Tuesday, August 5, 2008

No grocery store for a month

Who came up with this nutty idea anyway?

Well me of course. My intention was to reduce my household waste, reduce my relatively new found reliance on packaged products, spark some creativity to come up with snacks and meals from our garden and farmer's markets and farm stands and local houses where I can get eggs that I trust (Colven and I get to visit with the chickens even! We leave our cash in the fridge and leave with eggs!).

MY PLAN HAS WORKED! genius! ;)

Here is what I miss so far:

-I am out of my favorite salt.
-We are out of our favorite cheese.
-I am low on milk and cream.
-I am low on butter.
-Almost out of oatmeal.
-I love the meat counter at Whole Foods and I miss it terribly.


What I am happy about:

-We have almost ZERO garbage waste!
-We have ONLY been buying local eggs and produce.
-I have greatly reduced my weekly grocery bill. That extra $ has gone into SAVINGS!
-All of us have been eating better.
-The local pier has insanely good fish for crazy decent prices. And I *know* it has been line caught!

-Nothing from our garden has gone to waste this year. We used to be realllly bad about not harvesting "excess." Without the convenience of the grocery store, I am actually watching for things to be ripe and ready to pick.
-Every dollar I have spent in the past few weeks has supported the farmers who live and work all around me.

What I am unhappy about:

-Without careful planning meals can really suck.
-I know that my petroleum consumption has gone up since I drive to several places to buy our food instead of one big place.

more later... a toddler wants attention :)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish we lived near a good source for fish. We only have fish counters to rely on in our grocery stores. Sometimes we'll drive out to the coast, but that takes a good 45 minutes to do. You are lucky.

Have you checked out www.simplemom.com yet? She just posted a full months worth of menu planning and most of the recipes sound good. I might have to copy a bunch of her menus.

Lindsay said...

That's a really interesting experiment. While I "could" do it too, I seriously don't know how you find the time to drive to all those places?! you go girl!

Angie said...

did all the running around make you miserable? or did you find you enjoyed the trips more than the grocer?

Erin said...

Angie I've been timing it really well and Colven LOVES going to the farmer's markets and to the marina and to get the eggs so it has been pretty fun.

I have to say I LOVE the grocery store for the convenience factor, but I'm feeling much more connected without it! Getting back to my roots :)

Erin said...

Thanks for that simplemom link! I will check it out today!