Where I get most of my food

I received this e-mail fro a reader

I'm a widow and  I take care of my dad and live on a smell budget I was wondering if you could please tell me where is the best place I can get bulk supplies. With all that is going on in the world I wish to be as papered as possible. Thank you for all your help. I'm looking for herbs me flour, cornmeal, pure essential oils. Any thing I can make to help out my budget and take care of my family. I do not have raw milk so can I buy store bought milk to can.

Thanks for all your help'

I thought I would share my answer with all of you.

It kind of depends on where you live as to what you can do. We have wheat, beans potatoes, green chilies, corn, and onions all grown locally. I buy my wheat from the mill [which is packed as seed wheat, if you do that you need to make sure it isn’t treated] My flour from the mill. One of my babysitting kids dad farms pinto beans so I trade beans for daycare, the potatoes and onions from the packing places I but 1000 pounds of potatoes and dehydrate, can and freeze to last all year. Same with the onions and corn. The green chili I but straight from the farmer. I also get produce from bountiful baskets if you don’t already do this you might want to look into this just go to bountifulbaskets.org to see if you have it in your state.

I get my baking soda and salt from the feed store they sale 25 pound bags of sodium bicarbonate [baking soda] for about 10 dollars I also get 25 pound bags of stock salt for about 10 dollars [ it is cleaned it is a little larger grains but it is all we use I have iodine supplements that we take for iodine].

I do buy herbs and spices that I don’t grow myself or are able to pick from the area, from bulkfoods .com

Some of my vitamins and oils I get from puritans pride.com

I make some of my EO they are not as strong but work for some of the things that I need them for.

We grow a lot of our produce. I plant enough to can and freeze.

I have chickens for eggs and feed them sprouted wheat.  

I also go to the feed store and get cracked corn to grind for corn meal and buy whole corn to make masa for tortillas and tamales.

I buy milk when on sale and can it to use for cooking [not very good to just drink].

When butter and margarine are on sale I get a lot then freeze and can it.

I also buy sour cream and cottage cheese on sale then freeze and dehydrate them.  

We raise our own cows and hunt elk and deer for meat. If you have to buy meat look in the marked down bin. When I had to buy meat I would cut a pound of hamburger into quarters and just use a quarter pound in most everything, you can also add grated carrots to your hamburger to add a little bulk to it.

I watch for sales and try to only buy on sale and get enough to last all year. We don’t live close to a Costco or sams club.

I try to cook everything from scratch.

I sew and mend a lot of our clothes.  

If you haven’t read my frugal tips you can read it to get a few more ideas on how I save. http://frugallivingonthewatkinsranch.blogspot.com/2012/10/frugal-tips.html

I hope this helps some you might look at what is produced in your area. If I didn’t cover something just let me know and I will try to answer.  



So what are some of the things all of you do to stretch your budget?