One would presume so. Makes little or no difference to us.

Tonight's meal:

Boeuf Bourguignonne variation

Beef: $3-4ish (hard to say -from freezer, part of larger purchase but we usually freeze in approx $3 portions. this one looked on the larger side, I never pay more than $3/lb becasue there's always a BOGOF or similar sale on some cut or other, so I stock up) Onion 25c bacon 50c mushrooms 75c, stock cubes and flour negligable, let's say 25c. half glass of wine, 50c spaghetti $1, Asparagus $1 butter for asparagus 20c.

total cost approx $8 for a nice meal for 5. This is probably towards the expensive end of our range.

You're splitting $1 of asparagus between 5 people?

nah, three of us. but it was on sale too :) we ended up eating the full $1.50 worth, though, because it wasn't worth leaving a little bit to go off, even though it was more than we would normally eat in one serving. Asparagus is really cheap in Michigan -99c/lb is not an uncommon sale price.

Just stopped at the farmer on the way home ground beef 3.29 #

last night was mac n cheese (using spiral pasta rather than mac) made from scratch, with peas (frozen). pre-swim meet meal -not exciting but does the trick. pasta 70c, milk 50c, cheese $1.70, cornstarch 10c peas 50c $3 total. Post swim meet they had seconds, then cereal total additional cost $1. Plus there is enough left over for my lunch, not sure if anyone else took some for theirs. So that more than makes up for yesterdays overage (and yesterday's leftovers were my lunch yesterday :yum:)

that's a good price fresh from the farm. I'd pay that in order to support a local business and be confident of the quality. Unfortunately, the "local home business" option here is not so local, the price is nearer $10/lb because it's organic and I'm not so trusting of the supplier/their store. And it's on the other side of town and seriously inconvenient.

Yeah, it's funny around here. There are so many farms and some of them try the whole $10/# boutique, grass-fed, humanely smothered with a soft feather pillow thing, but no one up here has the coin to buy that, so those folks truck their stuff to NYC to the farm markets. Down there, where people are so wowed by carharts and calloused hands and a few burlap bags and wooden bushel baskets they don't really blink at the price, I'm guessing they feel the mystique of authenticity.

Mostly up here the small time farmers are raising on such a small scale that they don't really need to go the route of agribiz. The stuff is probably a lot better than anything from applegate farms because they're only raising seven or eight beefers or four or five hogs. Half of my friends raise an animal or two for food and then one or two more to sell. Some years when we are more flush we'll buy a half pig or 1/4 beef and store it in the freezer. It's anywhere from 2.85 to 3.50 a pound packaged. I think it was 1.70 hanging weight, but I might be wrong.

Anyway, it's cheap and you can go pet the thing all year and feed it too if you want. It's pretty transparent.

My junk mail today says fresh ground chuck is on sale at $1.79 this week. I may be stocking up if it really is the fresh and not the plastic tubes.

My sister must think I live in dire times. She sent me this. I offered to send photos of my pantry and freezer. But she's right. Because prices are going up after the COLA thing.
Dear old sis.
"I'm going to send you a check so you can stock up on groceries. Prices are going up more soon."
BTW. I just made Blueberry jam.

Chuck steak, or gravy beef or whatever you want to call it is near enough to $10/kg here which is roughly $5/pound I guess. I don't recall seeing it much cheaper than that for years.

Ground beef, no matter what quality is never any cheaper than that. In fact, the only way to get it at a reasonable price is to buy in bulk which is fine for most people I suppose, but not so good for old people living alone.

Groceries in general are just expensive here though. I'm pretty sure we've covered this before.

If you buy in bulk and store it in a freezer, I wonder what the energy costs add to the total cost of meat.

Depends if you're running the freezer anyway...... But freezers are not terrible energy-suckers because you don't open and close them all the time. We have two, one for longer term storage and one for things we might need several times a week. like ice cream :)

Asparagus yesterday was $3.99/lb here. !!!!

But sliced roast beef was $1- $2 a package, and 1 1/2 packages ($3 ish) fed 4 of us quite large deef dips for dinner, with enough for one left over for a lunch today.

If it's 3.99 it ain't going in the cart, that's for sure.

deef = bastard offspring of bull and doe? or cow and stag?

There's a wide range in freezer efficiency, but it probably costs between $150 and $200 per year in electricity for a typical 16 to 20 cubic foot chest freezer.