# $1000 Full Year Food Supply Challenge?



## Gimble (Aug 14, 2015)

I heard on a podcast today "You can get a full years worth of food for $800, so why not do it". I did some searching around here and people are bragging about a $200/week food budget... that's $10k+/year.

So... can we do it?

Can we come up with a shopping cart and some online store that will feed a family of 4 for $1000?

I've heard good and bad about augason farms stuff. I raise livestock and garden... and $1280 gets me 1 chicken per day with no veggies. So I'd need some cheap back-fill to bring the price down.

What can you do for $1000?


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## Maine-Marine (Mar 7, 2014)

sure you can....

rice, wheat, beans, sugar, oats

http://store.lds.org/webapp/wcs/sto...839595_10557_3074457345616706237_-1_N_image_0

you do not need to eat meat or fruit every day

of course if you raise chickens , they self replicate


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## Hemi45 (May 5, 2014)

Cool concept for a thread! I'm at a loss for how to get down anywhere near that amount but I'll be checking back for practical ideas.


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## Auntie (Oct 4, 2014)

Steve if you are raising animals why are you buying chicken? Why don't you raise chickens and or ducks, then you get meat and eggs. We also raise sheep, we only have 3 but that gets us at least two babies so two full lambs in the freezer. Does your family can or dehydrate or freeze the veggies you grow? We grow enough veggies to cover almost an entire year. We use spent grains, vegetables from the garden and garden waste to supplement the food for our animals, that keeps the food bill down. We even have a guy that trims trees and he drops off the branches and limbs with leaves that our animals consume. He comes twice a year to pick up the cleaned, dry branches and limbs to grind up for mulch. We give him a dozen eggs every once in a while.


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## PCH5150 (Jun 15, 2015)

I keep a herd of 250 Hot Pockets on less than an acre of land. The Pepperoni ones are feisty, but a solid fence keeps them hemmed in. Put up remarkably little resistance come harvest time.


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

It is difficult for us to put a number on our weekly consumption of food since we buy more items for mid and long term storage that does not get rotated as often. I would say for 2 of us plus the handful of times per month that we host our sons for a dinner or lunch, we probably spend $600 per month on food that is consumed and not stored. We have been increasing our stores at a higher rate than consumption over the past 8 months or so.

That is about $3600 per year per person and we eat well. 

So $1000 per year per person is do-able I would think. It would be hard and minimal but do-able.


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## Maine-Marine (Mar 7, 2014)

Slippy said:


> It is difficult for us to put a number on our weekly consumption of food since we buy more items for mid and long term storage that does not get rotated as often. I would say for 2 of us plus the handful of times per month that we host our sons for a dinner or lunch, we probably spend $600 per month on food that is consumed and not stored. We have been increasing our stores at a higher rate than consumption over the past 8 months or so.
> 
> That is about $3600 per year per person and we eat well.
> 
> So $1000 per year per person is do-able I would think. It would be hard and minimal but do-able.


We are the same. We buy things that are long term and then weekly...

I am guessing that with a few chickens, ducks, a little garden, and some things from the LDS Store.. I could feed my family on $1,000 a year....

ALSO,,.. do not forget spices.. spices can make chicken taste like colonel food, indian food, asian food, etc


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

Me and Mrs Slippy just looked at our recent grocery store purchases and could save a lot by cutting out pre-packaged products and certain perishables; 

We would buy more whole chickens and cut out the Boneless/Skinless Chicken Breasts. We would eliminate lots of things like expensive cuts of meat and we would buy larger cuts of meat like a 1/2 hog or 1/4 cow and cut our own.
Eliminate Expensive Fruits and fruit drinks, expensive pre cut frozen veggies, all deserts, all sweeteners and all pre-made mixes. 

We are capable of doing more cooking and preparing from scratch, we just don't due to ease and laziness. That would be a great experiment to live like that and see how much money you could save. (Damn we live in a world of waste and obvious excess!)


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## Prepared One (Nov 5, 2014)

My wife and I are at about 800 a month but like Slippy and MM I am always adding to my storage on every trip. I will spend maybe a 50 to 100 more if I find deals or something special. Weekdays is mostly soup and sandwiches for dinner because neither of us are cooking after we get in from work. Weekends we treat ourselves or go out to dinner. I live in the city so farm animals are out.


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## AquaHull (Jun 10, 2012)

About $300 per month for 2 people,and I still put stuff away. All store bought too.


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## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

I quit buying prepackaged meals a long time ago. The few veggies that we buy are frozen and not commercially canned. 
I do a lot of baking, breads, cakes, brownies, and casseroles. We do buy some meat but we also have wild game (not raising animals yet). I buy large cuts of meat and slice my own steaks, roasts and stew meat. Left over roasts are sliced into lunch meat. Breakfasts are eggs, waffles, pancakes, bacon, ham, O'Brien potatoes, and hash browns. It is all from scratch. 

It would be easy to buy a years supply of food for under $1000 and you substitute fruit and veggies with dried or dehydrated veggies and fruits and sprouts from some of your grains and beans. Combine dried beans and grains for meat substitute or sourdough bread contains complete proteins too. In my estimation meat is essential even though there are other more complex ways to get the protein you need.


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## Kauboy (May 12, 2014)

Are we factoring in the cost to feed the food? Anything living that will provide food comes with its own cost.


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

Kauboy said:


> Are we factoring in the cost to feed the food? Anything living that will provide food comes with its own cost.


Yup. I used to raise all our meat, milk, eggs, honey, as well as all our fruit and veggies. All of it. The only things I bought were staples like salt, flour, and ANIMAL FEED! If you have to buy feed, you are not really sustainable. That might not be a big deal in places like the midwest or east, but in the southwest, it is a lot more challenging to grow the grains and hay. Auntie's use of spent grain is excellent. Garden scraps are great, too. But at some point, we have to find a way to provide grazing and ways to feed livestock on our own or from very localized sources.

I have cut back on my chicken flock, and am making my own feed supplement with a mash made from millet and milo (purchased cheaply in bulk), ground egg shells, cricket meal, and mesquite flour, along with greens. It's cut back on my feed bill, and the birds seem to be doing well on it. Although I have a LOT of hay stored for the mules, once it is gone, they will have to graze and forage. Our new house and the BOL both have easy access to national forest lands, so it is feasible that we can graze them locally. If not, they get turned into jerky.


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## Real Old Man (Aug 17, 2015)

Maine-Marine said:


> sure you can....
> 
> rice, wheat, beans, sugar, oats
> 
> ...


The military's diet was for a pound of uncooked/12 oz of cooked meet, a pound of bread; and a pound of fruit or vegetable.

Best you can do is about $4 per day - canned goods from say big lots.

Also rice beans sugar and oats get's old real fast - and yes, I've gone days on end eating rice twice a day or oatmeal twice a day.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

While it wouldn't be nutritionally balanced you could probably get 2000 calories per day per person down to about $300 year using just white rice. Add some additional stuff like Ramane Noodles and spices for variety and nutrition, a big bottle of cheap vitamins, and I could see someone stocking up a year worth of calories for less than $600. 

I'm using Honeyville Farms canned white rice at about $70 a case and each case has 90,000 calories or 45 days at 2000 calories a day for this comparison. I know it can be bought cheaper so 240 lbs of rice for less than $300 if you bought in bulk and put it in 5 gal pails with oxygen absorbers.

My group shoots for under $200 per month average cost for long term food (this includes spices, lard, ect.) which means a lot of rice but a lot of other good stuff and easy to prepare foods too. Only foods that store at least 10 years are considered long term foods.


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## Prepared One (Nov 5, 2014)

I am in awe of those of you who raise everything and make everything yourselves. Paul makes everything from scratch. Auntie and RN does everything from growing their own food, their own feed for livestock, to livestock, and then doing all the cooking and canning. Tires me out just thinking about it. Being born and raised in the city has it's advantages I suppose, although I am sometimes hard pressed to list them. Kudos to you all


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

What Prepared One said.


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## Gimble (Aug 14, 2015)

Prepared One said:


> I am in awe of those of you who raise everything and make everything yourselves. Paul makes everything from scratch. Auntie and RN does everything from growing their own food, their own feed for livestock, to livestock, and then doing all the cooking and canning. Tires me out just thinking about it. Being born and raised in the city has it's advantages I suppose, although I am sometimes hard pressed to list them. Kudos to you all


I am trying to do this. You essentially trade one job for another. You go to work to earn funds to buy the things you need. We go to work to produce the things we need. At the end of the day, we are both working.

I'm working two+ jobs because I'm not quite there yet. My hope is that one day we won't have to work stressful jobs and can just live for ourselves.


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## Auntie (Oct 4, 2014)

Prepared One said:


> I am in awe of those of you who raise everything and make everything yourselves. Paul makes everything from scratch. Auntie and RN does everything from growing their own food, their own feed for livestock, to livestock, and then doing all the cooking and canning. Tires me out just thinking about it. Being born and raised in the city has it's advantages I suppose, although I am sometimes hard pressed to list them. Kudos to you all


I still have so much to learn! I doubt I could survive in a city environment for more than a few days. The noise and traffic in Denver drives me crazy and put me on edge. All the honking, cussing, sirens, cars and people.


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## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

Auntie said:


> I still have so much to learn! I doubt I could survive in a city environment for more than a few days. The noise and traffic in Denver drives me crazy and put me on edge. All the honking, cussing, sirens, cars and people.


Me, too. I get very uneasy in cities. Many folks here like to hop up to Vegas for a weekend of fun. That is the LAST place on earth I can image being fun! When I vacation, it's to the woods and solitude - _away _from people, not with more of them! By the way, Prepared One, the gardening and livestock, canning and cooking is a lifestyle. It's simply what we have done for a long time and to us it is normal. I still work full time, which makes my life very challenging at times. Like Auntie, I feel like I have so much to learn. Yes, I can grow it and cook it in any number of ways. I can keep the family healthy with clean food and water. I can harvest from the desert. I can raise animals and butcher them. But I am late coming with firearms and will never be the expert that many of you are. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. It's good prepping to make an honest assessment so one can strengthen the weak links.


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## Will2 (Mar 20, 2013)

AquaHull said:


> About $300 per month for 2 people,and I still put stuff away. All store bought too.


i've been as low as about $20/month and would find it hard to go above $400/month unless I was eating a lot of expensive seafood, or prepackaged dishes.

The cheapest foods are rice and flour more or less, you get about $20/month of staple, this works out to $240. Multivitamins are about 10$ per month which works out to $120. As you can see this works out to about $360/person for basics of a staple and basic nutrition. You could cut the price a little on stable to perhaps $200 and multivitamins to about $50 you could do it. But its not really realistic unless you are growing your own to supliment it. It wouldn't be fun either. We are talking Third World famine diet.

It all depends on local resource. I still hobby forage to suppliment my diet. This year I've been lucky with berries, mushrooms and clams - as well as some other stuff. I wouldn't want to cut a staple though it makes things difficult to insure a lot of food. Bear in mind grass even has food value, as do weeds etc.. some areas growing is easier. Bugs can be eaten. Look to Africa for ways to economize.

Bear in mind the highest caloric foods are "oils' but there are limits on how much oil is healthy to eat.
You might economize with things like pig fat etc.. example getting "used" fryer grease from a restraunt for cheap, they use it as fuel, but it could probably be eaten in an emergency. Yum.

My basal metabolic rate is about 2000 calories so I would need about 365*2000 calories per year minimum. could probably cut out about 100000 to 200000 in a year and still survive.

730000-200000 calories is 530,000 calories per year, works out to 530 calornies per dollar for me to survive. It becomes quite ridiculus when you do this for four people if you then need 2000 calories or 1 dollar per day more or less. You would need to max out oil intake for that, and that is a starvation diet.

living on a dollar a day or in this case 50-75 cents a day per person is pretty damn tight for the first world. I have done it, but it isn't ideal nor would I call it good for longterm health.

Its really cheap to grow weeds. My ragweed which was used by first nations and has a high oil and protien content is just about ripe for use. It actually tastes alright when fried or boiled in with rice, its better as a seed rather than green bulb.
Anyone who actually plants ideal "native species" can cut their food costs in the growing season. So it all depends where you are. The colder the climate the more calories and shorter the growing season. Buying sees is of course going to be the cheapest option but the most risky too.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

I've worn one of those fitbit wrist bands and found that at 175 lbs with no exercise program (no cardio but plenty of lifting, squatting, ect from work) it says I easily burn over 2900 calories a day. I stock up for 2000 calories a day but in a SHTF situation I'd probably need 3500 - 4000 calories a day so you should probably plan for that. Plenty of hunting and farmers in my area for additional calories.

So, survive on rice, cattail roots, and trying to hunt and die from bland food boredom or figure on spending a bit more than $1000/yr per person. We stock about 6 mos of food so we may starve but we will eat tasty to the end.

Life without an occasional good meal isn't living.


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## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

I eat what I enjoy eating. I stock what I eat. I don't see bland meals in my future (unless I get to an age that requires me to be on baby food). Even then I would make my own so I still could have it taste good.
Any meat has more flavor if it is "browned". This is a process that caramelizes the outside of the meat which locks in the juices and - very important - adds the flavor of the caramelized meat. (this is also where gravies and brown sauces get their flavor). When I can meat I first brown the meat using high heat for just long enough to put a slight crust on it. (don't worry - cooking the meat while canning it makes it soft and tender again and the flavor is kept in the jar) The only meat I don't brown is fish - browning it does nothing for the flavor and ruins the texture.
A little dill weed will take out most of the "fishy smell" and it will help the flavor while canning. I don't like to use salt in the canning process because it makes stuff mushy. Salt it to taste when preparing the meal.
There are many ways to help with the same food. Serve it with a salad, grilled bread with garlic and / or cheese. Fruit in place of or with a veggie. Make use of complementary sauces to make the other flavors "POP". Use wine to cook meats and fish occasionally. Use beer when cooking poultry and a touch of sage.
You don't have to eat beans and rice in the same meal. Chili for a hearty lunch with some grilled sourdough and then for dinner some beef and rice with gravy or a brown sauce. When eating rice as a side dish mix some dried fruit in with it when you cook it. Raisins, apples, pineapples or mandarin oranges are great with rice and will make the other food on your plate "POP" by complementing it.

Never be affraid to try something a little different. Some things you will find are very good and some will be a disaster. Learn now so when your food is a premium you don't waste it.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

Very interesting concept.

$1000 is about $19.25 per week.

List
$5.80 4l milk
$2.08. Rotating purchases of oatmeal and cracked wheat
$2.59. 1lb bag of beans
$3.79. 2lb bag of enriched Rice
$2.49. Dozen eggs
$2.50. Rotating purchases of salt,sugar,oil,flour,tea bags,etc
======
$19.25

I think these are close to grocery store prices. Buy in bulk would give me savings on the dry goods. Milk is gov regulated to set a minimum price(greedy), 

I would need to convert my entire backyard into vegetable garden. To offset a serious absence of fruit, I would need to learn which plants are vitamin rich.

But if you guys are talking about working beyond a garden to produce meat and eggs, then it would only be fair for me to consider an income earning potential from my shop. No need to go off topic with details, but will add 10hrs per month to earn $200 per month. Very conservative numbers, I could experience twice the hours or half the money without significant heartache on my part.


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