Hives in the Eggs Section

As a family that cooks almost everything from scratch you can imagine how many eggs we go through a week. Three dozen. When the price of groceries started to go through the roof you can probably visualize my breaking out into hives standing in front of the eggs section looking at the soaring prices. As I regained control of my body from shock I grabbed three dozen, and these are natural free range eggs, so the pricey ones, squeezed my eyes shut and put them into the cart. I didn't look at them for the rest of the shopping trip - even when I checked out.

I decided that there must be an alternative. Aside from obtaining a flock of 50 hens myself I had remembered seeing a sign for "2.00 natural eggs" at the farm on one of the back roads to town. I live in a semi-rural area where "town" is about 30 minutes up the road. There are a lot of homes in the country, peppered with a few farms here and there. I stopped in to talk to the lady about her eggs. I wanted to know what she feed them and if they were truly free range or natural. Lo and behold, my friends, they were! This touched off a 45 minute visit where my girls and I got a tour of the farm, the chicken coop, fed the chickens, and read the supplemental seed bag. These eggs are a free range as you can get! They just aren't certified organic. Fine by me. I took two dozen that day. And to think I drove by that sign a million times. $2.00 a dozen for all natural eggs. Better than what I was paying at the store.

I was happy with the story. That was two weeks ago. I shared my story with my husband and did not think about it again. My husband comes home one day and tells me that he told someone the story and they said their parents have chickens, free-range & natural (shut-up!) and they have a surplus they throw away. What?! So Husband now gets two dozen from her - FREE. Yep, free.

The story gets better. So then Husband was working at a new fire station that he got transferred to and relayed the whole story again to someone and this guy he works with says - you guess it - "Hey, I keep chickens on my 12 acres to keep the mosquitos and ticks down. I have a surplus of eggs too. Want 'em?" What?! FREE. Yes, free, people. So Husband is getting two dozen from him a week.

So because I was distraught about eggs and looked for alternatives I now get four dozen all natural, free-range, close to organic eggs for FREE.

Okay what is the moral of this story?

Debt and/or Savings Strategy Step #6 - When you are not happy with the situation seek out alternatives and tell others about your plight. You never know where help might come from. And it might be free.