I find that in addition to trying to buy "family packs" on sale, I am using less meat in recipes. For instance, in some casseroles where I used to use a pound of ground chuck I now use 1/2 pound and we don't even notice the difference. Same for spaghetti sauce, soups, etc.
I put my freezer stuff in the reusable shopping bags you can buy for a buck. They collapse to only take up as much space as the contents, versus a fixed-size container. I sub-divide using plastic grocery bags, so the chicken bag has a plastic bag of thighs, a plastic bag of breasts, etc. Makes it easy to find stuff and to see when I may be running low of a particular item. I do the same thing you do regarding rotating the stock so it's FIFO. But I recently had steak that was over 3 years old, and it was fine, as long as the vacuum seal don't break on the bag.
Holy carp. I was just reviewing my grocery order for today and see that the fresh cherries I ordered were $13.49 for 1.4 pounds. What the actual hell???? I called and told them to keep the cherries.
I hadn't even noticed that. I have a couple of jars of mayo in my "stash." Sounds like we might need a safe for groceries now.
Sounds like that old inflation joke: "Someone broke into my car and stole $200 of groceries from the glove compartment."
Soon they'll be putting security tags on food items. I've seen the price of produce is so high that it doesn't sell, but they just let it rot, rather than reduce the price.
That's always a tough call. If people know the price eventually gets reduced, they'll wait for that to happen...then very little of it will sell at full price.
I think our two biggest grocery chains donate a lot of produce and fresh meats, etc. to the local food pantry. I'm glad they do, but the rest of us could use a break, too!
Cherries update. My grocery order arrived WITH cherries and I was charged for them. Just got off the phone with the store and they are refunding my money... and I can keep the cherries. Win. (The young woman I spoke to admitted it was her mistake and she "got busy and forgot.")
That's true and I'm sure if they donate it or throw it out they can use it as a write-off the tax purposes.
Have you seen the cars some of them drive up in? I think we should go back to gov cheese. Just staples. Sometimes 'its cruel to be kind'. Or 'there's a sucker born every minute'. My nation is gone because of too many suckers and not enough patriots.
The thing about that is there's an inner circle of connected regular folks like us who get phone calls to come help themselves, since they cannot get enough of the truly needy to come in quick enough and take the stuff before it spoils. I guess it's better than throwing it away...
All government programs start out to "make sure they don't starve" and then grow into "Well, they deserve to have..." We are not suckers. There's just a bunch of folks who are content to let their souls rot, and a bunch of politicians who are content to lord over rotted souls.