Posted by Dave on August 31, 2010
There are two main goals that I strive for – the first is a healthy body, the second is a healthy bank account. To me, both can be viewed as planning for a good future. From a health standpoint, I watch what I eat, I exercise regularly, get enough sleep, and anything else I can do to maintain an excellent level of fitness, as well as to look good with my shirt off (I’ll admit, I’m a little vain). From a financial standpoint, I watch what I spend, pay my bills, have savings and stick to my long-term plan that I have set out. It’s interesting though, when a situation arises when I go against both of the goals that I hold so important the vast majority of the time, which is what happened this weekend…
The problem arose because I love ribs, and the city I live in happens to have an annual Ribfest that involves copious amounts of food and beer from the main sponsor of the event. As I previously mentioned, I love ribs (a lot) – and I ate a lot of food at this event, including something called “butterfly” potatoes, which I had never tried before but would highly recommend (it is basically a mound of super thin-sliced potato that is freshly deep-fried) and other food items that I would put into the same nutritional family.
At the end of this festival, I found myself incredibly full, and significantly poorer. The ribs were $22 per rack, which I had several, beer was $5 each, which added to my bill, and I ate several other things, which I would not classify as “cheap”. All were fantastically tasty, but definitely not healthy.
For the weekend, I really didn’t do anything to get me closer to either of my goals. Did I feel bad though? Not really – I had a great time. There was good music, wicked good food, and really good beer 
. At the end of the day, I guess it all comes down to knowing I’m not perfect.
I’d love to live on $6,000 per year like Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme, I would be able to retire significantly sooner than I am track for now. I would also love to effortlessly sport a 6-pack on the beach, but I also like beer and other “bad” food, which limits my ability to achieve this goal. I can recognize that spending around $150 in a weekend on beer or food is not getting me any closer to retirement, but at the same time this is an event that I look forward to all year – I don’t regularly spend that kind of money, or eat that much food, and I will be able to make up the losses over the next few weeks.
So, I didn’t really beat myself up over 2010 Ribfest, I’ll just save some money elsewhere in my spending and I’ll just walk an extra few kilometers over the next few days to burn off the extra calories (which probably number in the thousands) that I consumed over the weekend.
Do you have any similar situations where you knew something wasn’t really going to help achieve a goal, but did it anyway? From my experience these tend to be the most fun (and usually expensive) times.
Posted by Canadian Dream on August 26, 2010
The kids start back to school next week around here and that means buying ’stuff’. Some it makes sense like new shoes since my oldest is entering Kindergarten this fall and he out grew his last pair. I would like to take the credit for keeping our over all school related bill low, but that actually was my wife.
First off she did not buy any new clothes for the start of school, instead she knows our son tends to our grow this clothes by about October. So when on vacation she picked up some pants and shirts in the next size up on clearance. So that was taken care of over a month ago. The added advantage here is this is my son’s first time at this school so having ‘new’ clothes is rather pointless as he has no friends there to impress.
Then when the school supply list arrived she went shopping for the few items we didn’t have around the house such as:
Shoes – $18.92 (splurge item to get the Transformer pair)
Plastic school box for markers, etc -$2.26
Two Sets of Markers – $5.00
Large Scrapbook – $3.29
School Fees – $13 classroom, $4.50 agenda, $4.50 bus fees for class trips
Total $51.47
So after the splurge item of ‘cool shoes’ the next biggest cost item on the list was school fees. Overall I’m not complaining about the agenda since I know that is done at cost. I’m even ok with fee for class trips but I don’t understand what is included in the classroom fees. So my wife sent a note to the teacher asking so what is up with that, but I haven’t heard what the answer is yet.
Since we are new to this ‘back to school’ shopping I’m not sure how that total ranks compared to other people or what ideas people have on saving money on back to school shopping. So all you experienced parents out there, how much did you spend this year and do you keep you ‘back to school’ shopping bill down?
Posted by Dave on August 24, 2010
I picked up 272 pounds of beef from a farm on Saturday, which cost me $1,088 ($4 per pound). I recently purchased a freezer (9 cubic feet) to put the meat in. Which if used only for this load of meat would increase the cost per pound marginally, but it will get additional use over the years that I own it, reducing the cost of purchasing it. Other than the freezer, I have basically pre-purchased most of a year’s worth of meat for my wife and I. We will still probably buy chicken and pork (mostly bacon), but not significant portions of it. There are a few reasons why I decided to buy my meat straight from the farm rather than going through the grocery store:
- It was cheaper: My wife and I have significantly increased our meat consumption over the past few months, as I discussed in a previous post around paleo/primal eating. Eating this way was having a very positive impact on our health, but was significantly more expensive than eating beans and rice a few days a week. The $4 per pound its cost is less than the majority of cuts of meat we were able to find at the store, even when it was on sale.
- I know where my food comes from: I visited the farm where my meat came from and seen the herd that my animal was coming from. When we went and picked up our frozen meat, we were given a tour of the farm. We walked the pasture that the animals were grazing in, discussed with the farmer his philosophy on the business he was in and saw the condition that my food grew in. Couple this experience to what I had been eating – that meat had probably grown up in something like this, which requires significant antibiotics. Likely because of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions and also because the grains that the cattle are being fed make the animals sick. Instead my beef had never been given drugs – it grew up on a pasture with plenty of room.
- My beef is “green”: Part of the problem with conventional farming is that it requires significant resources to produce a pound of meat. It takes a lot of energy to create the grains that are fed to livestock. The growing of the grains have a significant impact on the environment from tilling of the land, as well as the inputs such as seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. At some point in the future this is going to become a significant problem, which is discussed in two books I’ve read “The Vegetarian Myth” and “Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization”. Instead I bought grass-fed and grass finished-meat. The grass just keeps growing with little inputs. When talking to the farmer while walking through his field, he noted that the land we were walking on was essentially bare 2 years ago when he started farming. Currently, it is an incredibly lush pasture that supports his herd of cattle – this farmer is actually helping the land rather than removing needed topsoil.
- It is Healthier : Grass-fed beef has been found to have a higher quantity of conjugated lineolic acid, which is thought to have anti-cancer properties.
These were the main reasons why I bought the beef from where I did. As a side-note, if you were to purchase the same amount of meat from a farmer who raised their animals in a grain-fed feedlot, you could save approximately 50% over what I spent. So, although the beef I bought was significantly cheaper than what can be found at the grocery store, it is possible to find cheaper meat straight from the farm. I chose to pay a premium for grass-fed beef because of the reasons noted above.
Do you buy your meat in bulk? Do you take an interest in where your food comes from? Do you pay a premium for organic or other specialized food?
