I'm a geek, so I use an inventory management system for my fridge (and pantry). It does a lot of things, but the thing I notice just after going grocery shopping is the cost of each product over time. Many of my food costs are going down over time (and they were already pretty low to begin with). And I don't mean it's going down after adjusting for inflation, or it's going down because one psckage is 20% smaller and 10% less money. No, I'm taking the price per pound is decreasing. I stock up when things are on sale, I use coupons, and when something isn't on sale, I'll choose an alternative (e.g. when chicken is not on sale, I'll buy pork). Vegetables are an exception. They are seldom on sale and the price just generally rise with inflation. Then there are the things with graphs that are all over the place, like onions. It's the one vegetable that has substancial sales. Normal price is a little over $1/lb. Today bought 12 lbs and paid $8.67 after tax. Every once in a while they have a 7 for $7 deal and they include 3lb bags on onions thinking nobody is going to buy 21 lb of onions, even if they are 33¢/lb. 🤠 I will! I might even do it twice! But those sales are rare and sometimes we run out of onions and pay full price, hence the graph being highly variable and with no obvious trend. At some point I will be working the system to the max and we'll bottom out on what we pay, but at the moment, I'm still enjoying seeing the cost go down. Make no mistake about it, getting these lower prices does have a cost. We have to chop up and freeze onions when I come home with a haul like today. I need to use coupons before they expire. I need to watch out for the sale prices on a name brand still being more expensive than the generic. I've basically memorized prices so I can easily spot a good deal. Perhaps most importantly, I need to make sure the food gets eaten before it goes bad.

Today's batch: gold rush I won't be getting these again for apple chips. They're small and require a lot of prep work as a result. These also seem like they're taking longer to dry out. There's no way they're going to be so much better that they're worth the extra hassle. But since we have them and aren't going to snack on 10 lbs of apples before they go bad, I'm drying them. Waste not.

I know this looks basically the same as my Granny Smith picture from a few days ago, but these are honeycrisp. What is interesting is that these distilled down to 1.2 lbs instead of 1.5 (and there was about 10% more input here too). I believe I kept these in the dehydrafor longer. I had a lot going on last night and wasn't really timing it. What difference does it make? These ones are crispier and the prior batch was more chewy. Also, I expect these would last several years if we could somehow restrain ourselves from eating them in that time. 😅 If I were trying to sell these and maximize profit, I'd dehydrate them less, tell people that the chewiness makes them superior, and say they'll last up to a year. Plus it'd look like people were getting more for their money, and they would be by weight, but not by nutrition or the number of apples that went into it. It's funny, if I never experimented with dehydrated apples in various ways, and measuring the results, I'd never know about these little tricks that can be pulled. I feel like it makes me an more informed consumer. Even if the market doesn't cater to those who want crispy, extra long lasting apples chips, at least I know what trade offs I'm making. #homestead #homesteading #food #prepping #prepper

When you think about people you know, most of them probably have jobs. A security guard at an airplane engine manufacturing plant, a cook, software engineers, a mechanic, a painter. This is true in America as it is in most places around the world. So how can people say, with a straight face, that America doesn't produce anything? These things don't count? Does value only come in the form of manufacturing physical products, perhaps which are bought by the common person? Look, I get that the US buys more than it sells. I'm not disputing that. But to say "nothing" is produced there is pretty... uninformed at best. #ShowerThoughts

On my mind: sm I a producer? Have I ever been? In the past: I ran a sofware security practice. I provided services, but all the companies I helped produced software (and sometimes hardware). Now: I contribute to many open source projects. I write scripts to make self-hosting easier and repeatable. I make open source hardware, but I don't play salesman, so most people don't know about it. I don't think that really counts without the sales pipeline. It's not making people's lives better if it mostly just sits on the shelf. I feel like I need to partner with a salesperson who can tell people about the cool shit. Not people who don't care about open source tech, but self-hosters who want their life to be easier and/or more secure. Then we cold both go from non-producer to producer.

It just dawned on me where that expression comes from. Sunrise. Up until now I was asleep. You could say, I was in the dark. Now I am enlightened. If you don't see all the connections here, you need to wake up Words are fun!

Does it require a 3rd party? Is it democratically controlled? How much effort does it take to maintain? These are questions you should ask yourself about all the technologies you use.

1 peck of apples: - is a quarter bushel - weighs about 10 lbs - dehydrates down to just under 1.5 lbs In this case, I used Granny Smith apples from my local orchard. No acid or other anti-browning ingredients, no preservatives, just apples. Costs: - 3 hours on my time - $20 in apples - $1.5 in power - $1 in gas money - some wear & tear on the dehydrator And that's why I only make them for me and my household instead of trying to sell them. People who want dehydrated apples can either make them themselves or pay $1.50-2.50/oz. Even at minimum wage, my costs would be $2.81/oz. I do it because they're delicious, and I want to be more self sufficient. I'd be able to make these without supply chains, a motor vehicle, or even electricity if it came down to it. I do buy the el cheapo apples from the supermarket sometimes, and that makes it a little cheaper, but I also want to make sure my local orchard stays in business. So I'll make mine and you can make yours. 🙂😋 Like tips & pics about dehydrating? Encourage me to post things like this more often. 🤙 #prepper #prepping #homestead #homesteading #DIY #food #dehydrated #apples

Tonight, we ball

"Children blame their circumstamce Men change their circumstance." -- Kuei Lin

In the immortal words of Socrates: I drank what?

@kidwarp Do you set an alarm clock to wake up at a particular time every day?

Unsolicited feedback about @beejay Her jerky is good and she has good support after the sale. Story time. A while back I bought some jerky from her, mainly to support a fellow midwesterner who is actually making things. My Nostr DMs never received, but I placed an order by email and that worked fine. When it arrived, I wanted to share it with the household, but someone here has food alergies and an ingredient was "soy sauce". Uh oh. Does it have BHT, disodium EDTA, MSG? No idea. But I hit up beejay and had an answer within minutes. None of that junk was in there. Just real food. So we all got to enjoy the snack. I'm usually very cost concious, so I go for the least expensive option at the grocery store, which is a fraction of the cost of handmade jerky. But if you want the high end stuff, try beejay. She's the real deal.