Has The Economy Effected Your BBQ Decisions?

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Yes it has. I have been buying meat on sale and discounted. More chicken and pork hardly any beef besides ground round. Gearing up for the garden this year. To help cut cost.
 
Pretty much given up on buying beef for any reasonable amount, have switched almost exclusivly to pork and chicken - but still do about 1 brisket a year as well. I have a hard time mentally justifying paying more than $2.99 for any meat, let alone all the stores wanting $4 to $10 per. lb. for cuts of beef.

I also stock up when I do find a sale - I still got two hams in the freezer from christmas time that I got for 0.99 per lb.
 
I don't believe we are living in hard times.  I believe we are living with stupid people.

A Starbucks on every corner?  People ordering pizza to their house 3 times a week?  8 year-olds walking around with cell phones?  New cars and trucks every two years?  Hard times?

We are probably living at the end-time of a false prosperity which people should never have believed in the first place.  Nothing political here?  There is plenty of blame to go around for those who want to point fingers.

The occasional steak when I was growing up was a round steak or maybe a chuck?  Chickens were either grown or bought live and slaughtered. How many here remember raising rabbits?  For food? Actually, beef was not the predominant meat in this country until the World War II era!

On my relatives' farms?  Cash was short.  Food was in plentiful supply. Hogs, sausage, bacon and hams were abundant, and all done on the home place. Lots of chicken to eat and some excess eggs were sold.  Milk came from real cows with cream left over to sell. Hacking ice out of ponds in the spring would earn us home made ice cream.

By today's standards, I guess we would be considered poor?  Not so!  We were fed, we worked hard, and we were happy.

Yes, we hunted and fished.  My dad taught me to use a rifle and a shotgun at what would be considered a criminal age today.  He also taught me to make the first shot count because it was the most accurate shot.  Believe it or not, ammo cost money, even back then.

Even if city folks spent more time reading grocery specials?  Stocking up when things are on sale?  Never paying full retail?  Rather than that $5 coffee at Starbucks?

No, we are not living in hard times?  I think we are just beginning to taste reality.

Good luck and good smoking.
 
This is all true, but you can't turn back time and there is no way short of a collapse of the government that could bring back those more sensible times.

My neighbor tells me of how he would bring his rifle to school and give it to the teacher for safe keeping. After school, teacher would return the rifle and he would hunt deer on the way home. Try doing that today.
 
Our preacher would go duck hunting with us on Saturday.

Then he would say that he expected to see our shining faces in church on Sunday.

But, he was a helluva a guy.  A real man teaching that....

Oh well, no need to get the post deleted.

Good luck an good smoking.
 
One thing I'm addicted to besides buying/smoking/grilling food is to buy Accessories and paraphernalia. I would go to gander mtn. On my Saturdays off, I would buy things like wood chips, rib racks , rubs, cures, the sky is the limit as to what I would leave with... Most of the time spending 100+$
Now on my Saturdays off I drive from thrift store to thrift store. Believe it or not I can find lots of cool cooking tools/pans .( Even found a meat slicer the other day).. Cast iron fri pans .
It's an idea I wanted to mention
 
One thing I'm addicted to besides buying/smoking/grilling food is to buy Accessories and paraphernalia. I would go to gander mtn. On my Saturdays off, I would buy things like wood chips, rib racks , rubs, cures, the sky is the limit as to what I would leave with... Most of the time spending 100+$
Now on my Saturdays off I drive from thrift store to thrift store. Believe it or not I can find lots of cool cooking tools/pans .( Even found a meat slicer the other day).. Cast iron fri pans .
It's an idea I wanted to mention
Around here thrift stores are very lean. People are holding on to the better items and holding garage sales. Thrift stores are "hawked over" by professional flea marker sellers.
 
I get annoyed at fixed,rigid attitudes to food & pricing.People in my city pay over the odds for protein because they cant or won't cook outside of what they know. A $20 shoulder of goat fed me for 3 nights,braised slow with tomato ,red pepper,but end of a bit of pancetta,1/2 bottle red wine left over from night before + big bunch of chicory, chilli ,herbs out of my garden my own bacon. So maybe $30 for 3 dinners.Thats one thai takeout with delivery at my neighbours !

I drive 30 minutes from my weekender to buy EVO at the farm gate,$200 for 20 litres in a plastic drum. Pressed on the farm
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. $ 19 A litre in the store minimum.

Share it around my circle of friends  at cost. Other people give me " why bother" or "we only buy imported EVO ". Go ahead but it may not actually be EVO from our European friends & your paying $25 & up for a fancy bottle with a picture of some Italian guys house on the label! But dont whine about your cost of living.

Lot of really spoilt people who got a hell of shock when things went sour here.We have it much better than a lot of countries too boot.
 
No it hasn't changed how I BBQ. I may not go out to eat as often. But The price to BBQ Stuff is way cheaper then eating out so I still do the same thing I was before. Get a $20-$30 cryo pack of butts and smoke them up. Get several meals out of it for my family of 6. Can't beat that price per meal.
 
I get annoyed at fixed,rigid attitudes to food & pricing.People in my city pay over the odds for protein because they cant or won't cook outside of what they know. A $20 shoulder of goat fed me for 3 nights,braised slow with tomato ,red pepper,but end of a bit of pancetta,1/2 bottle red wine left over from night before + big bunch of chicory, chilli ,herbs out of my garden my own bacon. So maybe $30 for 3 dinners.Thats one thai takeout with delivery at my neighbours !

I drive 30 minutes from my weekender to buy EVO at the farm gate,$200 for 20 litres in a plastic drum. Pressed on the farm
icon14.gif
. $ 19 A litre in the store minimum.

Share it around my circle of friends  at cost. Other people give me " why bother" or "we only buy imported EVO ". Go ahead but it may not actually be EVO from our European friends & your paying $25 & up for a fancy bottle with a picture of some Italian guys house on the label! But dont whine about your cost of living.

Lot of really spoilt people who got a hell of shock when things went sour here.We have it much better than a lot of countries too boot.
The" lot of countries" also are worse off now because our economy went sour. Today everything is globally connected. One country makes poor decisions and the world suffers.
 
Yes,

It has changed how I BBQ.  My friend and I buy large cuts of meats now.  We break them down into the smaller parts.  We buy a case of pork bellies and make our own bacon, which usually ends of being a total cost per pound of about 5 $ after adding up all the ingredients.  Where can you buy good bacon for that price?  Heck the cheap stuff at the grocery is 7$ a lb.  

I don't have to worry about charcoal because I have a stick burner and a pretty nice supply of wood.   If you can buy primal cuts I do recommend it.  Not only do you usually get a better deal but you also get the experience of breaking it down into the smaller cuts of your choice. 

We also make our own sausage (thanks to the forum for all the good recipes and techniques) which helps with costs. 

Yes,  I do agree with a lot of the post on this thread about living above our means.  I hear people around me complaining about how hard it is all the time as they drink there 5$ coffee.  haha.  I ask them if they have ever made a loaf of bread?  Or have then ever made there own peanut butter?  How about making your own laundry detergent, have you tried that?  

Oh well, off my soap box.  I have many things to be thankful for and one of them is this forum!

Aaron.
 
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This is all true, but you can't turn back time and there is no way short of a collapse of the government that could bring back those more sensible times.

My neighbor tells me of how he would bring his rifle to school and give it to the teacher for safe keeping. After school, teacher would return the rifle and he would hunt deer on the way home. Try doing that today.
Unfortunately it's all of the unsustainable wants and needs of these supposedly more sensible generations everyone is reminiscing about that caused our economy's issues. And current and future generations will be tasked with picking up the pieces.
 
I normally stick to commenting about my own deal in my own country,
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BUT I can't see the logic in the "unsustainable wants & needs" etc. I going to let this slide,its a food forum after all .
 
I'm with Martin. I was raised dirt poor, 1 of 6 children. Didn't have much through the majority of my adult life either but I didn't know any better and was happy as can be. Now that I have a good job and don't want for anything I still live like my upbringing taught me....Frugally. For the first time in my adult life I'm going to grow a garden. I've learned various forms of food preservation and I plan on using these skills to make life easier than it already is because I know that this won't last. It won't matter though, you gotta keep keepin' on, there is no other option.
 
I'm with Martin. I was raised dirt poor, 1 of 6 children. Didn't have much through the majority of my adult life either but I didn't know any better and was happy as can be. Now that I have a good job and don't want for anything I still live like my upbringing taught me....Frugally. For the first time in my adult life I'm going to grow a garden. I've learned various forms of food preservation and I plan on using these skills to make life easier than it already is because I know that this won't last. It won't matter though, you gotta keep keepin' on, there is no other option.
But when you try to pass that on to your kids, all you get is, aw dad you told me that already....how you had to walk to school twenty miles through the snow. Got a text, talk to ya later....
 
We got a softer landing here than the USA & Europe but a lot of people still got hurt.I think we are the 20th ranked economy but the 50th by population. WE are always going to be following the big 5 economies especially China which takes billions of our mining exports.

Bit hard to watch on without any control when Lehman Brothers implodes etc or the Greek thing. Then again the little guy doesnt have much clout anywhere. One thing I can control is what I spend which is really where this whole thread is coming from.
 
It's not a matter of if, but when will the house of cards tumble.
When it happens, it's not going to be pretty.
This isn't 1929, back then, for the most part, people knew how to take care of themselves, yet many still suffered greatly!!!!
What's going to happen to a population where many can't understand the directions to microwave their sodium-rich quick-fix dinner, let alone grow or can or otherwise preserve their own food???!!!

Prepare the best you can, and hope that's enough, but I have a feeling that legions of very hungry people will be a force that's nearly impossible to reckon with!!!!

~Martin
 
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i dont understand the woman of today,   drive 100 miles to save 50 cents a pound on meat.

I I DONT THINK SO Darlin, go to the meat locker here in town and give me that extra cash you would have spent, ill put it to good use.  more beer comes to mind
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It's not a matter of if, but when will the house of cards tumble.
When it happens, it's not going to be pretty.
This isn't 1929, back then, for the most part, people knew how to take care of themselves, yet many still suffered greatly!!!!
What's going to happen to a population where many can't understand the directions to microwave their sodium-rich quick-fix dinner, let alone grow or can or otherwise preserve their own food???!!!

Prepare the best you can, and hope that's enough, but I have a feeling that legions of very hungry people will be a force that's nearly impossible to reckon with!!!!

~Martin
I agree with your thinking. Just think if the power goes out and there is not any petroleum available. We have such poor infrastructure in place. There will be no place to hide.
 
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