I put an alarm in mine.

This is why I recently raised my rates (electrician).  We just reached out to a WI farmer who sells down here in IL.  He will be coming down in November with a load of meat.  My deep freeze is getting a bit sparse for my liking.

Please don’t waste your money on food grade buckets.


Your local Chinese or hibachi restaurant throws away dozens of 5 gallon buckets used for bulk soy sauce, every single week.

Well here is what I know now…


We have to buy another chest freezer this weekend. I even had to fire up the spare fridge and freezer in the basement.

Three freezers here are full. We by sides of beef and whole hogs processed. Cut out the middle guy.

That bone better be good, you paid $20 a pound for it lol

Already been answered but tons more people are having animals butchered, less people want to work, much higher demand because the facility also buys local animals to butcher and sell.

I know the owners, they have a hard time getting people to work even though they pay well.  Working in a butcher plant is hard work.

Read OP’s OP to the wife and she confirmed it’s the same here.

She does all our shopping and it’s getting hard to find stuff. At prices we’re willing to pay anyway - it’s ridiculous.

Rotten food and expired dairy is a big issue too. She’s sitting here now scrolling through her Kroger app going “Holy crap!” As she’s pricing things.

If you take anything from my post, make it this: I just read an industry report that turkeys are likely going to be scarce this year. I suggest buying now or soon so you have it for Thanksgiving.

I'm a single guy feeding myself, which is difficult if you don't eat the same thing every day (and I just can't do that shit, kudos to you food prep dudes who can) or eating shitty frozen meals (and I hate those fucking things...they all seem to have a weird taste). It makes bulk or fresh foods difficult. The fresh/fit meals ready to go are an option, but after doing some spreadsheets and watching my expenses and weighing my option I figured out I'm at the point where kind of no matter what I do I'm going to spend $15 a day on meals...by the time I factor in ingredients, prep, etc. It used to be about $10-12, but the prices are soaring on the fresh stuff I normally eat (steak, chicken, fresh veggies).

Whatever I've done to shave that down has ended up in stuff I hated eating and food went to waste. So, figuring $15a day for meals, I've started buying a Subway power bowl for lunch (there's like 20 variations of this, so it doesn't get old). Fast, easy, low-carb and some of them are pretty tasty when you ditch that shitty bread.

Then for dinner, I'm picking up a meal-to-go from the scratch kitchens on the way home. Freshly made restaurant quality meal for around $7.95, often enough I have leftovers. Or, I can hit a taco truck and get 3 for $7.

I'm freed from buying groceries for the most part, spending the same money, with so much less fuss and time sunk into meals...and my calories are under control.

Pretty crazy I'm at the point where going out for every meal is sitting about where I used to be making everything myself.

Hanging or packaged weight?

Let’s keep this simple.

Demand keeps going up. Supply keeps going down (from these mysterious “supply chain issues” and other unknown factors).

We’re experiencing shortages of a bunch of different stuff, especially food.

What if the shortages don’t get better—what if they get worse?

What if, a few months from now, you walk into a grocery store and it is completely empty, except for the Beyond Meat?

What if the buying turns into panic buying?
What if...people think we are going to run out of food?

That is the nightmare scenario I am proposing. Shortages become so pervasive that people can’t get food or essentials. Inflation spikes to 20 or 30%—or higher.

It's within the range of possibilities.

My first piece of advice to you is to go to the grocery store and buy as much food as you can carry.

The first rule of panicking is to panic before everyone else does.
Go and spend $1,000 on essentials and store them in your freezer or pantry. I don’t ordinarily do this. In spite of having a pretty big house, there is not a lot of space to store stuff. We will make it fit. We made a big grocery trip over the weekend, and we will make another one next weekend. We will keep doing this until the house is completely full.

I mean, worst case scenario is that this never comes to pass, and you have a house full of food, and you eat it down over time.

My second piece of advice to you is to...sell stocks.
I’m getting the sense that the stock market is starting to get concerned about inflation, especially Friday’s gaudy “Producer Price Index” (PPI) number—which is up 8.3% over the last 12 months.



(When producers pay more to produce, we pay more to consume.)

If we get double-digit inflation, the stock market is going to go down. For sure. We are past the “fun” part of inflation and on to the “bad” part.
And the amazing thing is that it didn’t take long. And you can guess, the government’s response to massive shortages is going to be monumentally stupid, and make it monumentally worse.

The sentiment implications of civil unrest at grocery stores are not nil. For now, we have shortages in specific goods, and abnormally high prices in other goods (like meat), but soon, we will reach the tipping point, and hoarding will ensue. Hoarding is a natural reaction to scarcity.

Stocks are going to come under serious pressure.
So over the course of the next week or two, we are going to substantially liquidate much of the portfolio, unless it specifically pertains to inflation, or is part of a firm, long-term thesis.

I’ve been bullish for a very long time, but no more. Time to turn the ship around. There’s plenty of liquidity (for now).

Here’s the thesis: If inflation spikes well past 10%, the Fed is going to be forced into doing something about it, because they will be embarrassed.
I have always said that the Fed will not hike rates until they are embarrassed. If we have inflation well into the double digits, it will be clear by then that it’s not transitory (which you and I have known for over a year now).

The timeline of rate hikes will be pushed up substantially—maybe even immediately—and we’ll be looking at a huge liquidity shock to the capital markets. I hesitate to use the word “crash,” but you get the picture.

This will play out over the next couple of months. I have a feeling that things are going to get very ugly.

Let’s put it this way. Inflation has entered the public consciousness. Everyone is aware of it. First, it was merely a nuisance, and now, it is getting to be a problem. Wait for the first grocery store to run out of meat. Or bread. Or produce. And it makes the news. Kind of like a run on the bank.

I always say you have to have a big imagination in this business. The economy is poorly functioning, with labor shortages and shortages of raw materials.

A healthy economy is not plagued with shortages and dysfunction. And the trend is toward more dysfunction.
I tangentially asked for some inflation anecdotes from all y’all (hey, we are in the South) and boy did you guys deliver. Some incredible stories. I can’t share them here, but let me just say that if you could see my inbox, you would have a lot more conviction on inflation. It is not stopping, it is not going away, and it is only going to get worse, and it has the potential to explode higher.

I’ve spent some time talking about stocks, but we have not yet discussed the implications for the bond market. Well, it’s hard to imagine that Treasuries will stand still with inflation approaching 20%. Stranger things have definitely happened, but the bond market seems vulnerable here to me.

And credit: Remember that financial market risk is determined by the volatility of inflation. I can see an environment in which spreads widen dramatically. If you’re making markets in corporate bonds, this would be a good time to keep things close to home, and not carry a lot of inventory.

Volatility will spike, to VIX 40 at least. We’ll be having 2% daily moves in the index, or more. I am generally not a fan of long volatility trades, like VXX or VIX futures or options, but now is as good a time as any. We are in a higher volatility regime than we were in 2017, and we will go to yet an even higher volatility regime.

I am an inflation bull, but I no longer believe that it will benefit the capital markets. We are past the fun part. The next part could end with rationing. And Americans really, really do not like rationing. We haven’t even discussed the new vaccine order, which will result in millions of people leaving their jobs on principle. You think labor shortages are bad now.

In case I wasn’t clear earlier—go to the grocery store and load up. Unlike the stock market, there are no consequences to being wrong.

Same here.

By the time I buy what i need for a few meals I am at $100. Its nuts. Trying to eat right costs more than not. Should be the other way around.

I am off next week and do plan on smoking a brisket or a few butts and vac sealing and freezing most of it.

It just happened last year.  I remember going into the grocery store spring/summer of 2020 and seeing people literally fighting over the last few jars of spaghetti sauce as the stock boy was opening a box and trying to put them on the shelf.  I don't know what they were going to do with the spaghetti sauce anyway, because there wasn't a single pack of noodles left.

THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT.


We had our local farm swap last weekend. Adult chickens that have been $3-5 forever were starting at $20.00

I haven't been to the grocery store this week, but prices have come down over the past month or two.

Strip steak for $6.99/lb, 80/20 burger for $1.99, and so on. Most things at the grocery store are back where they were in early 2020.

Do you get up into central va any?The meat hook

I need that photo of the bed with all the chicken tenders on it for this one.
worries about panic buying. Suggests people engage in panic buying/neckbearding food. Brilliant!

@Naamah got it right.
Butcher/slaughter your own...
Give(sell) a man a fish(beef pork chicken) vs teach a man to fish (hunt, butcher/slaughter)

The alarms are cheap, I actually use 2 in mine.  It would be a huge hit if we lost our freezer and didn't know it.

You were one of the kids who helped the school get additional funding weren't you?

9 meals away from anarchy. With the economy being totally hosed, it seems to be more and more likely.

You're not wrong. Food is easier and cheaper to buy the bigger you go. When I got married my wife hated leftovers. It costs a lot to buy things in small quantities. Luckily now she's sees the utility and saw the savings- it took 20 years. We still aren't eating the same thing all week but she's all about buying the near non-perishable staples like rice, pasta and sauces, and some canned items.

Probably due to trucking everything in. Doubt they raise or grow anything of sustenance in or near Vegas except crushed dreams and regrets.

ETA: If it ain’t produced somewhat local to you, it’s probably going to get a high spike in cost from its source to market.

I don’t really make it that way much. Funnily enough when I got to the processor I asked if anyone had hogs and it turns out he raises them. He said it would be about $250 hanging for the hog he was killing today. Then another $130 or so to process. He said it would probably be 125-130 pounds processed. So around $2.25 when it hits my table.

I am tempted to do it. But I have to get another freezer this weekend regardless.

He should be worried about panic buying. It’s about to happen. Multiple news stories are hitting on it. The Facebook stories are starting to circulate and now Costco is placing limits.

I am afraid this party is getting started.

I paid 6.99 a pound for 80/20 ground beef last night. A couple weeks ago some groceries stores around here started limiting the quantities you could purchase again.

I feel bad for people that are trying to feed an entire family. I just have to worry about myself so it doesn't hurt my wallet too bad, at least for now.

Fantastic post. I agree with everything you wrote.

Best post in this thread.

We keep a deeply stocked pantry. The "grocery store" is in the basement.

New York Strip $8/lb on sale.
Picked up 2 4 packs.

agreed. realize that most of teh world spends 10-20% of their income on food. here inteh US 5% is average. with rising standard of living in china their 1.3 BILLION mouths will be spending more and we will be compeeting for that food. Be it in higher grain prices, or higher beef prices that the grain was fed to.

- buy a freezer
- buy a Foodsaver
- buy in bulk
- cook on the weekends.  Freeze your own stuff.
- eat what you like, relatively inexpensively.

Not to mention the horrible investment advice.

Its an opinion and one he backed up with his reasoning. I enjoy debate that is backed up by reasoning even if I don't agree with it myself. I think someone should put a rebuttal to his statements if they feel they can. I can't, I am not a stocks and bonds guy, I am a business guy who makes products and sells them. my data is restricted to what I am seeing and what choices I am having to make in my businesses to respond to what is happening in our nation.

I posted this two days ago. Interestingly enough the news today is that China just banned Crypto. I have played and made money off the crypto markets but stuff like this scares me. How long till our Marxist government decides to copy China? Maybe never, but I doubt it. Governments don't like things they can't control.

Just an interesting development on something we touched on earlier in this thread.

The local school district has served pizza for lunch the last 5 days according to our kids.  And horror of horrors no ketchup, mustard, and whatever else that comes in packets.  The packetpocolypse is kinda moot since pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza.

Went to the local Sam's last evening.  Out of TP except for the one-ply generic garbage TP.  Paper towels and kleenex were almost gone.  I don't need any TP since I got a couple of bales a couple of months ago when the bins were full and they had pallets of it stacked in the aisles.  Other than the paper products they were as fully stocked as ever.  There was plenty of the on-sale meat, staples, and canned goods she had on the list.      

If you keep a 3 to 6 month supply of stuff you buy regularly then temporary panic buying or legitimate shortages will hopefully pass before you run out.  Mormons preach keeping a one-year supply and they are right to do that.  

If you replenish your reserves gradually when stuff is readily available that helps smooth demand since you're not out competing for scarce stuff when scarce stuff is scarce.  So says Captain Obvious.      

It's also cheaper, if you buy large quantities when stuff is on sale and use it to bridge the gap until the next sale.  It adds up fast; if you do it right, you're basically never paying full price for anything.

It's hard to convince people that you can actually build a significant stockpile of food and supplies by spending less at the store, but all it takes is a little planning and diligent shopping.

I've always thought that Bitcoin would have been the perfect honeypot to find illegal activity worldwide.

Has mysterious origins, a lot of it is owned by the mysterious creator, has a ledger to track all the transactions.

Would just need to follow the network traffic via wallets to figure out who is paying for what and to whom.

I tell people it makes them more money than a savings account. But only a few actually think about it.

It’s hard to start buying in bulk because of the initial outlay. But once you have stock you notice the grocery bills going down.

But that isn't convenient.  What if I want to only go to the grocery store once every 2 weeks and buy everything I need then instead of going every couple days or when sales hit?  What if I don't want to write stuff down and make plans?  What if I only want specific brands or only the highest quality of stuff?  I mean when it comes to steak, its only the best for me or nothing...

Oh, and don't forget the GBPSE mantra.  Only the poors buy things on sale.  I can't be seen out and about with the poors...

There's lot of excuses that people make as to why they just can't be bothered.

Again? They just did that a couple months ago.

Large jiffy peanut butter jars went from 6.99 to 8.99 at the local fleet farm. 9.99 at grocery stores.

Fake news.

Apparently. Maybe they are serious this time? Or maybe they want to buy a bunch as the value drops?

China runs the world economy now and they are going to do what they want to push us to the brink.

Two days ago my Costco had pork loins selling for $2.29/lb.

A while ago they had a sale $4.00 off per package. I bought more than a couple and cut them up into smaller serving sizes and threw in my chest freezer.

I cook it in so many ways I feel like I'm Bubba in Forrest Gump talking about all his shrimp dishes.

Yea, definitely fake news. Everyone on here is full of it and prices aren't going up because you found some sales flyers for items that may not even be in stock.

That is the other thing I am considering, just buying more items individually at good prices and getting the cuts I want. For instance I am going to load up on that food city bacon. I dont know how long I can freeze it but it has to be a long while.

If these prices continue, fuck "deer season", every day will be deer season. Come at me, Joe.

There are also no regional variations whatsoever in a tiny postage stamp sized country like America.

I am used to seeing pork butts up here for $.99/lb once a month if not once a quarter.  I haven't seen any below $1.49 in probably over 6 months, and haven't seen below $2 in a couple months.

They banned crypto mining months ago.  Now they banned crypto transactions.

So before you couldn’t mine it but still could buy and sell it.  Now you can’t buy or sell any crypto, no crypto transactions period.

They did this so people couldn’t move capital out of the country as easy.  China is having serious financial issues and they are “plugging” holes in a sinking boat.

Bacon here is up to $10/lb in regular stores.  Sams has Wrights brand for $7/lb and I refuse to buy it, let 'em choke on that shit at that price.  

Oh yeah, "move to a free state" they said.  Coming soon to your so-called "free state".

lolz.  

FJB and 'da hoe