Ask Lemmy

It ain't fun, not even close.

Woodman’s

I spend between 250-300 a week. Before the pandemic it was about 80-100 a week.

I've been shopping at WinCo, it's a further bike ride than Fred Meyer or Trader Joes but the prices are hard to beat. This year I'm looking at buying into a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). The one I'm looking at is $400 for 12 boxes of food spread across 24 weeks. We'll see if it's a good deal. I'll be planting a garden soon too. Hoping to get a 3 sisters plot or two as well as some potatoes in containers

Grocery Outlet and Trader Joe’s. For GrocOut just go and see what’s cheap, don’t shop off a list. Make sure the prices of the stuff you’re buying is about 50% off or more. At TJ’s everything is priced pretty fairly, just buy what you want to eat.

Don’t drink alcohol or soda, or anything canned really.

Prices haven't gone up that much where I live, and some of the things that have risen in price have actually started going back down recently. But I guess it all varies from one place to another.

But in general, I shop the sales flyers, I get things that are discounted such as meat that will expire soon, and I get the cheap staples like rice and beans. I stopped buying name brand items and unnecessary snack foods. I also use the Ibotta app which gives me some cash back. Usually not a lot, but over the course of a year it's meaningful.

I started harvesting stinging nettle to replace spinach

Grow my own raspberries and strawberries. Blackberries grow on the property as do salmon berries, huckleberries, and elderberries.

I have a cherry tree but the squirrels and the jays get to those before I do lol

In the garden I can grow a handful of veggies that'll last the year.

For meat I hunt or buy directly from the rancher/butcher when I can. I can get crayfish out of the creek every now and then as well.

For the past month I'm paying around 30% more than I was in July 2022, and 10% more than I was in April 2022. (I just picked two random months from where I wasn't yet either too lazy or busy to track everything I bought on the computer. Really need to catch up on that tbh because I haven't updated the file for more than a year.)

The amount of stupid bullshit such as energy drinks I buy varies so to get any actually usable stats I'd have to average it over a longer time frame but it seems fine to me.

Why, how bad is it elsewhere?

Where I live, the grocery prices aren't up anywhere near the double or triple that other people have mentioned. The basics / necessities have generally seen more modest price increases over the past few years. There have been obvious exceptions like when there's been shortages of specific things or like if I were to compare out of season produce prices to the prices of stuff when its in season, but in those cases I just go without (which also kind of proves they weren't necessities to begin with).

For the most part, any luxury items or luxury brands that have dramatically increased their prices and engaged in shrinkflation, I stop buying that stuff or cut way back. Even if I can afford that stuff, I'm not going to pay the prices. And if I weren't really able to afford to feed myself, I would definitely not be buying anything like that. No organic apples for me. No potato chips. No microwave meals. No soda.

In my adult life, I've twice experienced food insecurity. I can't speak to anybody's situation in specific, but for me what worked was willingness to be flexible and getting creative. I would grow as much of my own food as I could, even in a small shared living space I could grow some lettuce or spring onions in a window. I was also pretty knowledgeable about edible plants, including local/wild stuff, so that helped to supplement my diet as well.