Feeding A Large Family

[Mobasser]

Every time my wife and I go to the grocery store, I'm amazed at the cost of meat these days. Ground beef in my area is around 4.99 per pound, and the rest is much higher. My son in law is a farmer here in Missouri, and told me that he doesn't expect these prices to go down anytime soon.                                         In the early 1980s, I was an apprentice carpenter. My wife and I had four young children at home. The cost of child care was more than we could afford, so, my wife stayed home when the kids were young.                            Here's how it worked out for us: taking my tax return, I bought a nice, used chest freezer from an older couple. I contacted a local farmer, who was selling corn fed beef directly from his farm.                            I bought a half cow. The initial cost is high, but this beef lasted us an entire year. Generally, the cost is the same per pound for everything. In other words, you may pay slightly more for ground beef, but this cost includes steaks, roast, brisket, and all the other cuts. The advantage is that you can order how you like the meat cut, to suit your needs.                            Here in Missouri, most beeves go up for butcher in the spring, and again in the fall.This worked out well for us for several years.  Basically, you eliminate the middle man, buying direct from a farm. I bought meat from the same man each year.                                        Doing this, along with growing a large garden, and canning many vegtables, helped put food on the table for our family for several years.                           This is a suggestion and may not be for everyone. But, if you've got a large family to feed, it can be a good way to go. I fully understand the cost of raising and feeding a large family. I've been there, and it's never been easy.  The corn fed farm beef was always delicious, and the 100.00 chest freezer ended up working for eleven years, before it finally quit.                     For several years, I kept a large Mason jar on my dresser, and would throw all my spare change, as well as dollars in the jar, to save for the family beef. This works with pork as well. This helped immensely with the family grocery bill. My kids always had good food growing up, and, were able to enjoy meat which we probably couldn't afford at the grocery store, on the wages of an apprentice carpenter.

 

[TnRiver46]

A lot of families I know split a cow with their neighbors. Lots of small beef farms sell direct to customers instead of auctions now 

[gim]

A while back I started a thread about the astronomical cost of beef.  Apparently there are four major processors in the country and they have a strangle hold on the market: Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and Smithfield.  The farmers/ranchers aren't making more money, and neither are the retailers.

 

Tyson Foods just announced that their stock is at an all time high.  Ironic.  JBS was just ordered to pay a settlement after a federal judge ruled they "manipulated" the beef market during a portion of the pandemic.  Also ironic.

 

Eventually the thread I started got shut down because some people like to make it political and blame one person.  Hoping for a different outcome this time.

[Deleted account]

Tacu tacu criollo is rice and beans with a fried egg on top, served with salsa criolla (red onions, tomatoes, lemon juice, olive oil, and hot peppers, kind of like pico de gallo) when times are good you serve it "a lo pobre" (like a poo' boy) add a skirt steak, sliced avocado and fried plantains and yuka...

 

Everything is going to be going up for the foreseeable future, and it has nothing to do with any one person, one party, or one reason. Anyone who thinks so, (on either side) is part of the problem. 

[TnRiver46]

6 hours ago, Deleted account said:

 

 

Everything is going to be going up for the foreseeable future, and it has nothing to do with any one person, one party, or one reason. Anyone who thinks so, (on either side) is part of the problem. 

Wise words my friend!!! 

[HaydenS]

My grandpa and people he knows raise cattle, and they’ve said that the cattle are getting so expensive that they can’t make money off of them.  So, they are turning to Bison!

My parents have talked about buying half a cow, but we’ve never gotten around to it yet.

[volzfan59]

My dad always purchased half a cow when I was growing up. I fell out of the habit, but with this "transitory" inflation I'm rethinking. We have a chest freezer, no reason not to.

[TnRiver46]

If I had a large family, I would feed them fish 

[Choporoz]

46 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

If I had a large family, I would feed them fish 

Good idea!  Most days.  But, I'm gonna have to put some beef in the freezer, too. Not sure my wife is all too willing to eat skunk

 

 

My folks also bought a huge freezer and started buying a side of beef every year.....for decades.   They'd also buy a truckload of sweetcorn and get it dumped in the driveway.  We'd shuck it and cut it off the cobs and freeze it.  We had (nearly) fresh sweet corn year round. 

[Bird]

Even after the kids moved out, the wife and I still get 1/2 beef but the kids still come over and raid the freezer. 

We have several family members that raise cattle. 

We have another freezer that gets filled with deer, again ransacked by the kids. Lol

[TnRiver46]

We are only a 2 person household, we don’t need a big freezer. Just got the one below the fridge, and it still gets stuff junked up and freezer burned . I can walk to two different grocery stores so no need for me to freeze a bunch of stuff 

[Way north bass guy]

I grew up on a “hobby farm” of sorts. We had just about every kind of animal at one time or another, but every year we always had anywhere from 4-6 cows and 10-14 pigs. We used to get a couple cows butchered every year, along with all the pigs, and friends and family would all buy a pig off us and most of the beef. We’d of course keep a half beef and one pig for ourselves. 
I’m done with all that extra work of raising them all year, but I would like to at least see about buying a side of each off a local farmer, just to get some quality meat at a half decent price again. There’s still a few farms around here that do that. 

[TnRiver46]

My wife’s family has a big farm, my father in law loves to butcher cows and hogs !! Mmmmmmmm

[Skunkmaster-k]

We raise chickens , meat rabbits and hogs. From the looks of the grocery store shelves, we’re going to be setting on a gold mine pretty soon. 

[volzfan59]

CPI came out this morning, beef is up 18 %, pork up 17.8%, fuel 40%. Overall inflation is up 17.5%. If you don't have a freezer, now's the time to get one and fill it up if you can afford it.

[gim]

21 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

and it still gets stuff junked up and freezer burned

Try vacuum sealing some of it.  I used to have this same problem until I started preserving it better.  Its the air that causes problems when its in the freezer for a longer period of time.

 

If you only have 2 people in your household, I would advise keeping it that way!

[TnRiver46]

31 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Try vacuum sealing some of it.  I used to have this same problem until I started preserving it better.  Its the air that causes problems when its in the freezer for a longer period of time.

 

If you only have 2 people in your household, I would advise keeping it that way!

My strategy is to eat what’s in there before it gets freezer burned. But I do have a food saver for fish fillets 

 

I think like 40% of the food in this country gets thrown out , good for the varmint business haha

 

I’m in no danger of starving to death, I’ve been storing fat around the mid section for years! 

[gim]

12 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I think like 40% of the food in this country gets thrown out

I have heard that too.  40% might be a bit of an exaggeration.  I thought it was closer to 25%.  Still a ridiculous amount of wasted food.

 

Vacuum sealing fish filets here in MN wouldn't do much good since the daily bag limit is the same as the possession limit.  Its designed to prevent people from stock piling fish in their freezer.  If I was going to freeze some, I would definitely vaccuum seal those too though.  I always thought fish tasted better when it was caught fresh, or the day after.

[TnRiver46]

31 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I have heard that too.  40% might be a bit of an exaggeration.  I thought it was closer to 25%.  Still a ridiculous amount of wasted food.

 

Vacuum sealing fish filets here in MN wouldn't do much good since the daily bag limit is the same as the possession limit.  Its designed to prevent people from stock piling fish in their freezer.  If I was going to freeze some, I would definitely vaccuum seal those too though.  I always thought fish tasted better when it was caught fresh, or the day after.

I agree. I used to like to keep fillets in the freezer, but I realized it’s more fun to always go get more fresh fillets 

[KP Duty]

Started doing most of my grocery shopping at Aldi.  I've saved quite a bit of coin the past couple years.  

[Bird]

Wife will be fishing with me a lot this year so that will mean more fish fillets. 

When she's a long I usually target blue gill and Crappie, more action for her. 

 

Rarely do we freeze fresh caught fish, they're eaten the same day.