One Hundred Dollars a Month

I just about passed out when I saw all the free produce boxes this week.

For those of you who don’t know already, this all started a little over a year ago when I walked in to our local grocery store and asked one of the produce guys {whom I refer to as Mr. Produce Guy} if I could stop by once a week and pick up some vegetable scraps for my chickens.

Although he was a little hesitant at first, he finally agreed {others had promised to pick up scraps but never showed, or they would come only a handful of times and then stop coming and leave him with rotting produce sitting in the back}.

Since then, {with the exception of a few times when we were on vacation}, we have picked up the produce as agreed to each week {I’ve always let him know ahead of time if I was not going to be able to pick it up}.

The salvaged produce we bring home is taken off the shelf the same morning we pick it up. The produce is simply the cast offs from the produce department as they re-stock their shelves and pick over their produce for their customers each morning.

After all fresh, quality produce sells. Bruised, expired, and moldy berries do not.

For those of you wondering why don’t they just pick through the containers and pull out the stuff that’s still edible, the answer is easy. It’s more cost productive for the store to just throw it away.

Some stores compost their produce, some are willing to give it to food banks if they will pick it up, and others simply toss it in a dumpster. Each store if different.

My store lets me pick up the scraps. And I’m grateful. I cannot imagine how much all of this food would have cost had my family if I would have had to pay for it.

~Mavis

Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?

Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.

If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.