Food Prices Going Up

In the past month in our area of the U.S. being Iowa, I have noticed two basic commodities that have gone up in price.  They are sugar and butter.  Last month I purchased 1 lb. packages of butter on sale for $1.69.  The regular price was $1.99.  Last week butter went up to $2.99 for a 1 lb. package.  I have two 1 lb. packages of butter in my fridge and although I used to bake with butter, I am reserving those packages for table use.  Instead I have purchased margarine to replace butter in baking for now.  I was able to buy name brand margarine on sale last week for 50 cents a lb. which was a good deal. 

I would purchase 4 lb. bags of sugar when they were on sale for around $1.50.  This usually happened every 4 to 6 weeks.  Now the best sales price has been $1.99 for 4 lbs. with a limit of one purchase.  Well, I can't replace sugar in baking but I can reduce a little bit of it.  Instead of 1 cup of sugar in a cookie recipe I can use about 2 tablespoons less and it won't affect the taste of the cookie, but I might need to add a little more flour for the missing "bulk" in the recipe. 

Then, I opened up this morning's newspaper to see that the price of corn per bushel has gone up. This is really good for the grain farmer, but bad for meat prices.  Now, before anyone thinks that I am anti-farmer, I am all for the farmer getting a fair price for the commodities that they produce.  I am just saying that we need to be prepared for rising costs on meat.  The reason for the rising price is due to moisture damage to the corn plants from this year's flooding.  Livestock producers will be paying a higher cost for feed for their animals and therefore we will be paying a higher price for meat.  This also may account for the higher price of butter.

Right now my freezer is jam packed and stocked with a lot of meat I bought on sale over the summer.  I have a general rule of not paying more than $1.99 per lb. for cuts of beef except for hamburger. I generally try to pay no more than $1.75 for ground beef, depending on the fat content.  Also, I try not to pay more than $1.50 per lb. for ground pork or cuts of pork.  Being as we live in Iowa which produces a lot of pork, that is generally easy to find.  As for chicken, I purchase chicken hindquarters on sale for 39 cents per lb. and then cut them apart into thigh and drumstick pieces.  Then I try to pay no more than 99 cents per lb. for bone in chicken breast and $1.50 for boneless chicken breasts. 

If I watch for sales I am usually able to find the above meat products at my goal prices.  However, that could be changing and I will need to "test" the market to see what may be new goal prices.  It will be interesting to see how quickly the prices go up as the article just came out in today's paper.  If it is like anything else, prices will probably go up right away.

As for sugar, right now until Christmas, holiday baking supplies go on sale and usually sugar is right up there with those sales.  I always buy a lot of sugar, flour and other baking ingredients at this time of the year.  In fact, I usually buy a 6 to 9 month supply.  This is the time of year when those ingredients are at their best sales price and I always make sure that I take advantage of these sales.  My best guess is that I will now look for 4 lb. bags of sugar on sale for $1.99 and will make that my new goal price.

What is a homemaker to do?  Continue to be diligent and saavy.  I have made adjustments to using margarine in my baking over butter.  Years ago I always used margarine but switched to butter when I had more money in our food budget.  I know, a lot of people will be saying that margarine is not good for you because of the hydrogenated oils but then again butter was a saturated fat.  I preferred butter because it contained cream and salt.  Also, cookies aren't very healthy in the first place.  They are a treat so in my opinion it is one of those gray areas in cooking.

Also, I am very careful about using up leftovers in our house and avoiding any type of food waste.  I work very hard to prepare meals that my family will eat and enjoy and stay away from any ingredients that they don't like.  An example would be sweet potatoes and green peppers.  I am the only one that likes those items in recipes so I don't make anything will those ingredients in them. 

In the newspaper yesterday they reported that for the second year in a row, there will be no cost of living increase in Social Security checks to individuals.  For many people this is their primary source of income in their retirement years.

In the end, our family will adjust to the higher prices but other families may not be so fortunate.  I would expect that with the lack of a cost of living increase in social security checks and with the rising cost of food, there will be more and more people turning to a food pantry for gaps in their food budget. 

Egg Recall Leads to Thinking about an Agrarian Lifestyle

In a prior post I wrote about wanting to live an Agrarian lifestyle.  Well, yesterday I started to think about this once again as it was reported that millions of eggs were being recalled due to a salmonella outbreak at an egg farm here in Iowa. 

I had two dozen eggs in my refrigerator and when I looked at the codes on the ends of the cartons, the codes matched those eggs that are part of the recall.  I took the eggs back to the store today and they not only gave me two more dozen eggs in exchange (from a different producer) but they also gave me the price of the returned eggs in cash.  It was a nice gesture from a store that does a great job in customer service.  However, I am getting really tired of this.

A couple years ago pet food was recalled and then there was a peanut butter recall.  Then there were tomatoes and strawberries recalled.  Last week there was a beef recall and who knows what will be next. 

I grew up in the 1960's when it was brought to light that DDT and other pesticides were harmful and that cyclamates (a sweetener) was suspect to causing cancer.  It was then that I first learned about things we can eat that are harmful to us.  Remember "Weekly Readers" from your grade school years?  They were like a mini newspaper for grade school kids.   I loved reading them.  It was in a Weekly Reader edition that I read about pesticides that were once said to be safe and then were declared unsafe. 

I have not watched Food, Inc. as frankly I don't think I could stomach it and would prefer to read about the food industry than watch it.  It really makes me wonder if we have come that far from Upton Sinclair's  criticism of the meat industry at the beginning of the 20th century.  It would appear that we are constantly battling the quest for safe food. 

Who is to blame?  Is it the consumer that demands foods be available year round and not just "in season"?  More and more the demand is to produce items such as poultry at a faster pace.  Our meat is subject to antibiotics and farmers and producers are pushed to produce more and more for a nation that demands it, no matter what the cost to our health.  Am I part of the blame for wanting low cost meat?   After all I laud in this blog the fact that I am able to get a lot of meat at a great sales price.  Perhaps I should report more about safely produced healthier food sources that I am willing to pay more for. 

What is the answer?  Can I buy local meat, poultry, eggs and vegetables without worrying?  I don't think I can say that locally produced is 100% safe.  No one can give those kinds of assurances, but it would be a much better option than eating a product that is sprayed with insecticides, picked green and allowed to ripen in transport.

I live on a small piece of property in a small city and I am now wondering if I shouldn't try to grow as much of my food as I can.  I should be more diligent to seek out local resources for food and buy from local farmers.  We have a wonderful Farmer's market but it is mostly fresh vegetables and baked goods.  There is a local meat locker where I could investigate purchasing a side of beef that has been locally produced, but does this mean it is free of antibiotics?

Can I raise my own chickens and eggs?  Our City has ordinances prohibiting raising certain livestock within the City limits, so you are limited as to what you can and cannot have on your property.  Can my DH quit his job and go into business for himself and operate a sports store? Okay, that is his dream.

In my quest to live a frugal lifestyle I am purchasing all of our groceries from grocery stores at rock bottom prices, but should I search for better food producers/choices?

I don't have all of the answers but at least I am becoming more aware and more open to the choices I have and the decisions I make.

Perhaps what is in my future is to sell our house in a few years and move to a smaller house on a piece of property where I can have my own garden and raise chickens and eggs.  Maybe even a few goats.  It is something to think about. 

"The Farmer's Wife" a dvd review

Back in 1998 David Sutherland produced a series on PBS entitled "The Farmer's Wife."  I remember watching the three episodes over three evenings.  I have never lived on a farm.  My Uncles had small farms that they maintained along with careers in teaching.  We live in Iowa where there are a lot of farm operations.  When the weather has been bad, such as now with the flooding, you can almost feel the tension in the air of farmers that are trying to get into their fields to spray the soy beans or watching their fields turn into small lakes. 

I could never do it.  Perhaps I don't have enough faith or enough resilience.  I admire farm wives as they carry the burden of the farm operation along with their husband.  They help on the farm, raise the children, keep chickens and a garden for their family's use and also to sell eggs and produce at the farmer's market.  I think it is a life you either love or hate.

So, there I sat for three nights watching a farm family in Lawrence, Nebraska and seeing them fight to save their farm and also their marriage.  David Sutherland followed Darrel and Juanita Buschkoetter for over three years on location at their farm.  The cameras caught everything. 

It showed a desperate struggle to save their farm operation.  It also showed the stress and how it affected their marriage.  Juanita went from being a passive farm wife to a wife that was fully involved in the farm operation down to understanding everything about FHA and all the finances of the farm.  Darrel at one point was working in a factory and coming home to farm.  One time it showed him driving a truck during the day and coming home at night to farm.

Juanita cleaned houses.  She was being paid by the hour and had to rush to clean the houses in order to get home when their 3 daughters got off the bus frrom school.  Juanita was determined to be a good mother and wife.  She did everything she could to create a happy home for her children.  One scene showed how she had created a Halloween party for her kids and neighbor children with only $5.  They had been wanting a Halloween party for years and she finally decided she wanted to do it for her children.  She was quite inventive.

The hardest part for me was to see how little they had.  Having little resources, having a husband with an anger management problem due to the stress and not having hope, was hard for me to watch at times.  Then imagine that this doesn't go on for just a week, but for years.  Add to that the lack of family support from Juanita's side of the family.

The expressions on Darrel and Juanita's faces during some of the interviews speak to their plight.  They have very little or no money for food at one point.  Juanita talks about not having meat and after awhile it gets to you.  Juanita does get support from a local group that helps farmers that are struggling.  She receives some food from a local food pantry and then they do end up going on food stamps.  Juanita does it for her kids.  They need nutritious food.  She talks with a crisis counselor about not having enough money to take her daughter to the doctor for an ear infection.  Juanita also attends a clinic with other farm families and shares her story about the farm and the long road they have to get out of debt.  As the camera pans the room you see in the faces of the farmers' and their wives that if they had a chance, they would probably be telling the same story.

Juanita sees education as a future for their family so she enrolls in a community college.  Towards the end of the series you see her graduating from the community college wearing a dress she borrowed from a friend.  She looks amazing. 

Every month and year they put their hopes on future crops, future sale of farm animals but the weather was against them.  At one point Darrell makes a powerful statement, "If you have never had money problems, then you don't know what it is like." 

In my marriage we have had dry periods when money was tight, but never to the level of the Buschkoetters.  Actually, their story is not unique.  I remember the farm crisis of the early 1980's and many farmers went bankrupt and had to abandon farming.  The Buschkoetters were doing everything they could to save their family farm.

Towards the end of the series their life is getting better.  However due to what they had been through, they were cautiously optimistic. 
Why do I recommend this dvd series?  It shows a family going through a crisis.  It is honest in its telling of the entire story.  Nothing is hidden.  You need to watch it if only to see what it is like to live on a farm and see the stresses that farm families endure.

I bought the dvd series about 5 years ago when I saw it on sale.  I hadn't watched it in about a year but with my recent conviction to get back on track in my finances, I pulled it out.  I've been watching a little bit every day. Sometimes I need to see a story of a struggling family to make me appreciate what I do have.  I don't have to worry about not being able to afford a doctor's visit or not being able to afford meat, but I do need to be more cognizant of what resources I do have. I need to respect those resources and value them enough not to waste them.

The dvd series is a 3 dvd set and is available on Netflix.