Do a trial run, like a thirty day challenge. As they say; “necessity is the mother of invention.” You’d learn a lot by just trying it out and being open to other possible avenues when they arise. Maybe it’s possible to barter time or services for a discount on grass-fed beef or other meat if you form a relationship with the farmer. At least maybe get a discount on a cancelled order or some of the odd bits that someone else didn’t want with their whole/half cow. Don't overlook resources like friends or acquaintances that hunt or fish. Many will be happy to supply you with some venison suet or less desirable cuts--read slow cook, meat-on-the-bone type stuff. That said; consider getting a fishing license yourself and trying it out if you've got the time. Getting free game meat is not as farfetched as you might think if you’re open to it and willing to take advantage of a windfall. I hunt and fish myself but was given about 30-40lbs of moose meat this fall from a friend of a friend. I know of other hunters that can be a little wasteful with things like organ meat and would be happy to save it for someone who wanted it. If you give it a try and get the word out within your circle, you might be surprised at the resources and help that can be available.

Awesome!!! Try and find pastured eggs. Potatoes are cheap. 3-4 pastured eggs have a nice chunk of fat with them. Very, very cool!!!!

This family did it and blogged about it.. check it out here! and Best of Luck!!

Learn to love the bits of animals others don't and you'll have no problems getting enough food. You should be able to get suet etc. and render your own fats. So easy, so tasty and so cheap. And then get the organ meats. It doesn't have to be liver every day - I get grassfed beef hearts at the market for $2 a pound and it's tastier for stews, stir-frys, ground etc. In fact if you can grind your own, you can throw in some other organs too. Boiling bones gets you all that gelatinous goodness. I would definitely say it's better to eat well, and I'd be very surprised if you were hungry. Sometimes the simplicity of a steak is tempting, but at 5 times the price it's usually worth the effort of working in the kitchen to prepare something else.

There's absolutely no difficulty getting enough calories, and it's really eye-opening the relative cost of 'luxuries' which can make them that more exciting. At the store, everything is expensive. That's not what food used to cost - how do you think we survived all this time?

The one thing I would see as taking some creativity would be cooking fats. I know farmer's market butter is wildly expensive. If your beef supplier can give you lard, or if you can render schmaltz from chicken skins or render the fat off a hunk of pork belly that would be helpful. In California we get olive oil at our farmer's market, but I'm sure you don't get that up in the NW.

And actually your condiments I would think are pretty easy to make. Maybe not thai fish sauce, but things like salsa, gremolata, hot sauce, and chimichurri sauce can be made at home. If you ever come across small 8oz or 4oz canning jars at a garage sale or something, I find them super helpful for storing homemade condiments and sauces. EDIT: Canning jars are also awesome for storing rendered animal fats, since they're heat resistant.

Hey, congratulations! Great project.

If you're lugging heavy groceries around in the city - and on public transit - you might want to take a rolling suitcase with you. Makes it all so much easier!

Congrats! I stopped shopping at the grocery store a year ago and have never looked back.

The only difference is that I can get my meat/produce/dairy from the same farm, and they deliver it to me for free, once a week :D I don't drive so this is ideal for me! Maybe delivery is an option where you live, just in case you get tired of lugging your mutant root veg home hehe

I would love to be able to do more of this kind of stuff. My first concern would be if you are in a location to do so, but it seems you are. Secondly (and I know this from my parents living on a farm and buying and selling at farmer's markets), what's your budget for other things you used to buy at a grocery/supermarket? i.e.,

• Do you use paper towels, or linen?
• Can you use a drying rack to cut laundry costs?
• If you bought things like kombucha, can you make your own?
• Can you grow your own herbs in your apartment?
• In short, where else can you cut expenses creatively so you can put more into food if you need to?

We shop at the Food Coop and the farmers market almost exclusively, so it actually doesn't sound all that strange to me!

Of course, if you really don't want to step foot inside anything that looks like a "store", I understand--but really Food Coops are the BEST!

The only reason we go to a more "conventional" grocery is for eco-paper & cleaning products, which for some reason are cheaper there!

Our Food Coop sells locally grown grass-finished meat, eggs & dairy cheaper than the Farmers Market, so it works for us to split our budget accordingly. We spend $500 a month for 2 people (and a dog).

I know Portland has some great food coops:

http://www.peoples.coop/

http://www.foodfront.coop/

http://www.albertagrocery.coop/

I've done this for a few years with some success. It doesn't help that there is a fairly nice commercial grocery store 1.2 miles from my house (I take a couple cloth grocery bags and balance them on my handlebars on the way home). Because of this and my work schedule - the "only shopping at produce / markets" is not so feasible these days, but I look forward to coming back to that lifestyle some day.

However, when I have been successful on this before, it relied on the following two necessities...

1. KNOW your produce provider well. Many of our produce providers around my neck of the woods are running "Frutas Mercados" (Fruit stands) and many of them do not speak English. My Spanish is just good enough to buy the things that I need, and to ask where the items came from... but my frequent presence made me a "regular" and I was offered great deals on many items that I bought frequently. Usually berries and citrus come from my own state, while the green veggies and some other items come from South America and labelled as organic. I used to be fairly close to a Mercado that sold fresh chuccarones (fried pork rinds with fat attached) that were the size of dinner plates, absolutely awesome when doused with a no-beans chili.

2. Become a member of a meat share / co-op. This has resulted in drastic savings for my family in regards to quality meats. It's even better if you make good friends with the rancher that provides the meats to the co-op, in my circumstances my rancher gives me offal (tongue/heart/oxtails) for free because the majority of his customers do not want it.

This is a great plan! Living in wintry Chicago, I envy your resources! This is inspiring me to look into whether I could attempt this here.

But I would just add that even if you "gave in" and ended up spending, say, $50 at a conventional store once a month, you'd have reached better than 80% of your goal. Don't let perfection get in the way of amazing progress! In other words, you really can't fail here. Give it your best shot for the first month, and reassess as you go to see where you can improve or refine the process. I can't see a downside whatsoever, since at worst, you could abandon the plan and not be worse off than you are now. You have an ambitious goal, and it seems perfectly acceptable to transition into it, if that's what it takes.

On the other hand, nothing beats the focused energy of initiating a big, hard project to which you feel very committed, and you're doing your homework, so I predict an awesome result! I hope you'll revisit this thread in a couple months and report on your progress!

dsirty little secret: depending on where you live, cows do not graze on grass year round, certainly not in the winter. In the NE, true grass fed beef or lamb- first occurs around May.

But still better to buy from a local farm then from supermarket and their horrible fed lots.

As much as I have issues with Whole foods, I feel far more comfortable in their store, than in myy local Shop rite, etc that feels like a posion shop. I cook 99.99 per cent of my meals, so going to market in ther morning is rountine, though several local farms are still providing meat, eggs and winter veggies every two weeks at a pick up spot.

good luck