Free meat (guard your wallet)

This post is long, but worth it.

 

My wife and I recently received an in-home sales pitch from an outfit that bills itself as “A Leading Home Food Service Company.”  The pitch goes something like this:

A: “The average family of four spends $400-$600 per month in food.”

B: “Most of that money is going into the overhead costs of the grocery store (rent, employee fees, utilities, delivery trucks) and the actual food cost isn’t that high”

C: “The grocery system in our country does not allow your meat or vegetables to be fresh, plus the system also encourages the grocer to try and sell you low-quality food”

D: “If you weren’t in such a rush and knew you could cook a healthy meal at home and not have to plan it out to cook it, you’d save a lot of money on impulse spending and unhealthy fast food.”

 

So, A+B+C+D = let us sell you top quality beef and vegetables grown “the old-fashioned way” (by “farmers in the mid-west”); we’ll deliver it right to your door, into a freezer we’ll sell you (with a lifetime guarantee as long as you buy food from us); we’ll even pack it into your freezer for you; the meat is “flash-frozen” (without injected water solutions ”like you get at the store”) so it thaws in 10 minutes in a bowl of lukewarm water; plus, you’ll even save money on the food you buy.  You only pay $123.30 a month for the food plus $112.97 a month for 36 months (this covers the freezer and the “one-time overhead fee”).   After the freezer and “Food Buying Service” are paid off, your bill is only $123.30 a month.

 

He stepped out to the car so my wife and I could talk it over, “run the numbers,” and see if it was a good fit for our family.  We pulled out our credit card bill from the last month: nearly $400 in grocery store purchases.  Who knows how much of that bill was spent on quick-fix food that’s more expensive and less healthy than what we were looking at doing.

 

The argument sounds pretty good. Doesn’t it?  It did to us.  Why wouldn’t we want better food for our growing family, at a price that’s better than we’re currently getting, with more opportunity to cook at home and not eat lousy food on impulse?  So, we kept going with the pitch.  We picked out the items we’d like to have available in our soon-to-be delivered, super-deluxe, industrial-strength, lifetime warranty freezer.  We “personalized” our menu, and after we cut out the stuff we thought we wouldn’t eat, and he adjusted it for things we’d want more of, we were ready.  In two weeks, we’d have a freezer full of healthy food at the ready.

 

81lbs. of Beef (60lbs. of it in ground beef), 33lbs. of poultry (25lbs. of it in boneless, skinless chicken breasts), 19 pounds of seafood, pork, and sausages, plus an undisclosed amount of “Grade A Fancy Certified Organic” vegetables in 1 pound packages that would be split up according to some computer averaging table based on our preferences of certain types of vegetables.

 

It was starting to get a little overwhelming, and I noticed the interest rate on the freezer and food buying service: 19.8%! Whoa. I asked the guy about it, and he said, “You will probably pay that right away or transfer that balance to a low-interest credit card, but not everyone is as disciplined with your money as you are.  Plus, if you pay those off right away, you’re only paying the $123.30 per month for the food.  That’s a huge savings over what you’re paying now!” It sounded good to us, so we went for it; besides, he was giving us a bunch of meat today to try out (2lbs. of ground beef, 1lb. of hamburger patties, 2 t-bone steaks, some sirloin steaks, and some chicken breasts), and we could cancel if we weren’t satisfied with them.

 

We signed the contracts (including a purchase agreement, a credit check, a revolving credit agreement for the freezer and service (with interest), a revolving credit agreement for the food (with no interest), and a credit purchase voucher for each.

 

He left us with an envelope full of carbon copy contracts, a list of 19 “services, benefits, and processes” that make this system so great, and a letter from the vice-president of the company entitled “What Have I Done?”  I thought we had done a pretty wise thing for our family, and I read through the letter.  In the first buyer’s-remorse-rebuttal bullet point, he writes “We feed you at approximately $2.00 for a chicken breast and a serving of vegetables” and I thought “Wait a minute. We already eat for less than $2 per serving…way less actually.”  So I did the math:  $133lbs. of meat plus the unknown amount of vegetables for $123.30 a month (for 8 months total for each shipment); that’s $986.40.  Let’s assume 100lbs. of veggies at $2 a pound (not a good deal, but that’s the average, non-sale price for brand-name veggies at the grocery store), so we’ve got 133lbs. of meat for $786.40

 

Drum roll, please…

 

$5.92/lb.  And that’s only the food cost!  That doesn’t include my super-deluxe freezer (for which I would receive the privilege of the 20% discount that has already been factored into the price) or the Food buying service fee.

 

As if the price of meat, practically mandatory freezer purchase, $1700 “one-time service fee,” and 19.8% interest rate weren’t enough, the cancellation period is only three business days.

 

At the end of the day, we got 2lbs. of ground beef, 1lb. of hamburger patties, 2 t-bones, a few sirloins, and some chicken breasts at the cost of 2 hours of our time and one certified letter to the home office canceling our contract.

 

But if you want some free meat and a 2-hour chat with a well-dressed, well-spoken guy who wants to sell you the food-delivery system of the future, I’ve got it covered.