Affording groceries during times of rapid price increases
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During the past two years alone, the price of some household staples such as bread, milk, and eggs have increased in price by as much as 69%*, while the median household income has only increased 1%*. In this video, I discuss these increases and offer tips to help your family cope with the rapidly increasing cost of groceries.
As I’ve found myself watching Youtube far more than I do television, I am going to start expanding my youtube channel, so please be sure and visit me on youtube by clicking here and be sure and click the red “subscribe” button!
References for this video:
- Soaring Food Prices: Compare Cost Increases
- Food Prices Soar as Incomes Stand Still
- Milk Prices Could Go up 60 Cents a Gallon
- Rice: The Ultimate Budget Extender
- Money Saving Tip: Rethink Bulk
- Come Home to Supper
“American families have always shown remarkable resiliency, or flexible adjustment to natural, economic, and social challenges. Their strengths resemble the elasticity of a spider web, a gull’s skillful flow with the wind, the regenerating power of perennial grasses, the cooperation of an ant colony, and the persistence of a stream carving canyon rocks. These are not the strengths of fixed monuments but living organisms. This resilience is not measured by wealth, muscle or efficiency but by creativity, unity, and hope. Cultivating these family strengths is critical to a thriving human community.”~Ben Silliman
I sure have enjoyed reading all the money saving tips and watching your videos which i did subscribe to. i have picked up many tips I didn’t know about. Christy I am still hoping and praying you will come to Waco, Texas to the Barnes and Noble there as it would be close enough for me to be able to meet you.
I hope I can get out that way one day as well Marsha, I would love to meet you!
Shared this on our Hope for the MidSouth Facebook page… lots of positive comments and you probably acquired many new fans. I’m about ready for a road trip to come and see you since you haven’t made it to Memphis yet!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much Cheryl!!! I would love to see you, hopefully Memphis will be on the next leg of my book tour!
I’m more of a lurker than a poster, but I just had to tell you that watching your YouTube video, I had to laugh at myself — I was watching away and caught myself actually nodding along while you were talking, just as though I was sitting across the table from you. 🙂
Thanks for making us all feel like family.
You have no idea how much this means to me 🙂 Thanks for being family to me 🙂
I’m sorry, Christy, but I prefer to read your posts rather than view them. I do not do youtube. I guess I’m just an old lady who is set in her ways. It may be more work for you to put your posts in print, but they last longer that way.
I do mostly print but sometimes it’s just good to have a face to face conversation :). I’m glad you’re here regardless 🙂
Christy, one suggestion–for those of us who are hearing impaired, could you incorporate closed captioning, please? I know it can be done with YouTube because I watch lots of videos that have been closed captioned. As far as food prices, I think we’re at the mercy of weather and conglomerate farming. For beef products, the drought really harmed cow calf operations and they had to cut back to bare minimum and that affects the amount of cattle that come to market for beef. When grain is hit by drought, those prices skyrocket and that also affects the cattle and pork producers. We also have an issue with feed grains being used to produce ethanol for auto fuel–creating a price issue as well because the ethanol producers will always outbid the cattle and pork producers for corn because ethanol can be sold and the price set by the ethanol producer whereas the grain farmer and animal farmers get their prices set for them regardless of how much it cost to produce the product. The agribusiness conglomerates make the money, not the individual farmer. That being said, I will, if I can, buy my meat from local producers, my eggs locally, cream from local Jersey cows, local cheesemakers, etc. Does it cost more? Yes, it costs a bit more but I know how much it costs for these farmers to produce a good product. To make these products stretch for example, I use grass fed beef chuck to make a huge vat of chili that lasts–refrigerate some, freeze some. I’m one of those people who can eat chili all year round! I pressure cook large cuts of pork and make NC BBQ or pork tacos. I buy my tortillas from my local bodega–much cheaper than the grocery and with no chemicals added. I can’t have regular bacon so when the low sodium is on sale (one brand only, unfortunately), I buy multiple packs and bake all the bacon at once and then freeze most of it. I use carmelized onions in a lot of dishes so I buy a quantity of onions and carmelize overnight using my slow cooker, onions and butter. It adds a depth of flavor to many dishes so they can taste better. I store the cooked onions in the fridge and use when needed. If the store has darker beers on sale (odd lots are discounted greatly), I’ll buy them for adding wonderful depth of flavor to pressure cooked beef and pork. The beer keeps for months. We used to raise rabbits humanely and they are a great source of protein–we ate rabbit fixed in so many ways when my husband was out of work. We also raised turkeys humanely and ate turkey as well. I could also recommend venison as a protein source because deer are so plentiful but one would have to be a good hunter or know a hunter. If one has never cooked with venison, it does take some thought and practice. If I might go off on a bit of a tangent, rice has been implicated in arsenic contamination. Some of the amounts found in rice are really alarming, especially if one has children. It’s my understanding that California rice is probably the best and the rest are to be avoided if at all possible. Consumer Reports had an article very recently about arsenic in rice.
Keep up the good work, Christy! I love the recipes even though I have to adapt what I can for low sodium and reduce carbs. I love my Southern food even though I can’t enjoy as much of it anymore.
Loved, loved your video! It is so nice that you are so down to earth! You feel like a friend. There is just two of us now in the home and I am still looking for ways to save. I always make two meals out of the meats I buy and freeze one meal for later. I always try to get the meats on sale. For example we love London Broil and I always can get two or three meals out of it. After we have the main meal of it broiled rare the others to make with the same steak is beef and noodles and another is stir fry! Stay sweet and love your laugh! Stay happy and keep the videos coming!
I have a family of four (mom, dad, and two teen girls) and have about $100/wk for groceries including our toiletries, paper goods, & pets. We are trying really hard to eat more veggies (fresh & frozen) and lessen our meat & convenience items. I have found that couponing heavily on my non-food & pet items and reserving the bulk of our budget for the highest quality food I can afford serves us well. We love Aldi & Trader Joe’s for food and also our local produce stands/farmer’s market in season.
Thanks so much for all the great tips posted here – I might just try my hand at canning or freezing this summer!!