, etc.

I was really finding this interesting.  I ended up at SavingAdvice.com where they had a list of national standards for living expenses.  They also had a link to a food stamp calculator...

I filled out the calculator and was informed I was "eligible" for $204/mo in food stamps.  They obviously wouldn't grant me that once they found out we had cell phones, and a netflix subscription (or they shouldn't, anyway).

But line 9 referred to a "Thrifty Food Plan for household size," and had $698 entered.

So I googled "Thrifty Food Plan" and found this publication, from the USDA, that alotted my family $645 for this previous January (the most recent publication month).  That was from the "Thrifty" column, and it also gives columns for 'low-cost,' 'moderate,' and 'liberal'.  Well, I knew I wasn't a moderate or a liberal. :)  (By the way, my 'liberal' cost was $1221.40!)

I found these numbers surprisingly high.  Either that or I'm just not informed when it comes to true grocery budgets.  I'm fairly familiar with what *we* spend in a month for 'food,' but within that category is often anything I'm buying from Costco or Azure - and that might be work pants for Hubby, an otoscope for family use, or any other non-food necessity offered by those places.

That all said, we *do* fall within these parameters, even, I think, adding an extra $100 or two to account for our occasional bulk beef purchase, chickens and their food, garden starts, things like that.

But do we eat "thriftily?"  What a fascinating concept.  In some ways, yes.  We rarely eat out.  We don't buy smaller (and usually more expensive) packages of food.  We don't pay for the "pre-preparing" of many items.

But really?  I'd say we eat well.  Organic wheat, beans and breads and other grains nutritionally-enhanced (mostly, these days) by way of preparation, a variety of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables (organic when reasonable), grass-fed beef, homegrown chicken, turkey and eggs, raw milk, fancy probiotics from yogurt, kefir, kombucha... Even sprouted grains and beans when I'm in the (rare) mood.  Lately we've even been enjoying some treats... peach fruit leather, chocolate graham crackers - homemade, of course. :)

So, while I'd still like to pare down the budget in several areas, I can at least quit feeling like we're terribly out-of-control in the grocery column.  I'm glad to find that, considering how often I tell myself "no!" while shopping.

What do you think?  Where do you fall within all this?  Do you eat out much?  Do you stick to dry beans and rice?