"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote:
>
> I don't pay
> full price at the supermarket though, as I can get big saving using a food
> warehouse (BJ's in our area). Why pay $4.99 a pound for pork loin when I can
> buy it and cut it myself for $1.89 a pound?

I don't know of any cuts of pork that cost $5/lb unless it's cured
pork. I pay $1.99/lb for center cut loin chops or a center cut bone-
in loin roast and may slice it into chops, same difference...
sometimes boneless center cut loin is $1.99/lb too. But when you buy
the entire loin there's a tremendous amount of waste, bone and fat...
so at $1.89/lb (a dime a pound less) there's is no savings, in fact
it's over priced... and you have to do all the butchering and spend
money on rewrapping materials to boot.

> Sheldon oftem mentions the cost of stocking a freezer since your money is
> tied up in inventory. He makes a good point, but you can save much more that
> you can make in a bank or money market with careful shopping. �Why pay $4.99
> for a container of ice cream when I can buy it on sale for $1.99? �If it
> sits in my freezer for four weeks, the ROI is better than bonds.

Ice cream is a poor example for long term freezing, packaged ice cream
is already deteriorated when you buy it, keeping it in home freezer
doesn't really preserve it. I typically buy ice cream at the local
Stewarts conveneinces store, each week they have a choice of three
flavors for Flavor of the Week on sale at $2.39... but I only buy ice
cream about three times a year so I'm not concerned about the price
anyway.

I still think it's silly to keep all those dollars worth of food in a
home freezer, not only is your cash tied up interest free but it costs
at least a buck a day to power that freezer plus amortizing the cost
of the freezer and any repairs. No one in the US needs to stock up on
meat, there's meat on sale every day, I'd much rather avail myself of
trhe store's freezer. And freezing tender cuts reduces them at least
one USDA grade, if not two grades... and if you're spending extra
dollars on fancy schmancy rewrapping then the hucksters got into your
wallet twice... and it's just plain dumb to waste valuable freezer
space on things like frankfurter rolls. I can understand arguing the
point about a freezer for convenience, but there is no money savings,
none. I can store more than enough food for convenience in my fridge
top freezer... and if you have a big family or entertain a lot it
makes much more sense to have two refrigerator freezers than one
refrigerator freezer and a separate freezer... extra fridge space is
much more often more convenient than freezer space. My vegetable
garden why I have the second refrigerator freezer, not because I save
money, I know there is no money saved in growing ones own veggies so
I'm not going to fool myself... it's a hobby, hobbies always cost
money, if it's making money it's no longer a hobby, then it's a
business. Meat collecting is not my hobby.

SHELDON