Friday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.02 (sidewalk, floor of Ross)

Thursday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.11 (11 pennies in one spot on the sidewalk)

The beef deal is starting to come clearer. More people are interested - we might have enough interest to buy a full cow (400+ lbs) versus a quarter share, which is what we got last time.

The mechanics are this:
1. By Feb- March $400 up front to buy the full cow "share" from the rancher. In a sense, this is the down payment - we are now considered serious buyers. We can pick out "our" cow and personify it if we'd like. (Tactically, bad idea. Always name a cow Dinner.)

2. Come July - August, cow is butchered and we ourselves are on the hook for the rest at $3.85/lb hanging weight. The beef raisers have their USDA cert butchers and storage area, so they can handle the cutting and finished product. A cow runs, on average, 600 lbs hanging weight (no head, hooves, innards) which turns into about 400 lbs of steak and pot roast. So really, it turns into about $5.77/ lb, or to round up, $6/lb.

Not cheap, but organic, grass fed, local supplier, unlikely to be full of mad-cow prions, not pumped full of hormones or ammonia and not a canner/cutter.

My part of this whole business is to provide the math, numbers, and structure to this whole situation. I suggested, and I hope this will happen, that the many parties interested in beef pay in part for the $400 deposit. $400/400 lbs = $1/lb. Interested in 20 lbs of beef? $20 deposit. I'd be very interested in it being non-refundable, just to concentrate the mind. I also suggested that folks keep in mind that they would be on the hook for the other $5/lb come July. So save those pennies - I've bought 3 lbs of beef from sidewalk change. I presented this to a couple of the parties on my end who are interested. Very popular because it is now kind of concrete, so I'm pretty sure that I can, with my own friends, buy 100lbs worth of cow. We'll see when it comes time to collect.

The final issue that I see is based on the final hanging weight. Cows are never exactly 600 lbs - the range the rancher gave us was 575 - 625 lbs, which translates into 390 - 410 lbs finished ... on average. Would it be easier to think of it as straight pounds or as a percent? In other words - your 20lbs of beef could be considered 5% of the cow. Hence, if the cow is a little shy of 400 lbs, you are going to be a little shy of 20lbs. Bigger cow - slightly bigger share.