May 20

May 20 How to Combat the Doubling Cost of Groceries Over the Past 4 Years

Education, How-To, Pastured Pork, Pastured Poultry

If you’re anything like me, you have felt the impact of inflation in recent years.

The cost of EVERYTHING has risen, but perhaps none more dramatically than the price of groceries.

While I knew this to be true, I was incredibly shocked to learn just how much grocery prices have risen upon seeing the following post on Facebook (note: this is not a political post, nor an endorsement of this creator or her platform, but simply a reference to the grocery experiment she discusses):

Prices for the same grocery items in November 2020 and May 2024

For this woman, between November 2020 and May of 2024, the price of the exact same items at the grocery store has more than DOUBLED. In 3.5 years!

The same items she purchased in 2020 for $381 now totaled $770.

Families are struggling.

My friend shared this post, and the comments were heartbreaking:

“…and forget trying to eat healthy, cause that’s even more.”
“…and if it were all completely healthy - only fruit, veggies, meat, dairy - it would be double!!”
“If the grocery bill is below $500 for the week, I consider it a win. With 1 gluten-free kid and 1 not so, I have to stock 2 completely separate pantries.”
And one funny take: “We gonna have to start selling feet pics fr.”

Before we all resort to drastic measures or resign ourselves to poisoning our bodies with processed, unhealthy foods because healthy is too costly, I’d like to offer a radical idea:

Find and support a local farmer and purchase meat in bulk shares.

“But what about the cost - isn’t that a large, up-front investment?

While purchasing meat in bulk shares does come with an upfront cost, one of our whole hog shares provides pork for a family of four for one year and costs $1,500. 60 whole broilers provides chicken for a family of four for one year and costs $1,500-$1,800. Learn to part out a whole chicken easily with my tutorial and use the carcass to make healing bone broth.

By buying bulk shares of meat from a local farm, a family of four can purchase all of their pork and chicken for the year at a cost of around $60 per week!

Add on a couple dozen farm-fresh eggs, and you can have healthy pork, chicken, and eggs for four people for less than $75 per week!

“But where will I store it all?”

We recently purchased a never-used 19.4 cu ft chest freezer off Facebook Marketplace for $600. We also recently purchased a used, ugly one that is fully functional for $50. You can find one brand-new for $669, which, by all accounts, is approximately the cost of one week’s worth of groceries. It takes up around 6’(L) x 2’ (D) x 3’ (H) of space.

We are able to store approximately 2.5 of our whole hog shares in one of these chest freezers - 500 lbs of pork.

A family of four could easily store one whole hog and 60 whole chickens in one 19.4 cu ft freezer.

That is a year’s worth of pork and chicken for a family of four!

Imagine being able to “grocery shop” from your own food stores.

You would save time at the grocery store.
You would increase your food security.
Expose your family to new cuts of meat.
Increase sustainability by using the whole animal.

“What if I don’t have space for such a large chest freezer? I live in an apartment.”

One of our quarter hog shares (50 lbs of meat) takes up this much space in a traditional apartment freezer.

There’s still room in there for ice cream! :)

“Why locally-raised, farm-fresh products? “ The benefits are tremendous:

Local, small farms can provide access to food raised in a healthy and humane environment. Food raised as nature intended can heal our bodies. Meat raised in cages, feed lots, and chicken concentration camps - where illnesses caused by stress and overcrowding are treated and masked with antibiotics, the meat dipped in bleach, and rapid growth forced with hormones - makes us sick.
Our pigs and chickens spend their lives outside, rotating through our fields in the sunshine and fresh grass, rooting and scratching, eating a varied diet, getting exercise, and being fed locally-sourced, non-GMO grains.
Instead of manure and pathogen build up contaminating local water sources or needing to be hauled away due to sheer volume and lack of movement, our animals’ manure fertilizes our fields as they move through them and eliminates the need for us to apply chemical fertilizers.
Multi-species stacking eliminates the need for herbicides and pesticides, and our pollinators thrive.
There is no pollution and environmental impact caused by shipping our products to national grocery chains all over the country.
Supporting your local farm ensures they continue to exist and don’t get turned into just another development.

Let’s go back to the basics, opt out of our reliance on the national, corporate, food supply chain, and reduce our food costs - all while raising the quality of the food our families consume.