Dixie Chicks

[Beer can]

You don't have to use turbo tax, we did it the first year we did ours ourself. You can just get on the IRS website and do your taxes for free. Bunch of family members said well ours is to hard with the deductions and everything we have to take it to a tax preparer. Wife explains how easy it is and how Hnrblock, and the other ones we have just use programs, they don't know what they are doing either, program asks and tells you what you need to plug in and bam, your done, all for free. Ha ha, now she is doing multiple family members taxes cause they claim they are to dumb, she even does her parents who are a self employed wholesale bread bakery business with tons of deductions Lol, shouldn't have opened her mouth and said how easy it is.

 

[Ravynscroft]

I use TaxAct... free and very easy to use... and I get better returns...
One year I tried every type of tax preparer/site just to compare... TaxAct was easy and gave highest return, have used it ever since...

 

[Ravynscroft]

On a lighter note, I literally watched a pullet spat out her first egg in front of me in the run... I'm not sure who was more surprised, her, me or her 2 sisters standing next to her!

 

[perchie.girl]

I just did a beer run at Vons... Yea I know.... but late at night is the only time I can get a scooter that is charged up.

Out of curiosity I went down the frozen turkey isle to see if prices had gone up.... I just about lost it right there.

eighteen pound freerange organic turkey (stunned to see vons has em in the first plae) 94.00 Freaking a hundred dollars for a frozen turkey

I dont care if it was massaged by a Holy man with a bucket of oilive oil.....

I know the prices arent reflecting the disaster going on because of the virus.... but Dang....


deb

 

[vehve]

I don't know, sounds pretty reasonable to me. A whole organic chicken will go for 20-30 euros here, and that's only about 4-5 lbs. Not that people buy a lot of whole birds... I don't see a problem in the cost representing quality, as long as it's the producer who gets the money. Then when there are long procurement chains involved, the mouths in the middle tend to pump up the price for even crappy products.

 

[Ravynscroft]

That's ridiculous for a turkey... and I don't go in for the 'organic', 'free range', or 'cage free' hype... looked it up once and what we think those terms mean is not what they actually are... can't remember all the specifics, but it was ridiculous what organic growers were still allowed to do and still be considered 'organic'...

Don't get me wrong, true organic is healthier and better, but I prefer my own or others' where I really do know what is or is not in it...
But if buying from store, most times I just have to go with cheaper... especially now... :/

 

[vehve]

Yup, the terms can be pretty misleading... Most of the eggs sold in Finland are sold as "Eggs from free chickens", which means they've grown up in a huge dark room. They still have to mark the eggs with the production method though. The options are "activity cage raised", "barn raised", "free range" (year round possibility to go outside), or "organic" (must have possibility to go out 4 months of the year, must have more windows, and the amount of chickens per square meter allowed is lower, plus the feed requirements).

Out of these, free range is my favorite.

 

[perchie.girl]

I don't know, sounds pretty reasonable to me. A whole organic chicken will go for 20-30 euros here, and that's only about 4-5 lbs. Not that people buy a lot of whole birds... I don't see a problem in the cost representing quality, as long as it's the producer who gets the money. Then when there are long procurement chains involved, the mouths in the middle tend to pump up the price for even crappy products.

It was 5 dollars per pound... regular turkeys on sale will be 99 cents per pound. Not on sale they go for about 2 dollars a pound. Thats still a 40 dollar bird. beyond my means. Granted it was "special"... They have free range locally grown Turkeys at henrys or whole foods and I guarantee you they will NOT be that expensive.

And nope the producer doesn't get the money. WE are talking several different layers of middle men in our system....

from the factory farms they go to a processing plant then the processing plant marks em up for to cover their overhead and some profit then they get auctioned off or sold on contract to the distributor.... He adds in his costs and a little profit the distributor sends em on to the grocery stores... So At least three layers of mark ups...

then the grocery store marks it up at least 100 percent.... At Christmas and Thanksgiving our biggest turkey holidays they do something called a lost leader .... selling the turkeys at cost. in order to bring customers in to buy all the "fixins" which makes up for it.


I worked in retail aeons ago.... But that was a pet and garden shop... back in 1975 ish. that was before just in time distribution became the norm for most industry here in the US. Overhead for a place like that is beyond different from a grocery store.

Once the impact of the Turkey culling hits the groceries the price of Turkey will be beyond my pocket book

deb

 

[vehve]

Yeah, the ordering systems stores use nowadays are crazy... they already where ten years ago, I can't imagine what they're like today. The systems automatically order stuff when it runs out, and they adapt to the seasons, using data from previous years, so they know to stock up on ham for Christmas and beer for midsummer and so on.

 

[Alaskan]

beer for midsummer?