Monday, March 2, 2009

How to Feed a Family of Six for $35 a week.

I saw this post on the "Life After the Oil Crash Forum" and thought it might be of interest to you guys.


I have a family of six and I feed everyone for less than $35 per week.
Here's how I do it:
Dairy--Catch one of the milk drivers that delivers to the convenience stores.
They will give you all the milk/dairy that you can handle. When they deliver the new dairy to the store they also take away the unsold dairy.
It would otherwise simply be thrown away upon returning to the distribution center. It may be at date or close to date but the sheer volume is insane.

Bread--Bakery thrift stores will give you cases of bread and other pastries prior to disposing of them. All you need to do is ask.
Worst case scenario is you get it after they throw it away but that is seldom the case.

Meat--Acquaint yourself with your local butcher or at least the manager of the meat counter at your grocery store. Nine times out of
ten you can get free meat that is at date. TALK to him for a couple of minutes before you ask for the meat. You may have to tell a
white lie and say that the meat is for your dogs. Never say "dog", to get higher volumes of meat you need to have "dogs." If you do
not get the meat for free you can buy 50 pounds for $5 or less, especially since it is not "for human consumption." Freeze it that day
or get to grilling!!

Produce--As mentioned above, acquaint yourself with the produce manager at your grocery store. You will want to tell him that you have
a couple of pigs and a few chickens that you want to feed. He will give you all of the old/bruised/excess/frozen fruits and veggies. You
will not believe what you will get. 200 apples, each with a bruise on them is still 200 apples. You can make applesauce and canned apple
butter that will keep for years.

There are dozens of other food retailers and vendors that will give you the leftover food at the end of the business day, all you have to do
is ask for it. Any store or shop that has a glass display case full of food is the place you want to go. Donuts shops are the best
example. I mean seriously, what do you think that they do with all the unsold food at the end of the day? It doesn't vaporize or go to
"food heaven." It gets thrown away.

One more note: Go to Pizza Hut and cut a deal with the lunch manager. They have a lunch buffet and you can buy all of the leftover pizza
from the buffet about ten minutes past 1pm. I used to have a deal with a PH manager to buy all of the leftover buffet pizza five days per
week. I paid the manager $20 per week for all of it. There were 3-4 large pizzas worth every day. I am pretty sure the $20 bill went home
with him at the end of the week instead of into the register. But what do you care?

Wake up, look around!! We live in America for Gods sake. We are the most wasteful and stupid society that has ever graced Gods green earth.
If there is one thing that epitomizes America it is overproduction and waste. If you can't find free food here then you just aren't trying...

No comments: