Has The Economy Effected Your BBQ Decisions?

[backyardsmokin]

I know I posted here before, but since then I have started looking at what my wife and I are spending on food and what we can do to reduce costs.  I am making sure that all that I make gets eaten and looked for those meats marked for quick sale at the local grocery store.  I take the cuts and freeze them for when I am ready, but usually they get cooked up within a few weeks.  I know this only saves a few dollars but every dollar counts. 

This past weekend I focused on what we are spending when we cook.  What I saw suprised me,  for the three of us (myself, wife and toddler) I was making 2 fully different dinners because my wife doesn't like what I cook.  I made flank steak, potatoes, and peas,  but she doesn't like flank steak (of course she has never tried it) so I had to make chicken nuggets, potatoes, and corn.

I have also cut out sodas, unecessary driving, and eating out as much as I can and then started making my own bread, taking PB&J sandwiches to work for lunch and carpooling so save as much as I can.

On an anecdote about the depression and economy.  My great grandparents lived in a small town where my great grandfather was the school principle and janitor, and my great grandmother was one of the teachers.  From what I have heard, was that during the depression everyone had a small farm, and people of the neighborhood either helped my great grandparents with their farm or paid them in vegetables/meat from their farms as paymrnt for their work at the school.  Too bad many communities don't pull together like that anymore.

 

[linguica]

  and in the 40's they had victory gardens.   My back yard looks like a small farm.

 

[smokeusum]

I sit here on a wonderful, cold Sunday afternoon with playoff football heading my way and absolutely nothing on my grill, no smoke wafting into the air making the neighbors jealous.  This is depressing.  Four days before payday and I simply cannot justify the extra money right now to smoke up some pig or cow. 

Right now I'm down in my supplies and need to reload, and some aspects of BBQ are somewhat expense over and above the meat.  I prefer to use Cowboy Brand Lump Charcoal, I prefer to use wood chunks instead of chips and I'm about out of extra heavy duty aluminum foil, the big stuff.  I feel lucky to have discovered doing proper barbecue and if I could I would do it everyday, but the reality of today's world is that I find I have to make smarter decisions for my family.

On a day when Obama has been sworn in for a second term and we teeter on the edge of a fiscal cliff the questions has to be asked,  "Has the current economy had an effect on your BBQ hobby?"

I actually started smoking to SAVE money and to occupy my time. It has done both. We've been hit pretty hard; gone are my weekends of loadin up my ponies and my (adult) daughter and hauling off for two to three days into the hills (after filling an F350 dually 4x4 with diesel, and enough store bought food plus meat to cook over a campfire, ice, Liqour ;) and anything else we may need - about $200 worth of crap) -- now, by Wednesday my (non-horsy) husband no longer asks "where you headed this weekend?" but "what're you smokin this weekend?" -- i am typically a woman of instant pleasure and last minute plans, I am enjoying the planning, research, preparing of smoking, and because I have a crazy issue regarding freezing (never, anything, EVER) I am learning how to re-invent what I smoke on the weekends to eat throughout the week (re-invent, because I have ALMOST the same issue with leftovers as I do about freezing!)

 

[wes w]

We are not rich by any means but a lot of times I'll take what we have left over to several families we know and give them the left overs. (usually a half butt)   I grew up in a giving spirit.   We were dirt poor growing up, but Mom and Dad always shared what we had.  We were blessed with a good garden, a hog every year and an old  jersey milk cow.  More chickens running around then you could shake a stick at.   Wild rabbits and tame rabbits to eat as well.   Homemade butter, cottage cheese, krout, liver pudding (never could eat the stuff, but sure ground alot of it).  Man I miss those days......

 

[tstalafuse]

We've been much more willing to jump on "manager specials" that can go in the freezer and to stock up on sale items. In fact, I go to the mark down section first.