Every week during the growing season, my husband and I cart our family’s grassfed meats to market. We sell pork chops for $11 a pound; ground beef goes for $7.50.
Every week, we meet someone who tells us the prices are too high.
In fact, at those prices, the average net income for our family members has maxed out at $10 per hour. But part of our job is to hold our chins up and accept weekly admonishment for our inability to produce food as cheaply as it can be found in the grocery store.
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One of the barriers to homemaking, whether supported by cottage industry, substistance farming, or a partner's income, is the cost of necessities. How do we balance buying food from local farmers, which costs more than meat and produce from the grocery store, with the frugality necessary to live on a single income (or less)? At the same time I want to support the homemaking efforts of my local farmers, I can't bankrupt my own household in the process.
I don't have a great answer to this one; if anyone stopping by has ideas, please comment below. We've been trying to buy certain things (eggs, canned goods, some produce) from the farmer's market nearby. We are also considering participating in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, where you basically buy a "share" of a farm's produce for the year, and get a certain amount each week). The problem is, the CSA will eat up pretty much our entire produce budget, so if we get a lot of collard greens, we'll have to figure out how to eat it. On the other hand, it might make for some interesting, outside our comfort zone cooking.
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