Higher Costs?

I was recently talking to one of my best friends about our Farm Share.  She lives in the South and had mentioned that she looked into one (yay!), but was taken aback by the price.  There is sticker shock when you first start researching Community Supported Agriculture co-ops.  Some farms provide produce and you pay up-front for the entire year.  Other farms provide produce by season, so you pay maybe twice a year for a Summer/Fall and Winter/Spring share.  Regardless, depending on where you live and accessibility to farmers that participate in Community Supported Agriculture, you can expect costs of about $1,000/year (give or take). 

The sticker shock is absorbed, however, when you think about how much that is per week.  It comes out to about $20/week (and remember, deduct the cost of the Farm Share from what you would otherwise buy). 

With our Farm Share, we very rarely buy produce at the grocery store, and instead of shopping at the grocery store weekly, we might go once every two to three weeks.  Bills at the grocery store (and we're talking Shaw's, not Whole Foods) have fallen from $60-100 every time we shopped to $30-$60.  While we might just be breaking even by being Farm Share members, we certainly aren't spending more money. 

Just food for thought (no pun intended)!  Again, all this depends on where you live and how expensive your local Farm Shares are, but the costs are surprisingly reasonable--especially when you consider the local, mostly organic produce you receive.