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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,751 posts, read 58,116,312 times
Reputation: 46242
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Ideas... (you don't say where you are originating, might be desert, mountains, island (I've lived in all, VERY remotely)) Provisioner service (very common in many countries, not USA), get someone who is commuting to bulk buy and deliver to a common spot. Work with local grocer, they may join this effort and make it a Win-Win (has been known to happen )
Trading your local organic meats / crops / dairy for the trip to town to purchase city stuff.. Haul farm stuff in, city stuff out
Bulk buy with friends (***form a Consumer purchasing co-op***)
Start a food pantry and serve the community (as well as yourself if legit).
Look into buying from Commercial Food services serving your locale, Or even buying bulk from food places, senior meal providers, and hotels.
Mobile Farmers Market (we have one of those, very successful, goes to a different rural town everyday, with a fixed order + spare stuff)
Talk your contract delivery person into considering adding a 'food-line' / service (Most rural places have contract carriers for parts / mail / papers / bank documents ...) I see these folks are now also offering rides to airports / big city. (there could be some PUC issues here )
Find a diesel VW Rabbit (~$100 for a 50 mpg low emission vehicle) and run to town on free fryer grease. (Check you neighbor's brier patch, lots of Rabbits hiding there)
Storage= (vacuum pack and freeze, my $100 chest freezer has lasted 32 yrs without a hic-cup). Make a fruit / veggie cold storage room in your basement (add a chimney vent to outside and keep it below 50F in most climates). Make a solar food dryer.
Gleaning. This is very practical and cheap. Check for local 'natural' plants to eat. (saves on 'mowing' your field)
Cook in bulk (I have been known to cook one day / week and enjoy leftovers for 5 days / week (I fast one day / week, saves cooking and shopping time!)
BTW:, I LOVE cheap produce. Today's finds: $.22/# Pears, Melon, and Cabbage; $.29/ Apples (4 varieties). We have a very little known produce shop that caters to immigrants, it is wonderful for saving $$ on fresh produce.
I NEVER buy groceries at WalMart, It is REALLY expensive for food.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chuck_steak
Not everyone has a forklift, but that's about the best idea I've ever heard.
I have a forklift, as do 4 of my 6 neighbors We get together and have 'lift-offs'
We also share services (like going to rural growing areas for bins of apples and crates of produce). 2 of us have semi trucks so we can 'serve' the community. (Need a load of Apples?, will a Dumptruck load do?)
If you are going really far, buy the frozen items and get a bag of ICE to put in with them in the cooler. You might have it left when you get home... the little it costs to ensure safe food is worth it.
That doesn't work. The frozen items will just keep the ice from melting. Frozen foods are colder than ice, so adding ice will not keep them cold any longer. All that is needed is to have them in an insulated container. In fact, use your frozen foods to keep other things cool.
Wrap things you need to keep cold in newspaper several sheets thick, put them in a plastic trash bag, then put that in a large corrugated cardboard box and close it. Or a cooler will work just as well, but coolers are smaller and not nearly as cheap as getting some old packing boxes out of the dumpster.
For a single person, you can get enough frozen meat in the freezer compartment of a standard sized refrigerator to last for several months. Unless you eat about a pound of meat every day, in which case you need to review your dietary habits, not your spending habits.
There is absolutely NOTHING unsafe about frozen food that has partially thawed and been refrozen. The texture of some things might change, like ice cream, and some fruits and vegetables, but everything is safe to eat, even if it's been thawed for several hours. I'm guessing that you live less than a 5 or 6 hour drive from the grocery store. Wrapping frozen foods as I described above will keep them completely frozen for that long.
I walk to my grocery store, and it's a 30 minute walk, and even when its 105 degrees, plus 10 or 15 minutes more in the cart and the checkout lane, everything is fine when I get it home in an ordinary shopping bag. The OP's large metropolitan store is only double that. No problem in the shade in an AC car.
For a 140 mile round trip, say 6 gallons of gas, $20. It's worth the trip if you buy enough to save $20 over local prices, and there's no need to make a fuss over the packing of the groceries.
one of things that my friends and i have talked about is setting up a shut in type driver services for a people to pay for trip into town as a group to hit the big box stores once a week on tues or friday of the week morning to shop..i have a old crew cab pickup truck that would work fine for the truck with a litte work on the inside with new seats for people and new cover for the truck bed and building of the stowage cargo ind type cargo slots for the people shopping bags in it would work fine for the task of running back and forth to town about 20 miles away
let say four people per trip paying 10 to 15 .dollars for a round trip ticket to shop for a couple of hours the stores in town then back home .. twice a day once in the morning and once in the afternoon two trips a day
the reason behind four people that how much the cab of the crew cab pickup will hold beside the driver with the bed of the truck has a removeable stowage box design to allow the riders to stow there shopping bags inside a compactment so not get the bag mixed up with other bags in the bed ..
we figure with the basic cost of the one trip per day will fill up the truck tank and the second trip of the day will pay the teenage driver of the one of the family members to drive the truck ..with some of the people like me i know that they will come a time that i can no longer drive and it will good service to have
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,751 posts, read 58,116,312 times
Reputation: 46242
Quote:
Originally Posted by henry1
... setting up a shut in type driver services ....
we figure with the basic cost of the one trip per day will fill up the truck tank and the second trip of the day will pay the teenage driver of the one of the family members to drive the truck ..with some of the people like me i know that they will come a time that i can no longer drive and it will good service to have
good idea to plan ahead, be wise and consider a younger retired person to be a relief driver. Teenagers have way too much stuff going on in their heads to keep alert when driving with passengers. (it scares me when I hear reports of a 14yr old driving their rural TEAM to events ~ 100-200 miles away. I think WY and KS still license at age 14 (for farm kids). I have had to scrape a few off the pavement and call their parents, that is NOT a good day.
If you are driving for hire there will be significant expenses for licensing, permits, and insurance.
Consider forming a Co-op or at least an LLC for this service. License the vehicle to the LLC, If passengers are 'member-owners' you can probably avoid some potential legal hassles. You can buy very nice minivans for under $3000. Mine is going strong at 200,000 miles and gets 22 mpg. It will haul full sheets of plywood or for big cargo I take a trailer.
Good luck and keep us posted.
good idea to plan ahead, be wise and consider a younger retired person to be a relief driver. Teenagers have way too much stuff going on in their heads to keep alert when driving with passengers.
If you are driving for hire there will be significant expenses for licensing, permits, and insurance.
Consider forming a Co-op or at least an LLC for this service. License the vehicle to the LLC, If passengers are 'member-owners' you can probably avoid some potential legal hassles. You can buy very nice minivans for under $3000. Mine is going strong at 200,000 miles and gets 22 mpg. It will haul full sheets of plywood or for big cargo I take a trailer.
Good luck and keep us posted.
that was we where thinking of doing as a group to form the Co-op service for the group of people in the area with a limited LC set up to cover anything that happens ..so far the idea has gone over very well with some of the people in the area ..
.the two drivers are one person who a house wife who could do the morning run and the afternoon run with a back up older female teenager who we where thinking about is around 19 years old and very good about beening responsibe about beening on time and keep the it on the road ..
the morning runs starts at 7.am in the morning and finish at 10.30 with the last drop and the afternoon run starts at 12.noon for the first pickup and finish up around 3 pm for the day with the last drop off at 3.30.pm for her to meet the kids at the house ..
plus we have thought about letting the older teenage driver do a run in the after 4.pm on the shopping days or take a odd afternoon trip for people who want to go into town for payment of bills that day on friday ..
the truck is getting worked over as we speak to make sure it in good working condition and the inside are getting reworked also if the people at the garage say it ok ..
for the bigger loads we can do it on other days for a flat rate out to the person house or homestead .
with the shopping days on Tues morning and afternoons or Fri morning and afternoons with the big job hauling on monday and weds and thurs and sat mornings to people homesteads in the area..with a sunday beening there day off for the people ..
plus on the days that the person can not make the weekly shopping runs we are thinking of letting the driver do the shopping for the person as the person is sick and can not make the run ..
they give the person a list of foods items and other supplies along with the cash and the normal $.10.oo to 15.oo dollar fee for trip and that payment is split between the company and the person doing the shopping for there time .
we have not figure out all the fees that are going to be charge in some areas ..so it got to enough to support the vehicle upkeep and give the person driveing a little extra cash in the pocket to do it
For a 140 mile round trip, say 6 gallons of gas, $20. It's worth the trip if you buy enough to save $20 over local prices, and there's no need to make a fuss over the packing of the groceries.
Nonsense. There are substantial more expenses for car driving than just the gas (like tires, oil, wear and tear on the car). See:
http://www.aaaexchange.com/Assets/Files/201048935480.Driving%20Costs%202010.pdf (broken link)
But the big thing is the value of your time. Apparently you are one of those who consider shopping to be an enjoyable, recreational activity. Many of us consider shopping and driving to alternate between boring and unpleasant.
I drive out of town (perhaps 30 miles) to WalMart about once a month, and stock up on the items that are more expensive or not available locally, like my preferred shampoo, contact lens solution, canned and paper products. Most of what I buy at the local grocery store is fresh stuff. I don't feel all that guilty paying more local though, because supporting local business has a major impact on things like keeping employment in my area, and keeping sales tax flowing in my area so hopefully perhaps property taxes won't need to go up. My local grocery store also often has discounted meat (last day to buy) on weekday evenings, so I try to stop in after work 1-2x week to check for good buys. I hate WalMart meat; everything at my local store is made in the USA and is delicious.
Nonsense. There are substantial more expenses for car driving than just the gas (like tires, oil, wear and tear on the car).
Nonsense. The cost of oil and tires add up together to be about one cent a mile. (Based on a $30 oil change every 6,000 miles, and a $200 set of tires every 40,000 miles.) Wear and tear on the rest of the car is mostly a function of number of cold starts, rather than actual miles rolling once you get going and efficient lubrication sets in, so there is little or no per-mile relevance there. You step on the brakes twice in your 140-mile round trip. Your insurance is $X per day, whether you start the engine or not. Car depreciation is based more on year than on miles.
Last edited by jtur88; 12-12-2010 at 10:20 AM..
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