A few people have told me that they found the cash system “freeing.” I’m waiting for that feeling. Friday I did our shopping and then wrapped it up at the Farmer’s Market yesterday morning. So here’s the general breakdown of where this week’s $140 went. It certainly did go pretty quickly.
140
-20 (gas for Explorer)
-25 ( @ Walgreens for 2 bags diapers, Off Clip- ons, lunch meat, baking soda, ice cream, and contact solution)
-22 (Farmers Market for lettuce, tomato, squash, cucumber, beets, swiss chard, sugar snap peas, and green beans)
-3 (McDonalds for poopy prize)
-31 (Lowes for dirt, Miracle Gro, more plants, Jeremy says he’s cutting me off on plants. 🙁 But why?? )
-36 (Groceries @ Harris Teeter and Food Lion. Jeremy got a Harris Teeter gift card for $10 this week which totally made the difference. I didn’t count that in our expenses, but it did help me get what we needed.)
So, we have about three dollars left, but the fridge and the gas tank are full and we get our next allowance on Tuesday!! So far so good. Now, to kill the dastardly slugs and get some payback from this garden. My garden has more pooled beer than a frat house. 🙂
It’s really interesting to see what you paid at your farmer’s market — I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $20 at ours (not including plants or when I’m buying bushels of things to can) for more than a week’s worth of fruits and veggies. Did you get a large quantity of those things?
I would say that in general our farmer’s market is not often much cheaper than the grocery store’s lowest price, but most of it is grown in our county and I am trying to support our agriculture and our town’s attempt to do something positive. So, rather than buying at the grocery, I get it there, don’t pay tax, and know that it is fresh. For specifics, I got one small head red and green romaine, small bunch carrots, two zucchini, two small yellow squash, four cucumbers, 4 tomatoes, 4 beets, bunch swiss chard, 2-3 cups sugar snap peas, 1 lb green beans, and a mango. Actually, the farmer that I got the zucchini, squash, and cucs from was more ($2/lb) than the next stall down (1.69/lb I realized too late), but she is in our county and the other stall is from the beach, so more of his stuff is “imported” ;). The Charlotte farmer’s market is huge and has a lot more competition, so the prices are better. But it is nice to walk to our little one here in Waxhaw and then I don’t have to pay gas either. 🙂
Cute title 😉
Please tell me if the Off clip-ons work!
I have about 7 zucchini blossoms ready to bloom. I’ll be watching to determine if my culprit is slug, opossum, or squirrel. (Maybe a I should set up a night vision camera.)
its a pity to waste beer on slugs, but it did work in my garden too. i need to hit them again actually… time to get out the slug beer bong.
I totally agree with trying to buy locally grown as well and am making more of an effort to do so. I think the price difference is due to competition (Rochester’s Public Market is fairly big and open 3 days a week) and how it is sold — the only things I can think of being sold by the lb. are bananas — everything else is by the berry basket/half-bushel/bushel. So, a basket of apples (between 12 and 14) would be $2.50, a basket of tomatoes (6-8 tomatoes) would be $1.50, a bunch of chard might be $2 or so.
It’s interesting to compare what’s available at farmers’ markets in different parts of the country, and for what prices. I didn’t buy a lot this week, but here’s what I got: 6 small/medium tomatoes for $2.50, 2 very large heads of broccoli for $1.50 (hopefully we can it it fast enough, but it was a bargain because 1 would have been $1) and 3 zucchini for $2. It’s still early in the season here (south central PA) for zucchini and tomatoes–these were grown fairly locally in green houses or some other protected kind of structure. When zucchini was really in season last year I think I got it as cheap as 3 for $1–but didn’t buy much because our garden gave us more than we could eat for a couple months. So far the only thing we’re getting out of our garden is leaf lettuce, but hopefully we’ll have plenty of zucchini, pepper, and tomatoes in another month or so.