The Eight Dollar Caulie
Posted: April 9, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 Comments »
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We are going to have to seriously rethink frugality. All the old good advice is crumbling under the weight of modern life – like buy second hand, eat frresh foods…especially the latter.
I was thinking of thinking of cauliflower cheese for dinner. A good frugal meal if ever there was one, especially if you make the cheese sauce yourself. After all, a kilo of good plain cooking cheese can be had for around $7, and that makes a lot of cheese sauce.
I was all gung ho until I got to the fruit and vegie aisle, and discovered some rather small cauliflowers (for my lot I would need at least two) priced at $7.99 per caulie. What??
Visions of a good cheap healthy meal flew out the window. A couple of bags of frozen caulie would be cheaper. So much for eating fresh and staying healthy and saving the planet blah blah.
According to the Monthly Inflation Gauge, its all due to floods and natural disasters, it’s only temporary, and is balanced out by falling rents and other household supplies. What do they mean by that? No one I know has noticed any fall in rents, and if by supplies they mean electricity and water, everyone knows that’s going up. Lies, damned lies and statistics.
Well, at least one piece of traditional advice still holds good. I have half a dozen caulies in my garden, at a cost of $3 for the punnet of seedlings. If I’m spared another flood, that should be a good return on my investment.
Ha! Cauliflower is cheaper here, but not by much. Cheese, however, is at least $8 for half a kilo, $6 for half a kilo on sale, $5 on a great sale.
Frozen vegetabes are actually pretty good for you. The veggies are flash frozen as soon as they’re picked and so their freshness is kept. You must be sure to steam them in a double boiler though to maintain the goodness of the nutrients.
Agree about the frozen – its just that fresh is so lovely. Ended up buying frozen for the cauliflower cheese anyway. Interesting to see price differences around the world – speciality cheese is really expensive here, but plain cheddar is cheap. Thanks for the comment, Steph, hope others weigh with comparison prices from other places.
Falling rents? Awesome.. if you are moving. Not so helpful if you got a place at the exorbitant rent BEFORE the floods. My landlord probably has good reason to put it up actually given that there was floods in every direction around us, but us.
Except of course for the tree.
Anyway. We do need to rethink frugality. Will add my thoughts on it later. Once I have had them. =P