Spending less on Groceries

RustBeltCowgirl

https://morningchores.com/groceries/

Interesting clip from Item #9:

Monek Marie

Great ideas.

I never turn down anything. If I don't need it I give it away or barter with it. (I usually give it away)

karenjanicki

Thank you for sharing!

stephanie447

Unfortunately, unless you are growing all your own food, sometimes you have to spend more at the grocery store for better quality (organic, etc.). On the other hand, you can save quite a bit of money by preparing food more by hand and purchasing less processed foods!

kbmbillups1

I don't turn down anything either. Last year as winter turned to spring my neighbor was cutting down collars to get ready for his summer garden. They'd had enough of them so he brought them to me. I had plenty growing too but I took them! He gave me so many bunches that my husband couldn't see my head when I came in the house! I cooked them all in batches in my instant pot and froze them.

marjstratton

My sister has a neighbor who is an avid gardener so this neighbor is always bringing her vegetables. She really appreciates it.

SuperC

If I have too many veggies, I share with neighbors and workmates. Especially nightshades, corn, eggs, and fun stories.

VermontCathy

Some of the suggestions in the article are excellent, but some are not.

Learning to cook and bake are great suggestions that everyone should follow. These are basic life skills.

Growing herbs on a shelf inside is also very easy, and a good entry point into gardening.

Preserving food instead of buying canned goods is also something more people should do. If you can stock up in season at the farmer's market, you may not even have to grow them yourself.

But when we get to, "Butter can be made from cream. Pasta can be made from flour and eggs," I don't agree. While there are benefits to making these yourself, saving money is not usually going to be one of them, and these are more advanced topics. If someone is still at the "learn to cook at bake" phase, I'd suggested deferring these.

Of course, the typical TGN member is more advanced and could absolutely choose to make butter or pasta!

The same goes for planting perennial fruits. I have found strawberries to be easy in my climate, and I'm blessed with apple trees that were on the properly long before I bought it. But putting in fruit trees is a long-term investment of time and money, and only appropriate if you expect to be living in one place for many years. (Sadly, that does not describe most Americans.) I tried grafting for the first time last year, and not a single graft "took". Again, this is an advanced topic that you should not expect to get right the first time.

Monek Marie

@VermontCathy

I love grafting! But an expert taught me so I had success right away. I was just thinking I had to contact Doug and get stock to graft a few of my favorite trees. Its a great way to save a tree variety.

Give it a try again. My first thought would be you did not have a cut that matched as closely as it should have or maybe your cutting was not as fresh as it should have been. They can also get infected if you touch ther area where you plant to graft too.

RustBeltCowgirl

I also watch the "quick sale" rack at the local Farm Market store. A bag of slightly older potatoes for $1, 4 peppers for $.75. Never know what I'm going to find.

VermontCathy

@Denise Grant I watched David the Good's videos on grafting and tried to do what he did, but failed. I may need in-person instruction, or perhaps I just did a sloppy job.

Monek Marie

@VermontCathy David the Good has great videos.

The first grafting try is always challenging. I would help to have one extra hand!~

What type of tree were you grafting?

VermontCathy

My guess is that I didn't make sufficiently good contact.

I have several varieties of apple trees scattered around the yard, so as an experiment and to get some practice I cut some short branches off some of my apples trees and grafted them on to different apple trees. Red on yellow, large yellow on small wild yellow, etc.

I did about five of these and all failed. I bought some commercial grafting sealant and used that to cover the joints. To keep it simple, all of the joints were the type where you cut the scion into a wedge, and cut a straight slit in the rootstock, then shove the scion into the slit working to make the cambium layers touch wherever possible.

Even though I made an effort to make contact between cambium layers, the most likely reason for the failed grafts was failure to make sufficiently good contact.

Michelle D

"Bacon seeds" 😂😂

I wish I had some.