Category: Self-Sufficiency

A Diversity of Skills

A lot of people write me and ask what it’s like to be self-sufficient. After conversing for a while, I often get the feeling that they’re viewing self-sufficiency as just one or two skills. The more enlightened readers sometimes know that self-sufficiency is more than that. In reality, self-sufficiency requires a host of skills. The simple act of growing a garden and canning the results means that you must not only have gardening and canning skills, but you must also have other skills required to make the process work properly. Here are just some of the skills required:

 

  • Math: Yes, you must have math skills to figure out whether growing an item is economically worthwhile for you and to also perform those gardening and canning tasks.
  • Building: Creating a place to stored your canned goods is important. Most shelving you can buy in the store won’t hold up and you often need to build your own to maximize use of space.
  • Cleaning: Keeping the canned goods in good shape means cleaning the jars from time-to-time and examining each jar to ensure it’s still sealed.
  • Organization: Ensuring you rotate your stock and get rid of old stock is essential if you want to remain healthy. In addition, you need to know which items your larder lacks before planting your garden in spring.
  • Research: Often you need a solution to a problem and you need it fast. You eventually do create a store of knowledge that helps you overcome most problems, but it’s still important to know when your knowledge falls short and where to look for an answer to a problem that will work.
  • Creative: I often see puzzlement when I mention you must be creative to be self-sufficient, but the fact remains that you really do need creativity. Sometimes nature throws a curve and you must be willing to figure out what to do with unexpected gardening results.


The likelihood of just one person having all the skills required to be fully self-sufficient are relatively small. In fact, it’s often counterproductive for someone to go it alone. Having someone to work with isn’t absolutely essential, but it does help. On the other hand, having friends and other relations to discuss gardening with is essential. You can’t easily succeed without the input provided by other people because one person simply can’t see all the potholes and potential solutions for problems.

Self-sufficiency surprisingly requires good relationships with other people. Yes, you’re raising your own food and creating the kind of food store that you’ll enjoy eating later. However, the input from other people will help make the task significantly easier.

Of course, once I reveal this information to people, many of them bring up the wealth of books and magazines available on the market today. Yes, these resources truly are helpful and potentially essential. However, they discuss gardening and other self-sufficiency topics in a general way. Your friends and neighbors can discuss specific topics as they apply to your area of the world and can account for variances such as weather.

Have you maintained good relations with friends and neighbors who can help you create a better self-sufficiency environment? How do these sources of information help you? Let me know your thoughts on the topic at [email protected].

 

Late Snow

Early spring is the time for snow. However, it’s not just any snow. The snow in spring can be magical at times. It drapes itself onto the trees and other plants in ways that reveal new ways to look at the mundane. The trees and other plants take on a new appearance.

We recently had a spring snow and I took a few pictures of it. For example, here’s one of my favorite trees viewed in a new way.

A honey locust tree draped with snow.

Everywhere I looked, the snow had done amazing things to the landscape. Even our orchard looks magnificent with its coating of perfectly white snow. (This is a view of our apple orchard from the house.)

Maples and an apple orchard (background) draped with snow.

The woods can be exceptionally pretty. They take on a mystical appearance. Paths all but disappear, but are still visible when you look closely enough.

A group of trees in the woods draped with snow.

Of course, my favorite thing about springtime snows is that you get to enjoy all this beauty without any of the usual shoveling. The spring weather dictates that the snow melts sooner, than later. Anytime I get a beautiful scene from nature without any work on my part, I’m overjoyed. What is your favorite thing about springtime snows? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Chickens at Play

A lot of people see chickens as being confined to a particular area and quietly pecking at the dirt for most of their lives. Meat chickens do have a certain lack of personality and do spend most of their time eating. However, laying hens are a completely different story. Depending on the breeds you get, you can see a wide range of interesting behaviors, some of which are quite funny.

There are still some snow hills in our yard. The other day I was looking out our kitchen window at one of them and there was a chicken at the top pecking into the top of the hill. She was obviously eating some of the ice in order to get a drink. However, it wasn’t long and another hen ran up the hill and knocked the first hen off. Now she was going after the ice. Soon, there was a general melee as different chickens proclaimed herself the queen of the hill. I was laughing so hard that I nearly dropped some dishes I was putting away. The hens looked so intent about their play and so funny at the same time.

A few days later I was out pruning our pear trees. Suddenly, one of the chickens (Daisy, an Americana) started clucking quite loudly—the sort of cluck that says, “Hey, I’ve done something really cool!” She jumped over the top of the run fence and waddled as quickly as she could to me, clucking intensely all the way. Then she curtsied. So, I petted her and told her was a good chicken she is, but the action didn’t satisfy. As I tried to go back to work she shrieked at me and curtsied again. So, I picked her up and took her back to the coop. She had laid a beautiful blue egg for me and wanted me to know just how beautiful it was. So, I accepted the egg and made a big deal over just how good a chicken she is, which seemed to satisfy her this time. Just why this particular egg was so special is beyond me.

Later in the same day, Violet, our Black Australorp, was making one of her usual speeches. She’s the queen of the coop and when she speaks, the other chickens listen. Just was she was saying on this particular occasion is beyond me. However, she was in fine form and rattled off quite a long discourse on something only other hens would care about. The other hens gathered around her and listened intently, murmuring to themselves in agreement with whatever it was that she was discussing.

There is seldom a day when our chickens don’t do something interesting and special. Even if they didn’t produce copious eggs, I’d keep them around just for the laughs they provide. I actually consider them an essential part of my health plan now. A laugh a day keeps the doctor at bay. If you do get laying hens, make sure you take time to enjoy their behaviors—you’ll be glad you did! Let me know about your interesting chicken stories at [email protected].

 

Waiting for Spring Weather

As I write this post, it’s a balmy 17 degrees outside my window (a mere 3 degrees with the wind chill). It’s definitely not tree pruning weather. At least, it isn’t comfortable tree pruning weather. Of course, that’s the problem of spring-trying to find time to get the tree trimming Roanoke done in weather that doesn’t promise frostbite (at least, not immediately). There is always a race that occurs. On the one hand, you have trees that are on the verge of waking up and you need to prune them before that happens. On the other hand, you have old man winter sticking around just long enough to make life difficult.

Trying to figure out the best time is made even more difficult by the weather conditions. It pays to have some sunlight when you prune so that you can see bug infestations on the trees and pick them off. For example, this is the time of year you want to find the egg clusters of the Eastern Tent Caterpillar. However, you don’t want full sun either. For the most part, you’re looking up into the trees to see where to prune next. If the sun is constantly in your eyes, you may not prune the tree correctly (not removing enough or removing too much). So, finding a partly cloudy day when the temperatures aren’t too extreme during the most perverse weather of the year can prove difficult, if not impossible. All this also assumes you can drop everything else to do the pruning. I know that some tree removal companies can also do pruning, and those who are unable to maintain their own trees for whatever reason may well choose to make use of such a service, but I quite like doing it by myself so, for now, that is what I shall continue to do.

Generally, I find that the perfect weather is nearly unattainable and settle for something that works. A little too warm is better than not warm enough, but I also have my handy wood stove to warm up in front of should things get too cold. A little hot chocolate or broth goes a long way toward making less that perfect weather endurable. Truth be known, pruning is normally a cold affair that’s enjoyable simply because the snow has abated and there is the promise of warmer weather to come.

Of course, what warms us most this time of year is the hope of spring. Even with the weather the way it is today, you see all the indicators that spring has arrived. My personal favorite is the birds; at least, until our Easter garden starts to bloom. What is your personal favorite indicator of spring? Let me know at [email protected].

Replacing Salt and Sugar with Herbs, Spices, Color, and Texture

A lot of books and articles you read talk about giving up salt and sugar in order to maintain good health and ultimately save money in the form of reduced medical expenses. The whole problem with the approach that is taken most often is that people end up with boring, bland food that a normal person wouldn’t feed to anyone. If you really want to make positive changes in your diet, then you need to do something positive. The excessive salt and sugar in many people’s diets today are viewed as a negative by the medical community—simply telling someone to reduce their intake won’t have an effect because it’s a negative request. What the emphasis should be on is to replace sugar and salt with something positive. Making meals an explosion of the senses so that the salt and sugar aren’t even missed is key.

Herbs and spices are your first line of defense against excessive salt and sugar use. For example, adding four parts cinnamon, two parts nutmeg, and one part cloves at a level you can just barely taste to meats will allow you to reduce your salt usage on that food by at least half, if not more. Give it a try and you’ll find that you enjoy your meat a great deal more. Another good combination is a mix of 3 parts garlic, two parts rosemary, two parts ground ginger, and one part orange peel. This mix works especially well on white meats. Don’t overdo it—a little goes a long way. Try increasing the amount of the mixture until you can just taste it and then cut the salt dramatically (by half is a good starting point). When working with herbs and spices, the idea is to provide your nose and mouth with something interesting that will maintain your attention throughout the meal.

Some herb and spice combinations require a heavier touch. For example, when using a mix of rosemary, sage, and thyme on chicken, you want to add enough to really season the meat. A mix of paprika and garlic on pork should be somewhat heavy. Everyone has different tastes (and it would be a really dull world if we didn’t). Experiment with various combinations to see what meets your needs best. The point is to provide your mouth and nose with something interesting and stimulating.

While you tantalize your taste-buds and waft through a sea of smells, you should also give your eyes something that appeals to them. Color is essential in meals. Meat and potato combinations are blah—you have to salt them just to get rid of the sad look of such a meal. A better choice is to have a small amount of meat and possibly potato (try substituting brown or wild rice for potatoes whenever possible), but to also have some reds, greens, oranges, blues, and purples in there. For example, purple cabbage is a great addition to a meal because it has a wonderful color that doesn’t cook out and an amazing taste. There are also useful staples to a meal such as corn, carrots, green beans, and peas. Try supplementing these staples with kohlrabi, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, spinach, and Swiss chard (to mention just a few). The Swiss chard actually comes in a number of beautiful colors. Make your meals a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach and you’ll find that you need both less sugar and less salt to satisfy.

Most people have probably read about the use of herbs, spices, and color to make meals more interesting, but the one factor that is left out most often is texture. The simple addition of mushrooms or nuts to a meal can make the entire experience of chewing so much better. These items also add flavors and smells all their own. However, the use of texture also affects the eyes and even the sense of touch. Your hands will become involved in the eating process because forking up green beans alone is much different than forking up green beans garnished with sliced almonds or mixed with mushrooms. In some cases, even hearing becomes involved, especially when you add crunch to the collection of textures. Corn mixed with colorful sweet peppers is so much better than corn alone. Rice with walnuts and raisins tastes a whole lot better than just plain rice.

The bottom line is that you really shouldn’t be giving anything up—you should be replacing just two negatives (salt and sugar) in your diet with a whole host of positives. Over the past six weeks we’ve managed to get by without adding any sugar or salt to our diet. At this point, we don’t even notice that they’re missing. In fact, some foods simply seem too salty or sweet to enjoy at this point. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts about replacing the negative items in your diet at [email protected].

 

Odd Nature of Chicken Eyes

When it comes to thinking about how input is perceived, few people think about chickens. However, the whole range of perception has attracted my attention because I see the topics as being interrelated in various ways. I find it interesting that chickens actually have a kind of vision that most of us can’t really imagine. For one thing, instead of the orderly array of cones that humans have, chickens have a disorderly set of cones that actually rely on a different state of matter from those in human eyes. Chickens see color better than humans do and they see a wider range of colors. Humans see red, green, and blue. Chickens see red, green, and blue as well, but they can also see ultraviolet and have a special motion detecting cone (for a total of five cone types to our three).

There are a number of reasons I’m interested in the topic. Of course, we raise chickens and the more I know about them, the better. My interest goes way beyond just raising the chickens though. When I wrote Accessibility for Everybody: Understanding the Section 508 Accessibility Requirements, I experimented with all sorts of techniques for improving a human’s ability to interact with the world. A lot of people might think the book is focused on special needs, but really, it’s focused on accessibility of all sorts for everyone. When a hunter uses a scope to see a long distance in order to hit a mark, it’s a form of interaction that could easily fall into the accessibility category. The hunter is compensating for the lack of long range vision by using a scope (an accessibility aid of sorts). The scientific examination of chicken eyes could lead to discoveries that will help us create accessibility aids that will allow humans to see a vast array of new colors naturally, rather than through color translation (where a color we can’t see is translated into a color we can see), as is done now.

The potential for such study goes even further. Most people don’t realize that men are naturally less able to see color than women. For example, 8 percent of men are colorblind, but only 1/2 of one percent of women have the same problem and usually to a lesser degree. Even odder, some women possess a fourth cone so they can see a vast array of colors that most people can’t even imagine. Only women have this ability. However, it might be possible to provide men with the same color perception through the use of an accessibility aid—one possibly modeled on the research done on chicken eyes.

The ways in which this research could help us out are nearly endless. For example, we rely on the superior smell capabilities of trained dogs to sniff out bombs and drugs. Chickens, as it turns out, can be trained as well (not to the degree that dogs are trainable, unfortunately). It might be possible to train chickens to alert to color discrepancies that only they can see. We could use trained chickens in the same way we currently use dogs.

There are other ways in which this research could benefit us. The actual chemistry of a chicken’s eye is unique. Studying the chemistry and discovering how it works could yield new compounds for us to use.

We look at various animals and think they’re only useful in one way. However, the more time I spend interacting with our animals, the more I come to realize that they really are useful in a host of ways. The next time you look at a laying hen, consider the fact that she can see things you’ll never even imagine. Let me know your thoughts about chickens, the unique nature of chicken eyes, and accessibility at [email protected].

 

An Interesting Breakfast Toast

We’re always trying to find new ways to have flavorful meals that are also healthy. To make this happen, we use a wide range of herbs, oils, and other flavor enhancers, plus interesting combinations of food items. One of our goals is to reduce both added salt and sugar intake to nearly nothing (in fact, nothing would be best). Most people get more than enough salt and sugar to meet their dietary requirements directly with their food—no additional salt or sugar is required.

I’ve been experimenting with a recipe for a French toast-like breakfast that actually tastes better than the standard product, but contains significantly less sugar and salt. After playing with this recipe for a while, I think I’ve come up with a solution that works. Just in case you’d like to try it yourself, here’s the recipe:


Orange Spice Breakfast Toast

 

¼ tsp Cloves
1 tsp Cinnamon
½ tsp Orange Extract
3 Eggs
2 tbs Sugar or Splenda
¾ cup Milk
  Spray Shortening or Canola Oil

Put eggs and sugar/Splenda in bowl and whisk until frothy. Add milk slowly using whisk. Add spices and orange extract. Pour about ½ cup of mixture onto a plate (or whatever will fit comfortably). Dip bread into mixture and ensure both sides are thoroughly soaked. Spray frying pan with shortening or add canola oil and heat until a drop of water bounces on surface. Place soaked bread into pan and fry until brown on both sides. Most frying pans will actually accommodate two pieces of bread at once.

We used a tiny bit of margarine and just a sprinkle of powdered sugar (less than ¼ tsp) to dress up the toast when finished. Recipe serves 4 people with some leftover or 5 people if you want to be a tad stingy.

The toast ends up tasting quite nice, but without the sugar that comes with standard French toast. A cup of syrup normally costs you 67g of sugar and 257g of salt (and most people use more than a cup). Using this recipe, with real sugar instead of Splenda, will cost you only 6g of sugar and no additional salt (the bread you use still contains salt, but the salt is there in both recipes). Interestingly enough, both cloves and cinnamon have nutritional benefits; although the amount of nutrition you get with this recipe is somewhat limited.

I’m still playing with this recipe a bit. How much spice do you like with your toast? Is the amount of orange extract enough to produce a pleasing, but not overwhelming taste? Let me know your thoughts on alternative breakfast offerings at [email protected].

Taking Inventory of the Larder

There is fresh fallen snow outside my window as I write this and more on the way. In fact, it doesn’t look like gardening season out there at all. It’s a bit past the middle of winter, but spring is a long way off. However, this is the time of the year that Rebecca and I start thinking about the garden—mainly because our mailbox is bristling with seed catalogs. Of course, the seed catalogs end up in the house and we now have stacks of them in the living room, dining room, family room, bathroom, and even in our bedroom. We could possibly start our own catalog company by simply redistributing all the catalogs that are coming from various seed companies in the mail.

Inside each catalog we see beautiful presentations of various vegetables and fruits. Given the time of year and the fact that our root cellar is becoming a bit empty, the idea of having fresh vegetables is quite appealing. Yes, canned and frozen foods will keep us quite happy and well fed, but there is nothing like picking that first asparagus spear (the first vegetable of the season) and preparing it for dinner. So, gazing fondly at the vegetables in the catalogs becomes the stuff of dreams for the upcoming season.

However, before we can order anything, we need to know what the larder lacks. This means doing an inventory. Doing an inventory is no small undertaking. If we simply needed to create a list of items to grow, the inventory would be simple enough, but that’s not the end (nor even the beginning) of the task.

As part of the inventory, we take down every jar, examine it for potential problems (such as a broken seal or rust on the lid that will eventually result in a broken seal). After that, we wash and dry the jar (remarking it if necessary). The jars are then repacked to ensure that the oldest stock is in the front. What all this work accomplishes is to ensure that what is on the shelf is actually edible and usable. The shelves can become disorganized during the winter months, so it’s essential to reorganize them so that any count we perform is accurate.

During the process of working with the jars, we’ll begin to notice that some items are lacking. For example, this year we noted that there aren’t any beets left—not even the pickled variety (a favorite of mine). The pickled okra is also gone. However, we have a surprisingly strong supply of corn in various sized jars (for specific needs), so we probably won’t grow corn this year. I also found several jars of a wonderful blueberry compote Rebecca made for me. I had thought them gone when they were simply hiding behind some dill pickles.

A well-stocked larder is a wonderful thing. You can go to bed at night knowing that you won’t go hungry—something far too many people in the world can’t say. It also provides you with high quality food of precisely the type you want. However, in order to maintain the larder, you must inventory it at least once a year (twice is better) and make sure that what you think you have is actually what you do have. Let me know if you have any questions about the inventory process at [email protected].

 

Keeping Warm in the Cold Winter Months

Most people know that this has been one of the colder winters in recent memory. In fact, I’ve been taking enough heat about my views on global warming that I wrote a post entitled, Where is the Global Warming?. The effects of the cold have been serious enough to drastically raise the price of propane and to create local shortages. In fact, a few of my neighbors have been paying upwards of $6.00 a gallon for propane that normally costs around $2.50 a gallon. What this means is that a house that normally requires $300.00 per month to heat now costs $720.00. Most people can’t afford the price increase. More than a few people feel that the propane industry is engaged in price gouging. At issue is the need for propane to keep warm.

We heat our home for the most part using our wood stove. Wood heat is a lot better than propane because a wood stove will heat not only the air, but also the floor, walls, and ceiling. You get a mix of both direct and radiant heat. In addition, wood is a renewable resource. Carefully managed woods produce an abundant supply of wood that won’t ever run out as fossil fuels will. However, due to some unexpected circumstances, we’ve been using the furnace a bit this winter as well and feeling the pinch just a little.

There are some long term fixes for some of the problems with heating in the works. For example, there is a movement now to improve the standards for furnaces. The technology exists to improve the efficiency of furnaces from the current 80 percent to nearly 98 percent. In addition, newer furnace fans can save substantially on the electric bills. Unfortunately, even though the technology exists, you’d be hard pressed to find any furnaces like this for sale-they simply aren’t available today. If your home does require a new heating unit, you may want to approach a furnace installation business in your area to do this in time for the Winter months. There are lots of brilliant companies around who could fit a replacement furnace for you, so you just have to take the time to find a good local company. For example, learn about a Furnace Installation in Durham if that is where you are based. It’s as easy as that!

So what do you do to improve fuel usage in your home today? We’ve been experimenting with various strategies over the years. For one thing, we turn the thermostat way down at night-we’re talking 47 degrees. Blankets are a lot less expensive than fuel and we’ve actually found we sleep more soundly. I’m not sure anyone has ever done a study on the proposed benefits of sleeping cool (if you find such a study, please let me know). A programmable thermostat can get the furnace started up just a few minutes before you begin your day. If you haven’t already got a furnace installed or you need a new one, Boulden Brothers are highly recommended for Furnace Replacement. I do know that we both sleep better and feel more refreshed when the house is kept warm during the winter months. A furnace is essential in my opinion!

One of the more interesting aspects of most homes is that the bathroom actually warms quickly and is usually high on the priority list for getting heat. Even though the rest of your house is now at 47, you can run into the bathroom, close the door, and enjoy a nice warm early morning experience quite quickly. Just take your clothes with you (I certainly do) and dress inside. If you set up a schedule, other family members can just remain cozy in bed until it’s their turn to keep warm while dressing in the bathroom. Actually, it’s a technique that people have used for hundreds of years. I still remember my father telling me about running from the bedroom down to the kitchen where he’d dress in front of the woodstove in the morning.

We’ve found that running the furnace for one long period is far more efficient than running it over several short periods. An engineer who specializes in such things could probably produce the math required to tell you precisely why this is the case, but simply observing the monthly costs has shown us that long burns are more efficient. A long burn also provides some of the same radiant heat benefits that our wood stove provides. So, we get the house up to temperature in the morning and then turn the thermostat down while we work. When it’s time to sit and relax, we heat the house back up again and then turn it down about 2 hours before we go to bed (the house will most definitely maintain temperature long enough for you to get cozy beneath the blankets). Using this cycled method of maintaining house temperature can reduce the heating bill by as much as 30 percent when used correctly. Given that we work in our house, the cycled method does mean making comfort choices, but the savings are just too great to pass up. If you’re working outside the house, using the cycled approach is a given.

I doubt that there is a perfect solution to any heating problem during the winter months. If you are using central heating, make sure you’re covering up any gaps in the house that are letting in a draught. If you have double glazed windows, this should help with insulation too. On the topic of insulation, a friend of mine had a foam roof repair and he saved up to 50% on his heating bills due to the insulation benefits. This is something you might also want to consider if you want to lower the cost of your bills. The important thing is that you’re staying warm even when it’s cold outside!

Have you come up with any interesting solutions to the heating problems for your home? Have you ever tried a cycled approach? Let me know your thoughts at [email protected].

Calculating Your Actual Bulk Goods Store Savings

We grow most of what we eat—around 95% in fact. However, there are items we must purchase from the store like oatmeal. Even if we were to grow our own oats, purchasing the equipment required to turn it into oatmeal would be impossibly expensive. Sometimes self-sufficiency can go too far and end up costing you a lot more for a product that really isn’t different from what you get in the store. However, now you need to decide whether to buy the item in a bulk goods store or to get it at your local supermarket.

About once every other month, we go to the bulk goods store in our area and stock up.  Some items are incredibly less expensive than the same item at the local store. For example, it’s possible to buy 6 pounds of oatmeal for $3.80 at our bulk goods store. The same amount of product at our local store would cost around $11.10 for a $7.30 difference. If you have enough of these sorts of items to purchase and you can use enough of the product before it goes bad, then buying in bulk makes sense. Oatmeal will easily last several months when stored correctly, as will flour and many of the other items we buy at the bulk goods store.

It’s important to know just how many servings are in a bulk product. For example, a heart healthy serving of oatmeal starts with ¾ cup of dry oatmeal, which weighs in at 2.1 ounces. So, 6 pounds of oatmeal would supply about 46 heart healthy servings. Given that we eat oatmeal as breakfast cereal, use it in cookies, and rely on it as an alternative filler in dishes like meatloaf, 46 heart healthy servings is quite doable in 2 months. However, when you buy in bulk, think servings. If you waste part of the product, then you’re really not saving much (if anything). It’s tempting to think of the savings you get by buying in bulk, but those savings are only realized when you use all of the product.

Of course, the bulk goods store is further away than the local store. The actual difference in our case is 1.5 miles. It costs us about $0.14 per mile in gas to drive there in our car. When you add in maintenance and other costs, it adds up to around $0.32 per mile. So, it costs $0.48 to save the $7.30, which is still a good deal. However, when making a decision as to buying in bulk, you have to consider the cost of driving to the store. A lot of people forget to add this to the cost of buying in bulk and end up losing money instead of saving it. With the cost of driving to the bulk goods store in mind, the savings on that 6 pounds of oatmeal is now whittled down to $6.82.

Shopping at a bulk goods store also requires additional time and your time is worth something. Not only does it cost time to drive the extra distance, but bulk goods stores aren’t as customer friendly in most cases as local stores are. We have found that we spend about 15 minutes extra to use the bulk goods store. So, when you put that $6.82 savings into an hourly rate, we make $27.28 per hour by going to the bulk goods store. As far as we’re concerned, it’s definitely an acceptable rate of pay. However, you need to consider whether your savings actually warrant the cost in time. You could do something else in that time that could add up to a better hourly rate.

There is one more consideration when buying in bulk. You need to think about the source of the bulk goods and the freshness of the product when you get it. Some bulk goods are castoffs of local stores. In fact, they have have already passed their sell by date (or are close enough that you have to suspect the product will go bad before you use it). With this in mind, we won’t buy some items from a bulk goods store even if doing so would save us money. The problem is that the item is of inferior quality, too old when we purchase it, or a dubious purchase for other reasons. Always consider what you’re getting for your money before you buy it.

Bulk goods stores do fill an important niche in the purchasing picture for most people, but be sure to shop smart to get a real deal, rather than just a perceived savings. Let me know your thoughts about bulk goods stores at [email protected].