Last trip to the grocery store I couldn’t find any non-US salad kits, and Silk NextMilk is made down there now, because I guess our plants were the listeria ones. Chip dip was surprisingly hard to find too, although I did it.
I’m very pleased with how many vegetables actually come from Mexico (definitely via the US though), and there’s even a few things you can get from greenhouses, so that situation is less dire than I’d expected.
Killed all social media outside the fediverse. Even for our small business. Dumped Amazon and looking into Linux to drop Microsoft too. Degoogling the phone. We’re pretty good at the grocery store because we grow a lot of our own and make what we can.
If you have a pixel phone then GrapheneOS is a solid choice.
If you’re up for a challenge try Ubuntu Touch, Mobian, Sailfish and Postmarket OS!
I’m interested in moving off Android but afraid of bricking my phone. Years ago I had flashed roms onto my galaxy s4 but these days I worry about not being able to get work calls if something goes wrong. How risky is it these days, also is there anything I should know ahead of time if I try to move to a linux os. Do they work well on cheaper phones?
Years ago I had flashed roms onto my galaxy s4 but these days I worry about not being able to get work calls if something goes wrong.
There are still issues with calling however I would say Ubuntu Touch has the best support that front as it is the most stable. It should be fine installing when following an official guide from that distro.
I should know ahead of time if I try to move to a linux os.
The cellular connectivity has issues and the apps are limited.
Do they work well on cheaper phones?
It really depends on how well the phone model is supported by the contributors. They have lists of their most supported phones that you can look at.
Thanks for the info! Going to say cheap phone, possible cellular connectivity issues might not be a good idea for me right yet. I’ll put it on the to do with next phone list. I sometimes do Instacart deliveries to supplement income when I accidentally splurge to much. Not having cellular in remote areas would mean I couldn’t work directions/electronic signatures for alcohol.
Not having cellular in remote areas would mean I couldn’t work directions.
The open-source efficient Organic Maps can help with that.
Your job sounds really cool! Seeing all the beautiful countryside!
Yeah my normal job is in Nashville. Instacart is what I was talking about on the side. Basically it is just picking up stuff for people like groceries and hardware stores and dropping it off. Mostly it’s Kroger for me, grab 25 items, drop it off at their house and make a few extra dollars. Usually can make $100 on my day off doing that for 5 hours or so. You know how far the trips are before you take them so if you want further drives you can do them but you are paying for gas so usually I only take farther ones when they are for decent money amounts. I have taken some that are 30 miles into the middle of nowheresville. I’ve actually delivered to an Amish community as well.
Even for our small business.
Damn, that’s next level commitment! I’ve gotten rid of everything personally, but giving up on my income source being easy to find would scare me.
Also, RIP DivestOS. Still sad about that.
Fuck em. We will manage. They can eat a bag of dicks. If I could eliminate all American influence from our lives I would.
Mastodon is free, might be better than going totally off grid for your business.
The audience is smaller than twitter was, but if you find a niche the people are quite nice
Stupid easy…
sighs in American
hon, we don’t hate you. but we’re really not happy with your Emperor.
Pretty much, right?
I assume we all know some Americans, or ex-Americans. I’m not even close to the border and they’re around. The good ones are all very welcome.
Considering how much stuff isn’t made in the US anymore, this should be easy. For a real challenge, try avoiding items made in China.
sorry to butt in but that’s a hobby of mine 😀
for example going full renewables: solar panels made in south korea (qcells), battery german (sonnen), ev south korea (hyundai ioniq), heat pump australia/japan (reclaim energy)
I’m now looking at computer parts made exclusively in taiwan (looks like gigabyte mainly) because europe appears to have 0 competitive chip makers
it seems you can still buy bigger items that are local or non-china made but you will be punished for it, prices are anywhere from 10% to 100% higher
I went to buy a pair of scissors this week. I could not find a pair that wasn’t made in China.
I went to buy a greeting card, 75% of them were made in China. It makes absolutely no sense. It’s a freaking happy birthday card. There is no way it’s cheaper to cut down the tree, mill the paper, send it to China on a boat, have it printed, then have it sent back to North America on another boat. WTF?
yep small items i’ve pretty much given up on, nobody seems to care that $2 worth of stickers are made in China
It just keeps going though, weirdest one for me was those little marshmallows you put on cakes:
Coles Bake and Create Pink and White Mallows, 100g. Great for creating a delicious rocky road or topping hot drinks.
Made in China
https://www.coles.com.au/product/coles-mallows-pink-and-white-100g-2441652
Really???
Staples has online card building, you can customize all of it if you want, and it was about $2.50. Just have to plan ahead because they often print it at another facility and use the interstore shipping to get it to your pickup store.
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I’ve never heard of Reclaim… How is that heat pump treating you? We got a Bryant (I believe it’s a Midea rebadged) and our solar is a Sol-Ark inverter (I still need to figure out how to get it off WiFi and just local using CANbus…) and LONGi panels.
Yep sorry I’m in Aus not Canada, they’re a local manufacturer (https://reclaimenergy.com.au/), expensive as hell but felt like showing my support to at least one of the few places this still does engineering in Australia
How is that heat pump treating you
Really good! the separate compressor from the tank makes it whisper quiet, can barely hear it even if you’re a foot away, co2 which is the most environment friendly refrigerant, and power usage is well, minimal, only a small 160L tank because I live by myself, can see example of what it uses here (it’s the light blue bit at around 8am in the morning):
That said it is summer here in Queensland, will have to see how it goes in winter but under 1kw a day for hot water, that’s really not bad at all imo
Hmm, I’m actually curious. SE Asia and Bangladesh probably are a viable alternative for a lot of things. Obviously, if you have an unlimited budget you can find some bespoke artisanal item made nearer by as well.
That’ll go about as well as reading the TOS on everything before clicking agree
The hardest thing for our family are the digital services and social media. We are slowly cancelling Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, etc. But some things are used by my wife’s business (Google, Facebook, Insta) and the just isn’t a good replacement for YouTube.
Groceries are not bad thankfully. For hardware and household items, I can usually find a Canadian product if not at least Canadian made. Not being able to order to my door with Amazon is kind of an inconvenience but really we shouldn’t be leaning on that anyway.
Gasoline is an unfortunate reality for us, since we don’t have money for an EV right now and we need a truck to move renovation materials. And unfortunately construction supplies are sometimes a challenge to source (no way I’m going to Home Depot).
I really hope this gives Canadian industry a chance to blossom.
Gasoline is an unfortunate reality for us, since we don’t have money for an EV right now and we need a truck to move renovation materials. And unfortunately construction supplies are sometimes a challenge to source (no way I’m going to Home Depot).
There’s actually a full-blown refinery for diesel in Edmonton, so that’s an option, at least in western Canada.
For household products, of course China is a titan, and Dyson is British which came up for me recently.
As someone who isn’t a North American… What is a salad kit?
A mix of greens in a bag, often with a pouch of dressing and a bag of nuts tossed in as well.
Thank you… You know, that sounds mighty civilised.
Thank you, as OP I was getting ready to defend why I can’t just make my own salad against an angry European purist, haha.
Every salad I personally make is ass in comparison - if I even bother on a busy day and with the hand issues I have. The ratios of things included are just right, there is (well, there was) a good variety available, and you don’t have to cut, wash and potentially roast a bunch of stuff for it because a big machine somewhere already did.
they’re pretty handy if you only want one salad, instead of eating it every day
It is an expensive way to eat. But somewhat makes sense for a single person meal
Hmm, I find the full-size ones usually serve two.
If you ate it twice you could make it work, but it’s going to be soggy on day two.
I can eat a whole Five Guys Large order of Fries my self so…
It’s not really cost effective versus buying separate but way cheaper than going to a salad place and it saves stocking space for different toppings and dressings. We started eating more salads because we dont have to eat the same kind daily.
Yes, I suspect I’ll just be eating less salad now, unfortunately.
On the bright side, I’ll save a bit of money that way. Hopefully I still get enough fresh stuff to dodge scurvy.
Don’t watch any movies or most of tv
CBC has some great stuff, actually. I consume more from them than anyone else, easily. And then a lot of “American” stuff is produced here too, although you’d have to check.
The streaming platforms are a different matter. Even Gem works like ass for me.
I pirate most stuff anyway, and the rest I borrow it on physical media at the library, so they’re not getting money anyway
I can agree with that, 100%
Already cancelled Netflix and Prime.
Crave has plenty of good content and CBC Gem as well. I cancelled Netflix and Disney Plus, I will miss the latter a bit because of What We Do In the Shadows, but I’ve watched each episode many times so it’s not like I haven’t seen it. I’m also just trying to read more books in general.
All the best TV worth watching is already taped in Mississauga. :)
ALLEGEDLY!
I’m OOTL.
Whos doing the taping?
The last person using BlockBuster.
That’s a very good point. I guess it depends on the show.
watches Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter on repeat, out of sheer spite
As an American, pretty good, we don’t produce shit here.
It’s clearly a salad kit-based economy. /s
That’s a lie. We produce the highest quality bullshit in the world.
The other day I took my German car to the Asian market to pick up curry ingredients and enjoyed the night watching the Red Green show sooooooo…pretty great honestly. 👍
Didn’t buy anything american this week, at all, but I’m due to go grocery shopping.
I’m making a pot pie from some leftover beef and bacon fat that I turned into roux, I’ve got some potatoes that are getting old, some carrots, mushrooms… it should be tasty
Anyone have suggestions for Canadian cat food that isn’t overpriced? I’ve got like 15 cats so I go through a lot in a month.
Most Purina products are at least produced and manufactured in Canada. I have been using the beyond line of products and my cats love it.
Sadly, it is a mega agro corp.
Huh TIL. I’ve mainly been feeding them that and the co-op stuff (Which they don’t care for so I usually blend them together.)
I guess it uses Canadian farms, but Purina is owned by Nestlé.
Dammit.
I knew there was a catch.
Acana is Canadian, though they are not super cheap but certainly not the most expensive either. My dogs like it, and one of them is a picky eater.
Great until I went into Dollarama and bought an energy drink and now I need to get two gifts for 6 year olds. Most likely at Walmart 🤦🏼
We bake cookies as kids gifts. We never buy stuff. They chomp the cookies down and the next year ask if we brought them again.
I don’t know what you did in the end, but literally any store is probably better than Walmart, which is privately owned by the Waltons. Even Costco has shareholders all around the world.
Walmart is a publicly traded company. The largest shareholder is the Walton Family (50%) with the rest of the shares purchased by investors around the world.
Oh really? Shit, I missed that, I’m going to have to edit a couple comments.
It’s over 50%, according to Wikipedia, so the basic gist still works. It’s a Walton company with some outside investors.
[https://www.sec.gov/ixviewer/ix.html?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/104169/000010416924000078/wmt-20240424.htm#id138cb1433b44120b7c101e226ea4cae_157](SEC Document) I’m still calculating slightly less than 50% of Walmart between the Waltons and their Trust.
Thank you for doing the math, unfortunately SEC won’t even load for me.
I’d expect they’d want to keep more, but I guess they could just rely on a small share of the other voting investors to pass whatever they need, since opposition is never perfectly unanimous.
I’m American:(
then you have more influence for change than the rest of us, friend. Buying Canadian products also means lobbying small businesses to purchase supplies from Canada. and if you happen across someone who doesn’t understand what’s going on, let them know. Hopefully they’ll tell 2 friends, and so on.
Your in a prime position to sabotage then!
I work at a Walmart. I can fart on stuff
Not much changed for me personally, I already mostly buy local.
Btw if you really want to hurt america see if you can modify your rrsp/resp/tfsa/<other 4 letter acronym> to exclude American companies (and O&G while your at it). It’s hard and probably not good from a purely financial perspective, but I think it has a lot more impact.
Already did it! And boy, was I glad I had when Trump started doing things.
VEU is one example ETF on the TSX.
I’m disabled. Also petition your government leaders to divest CPP from American companies and investment firms.
Signed up for the Odd Bunch. You get imperfect produce which is still perfectly edible delivered all from local producers. Like a CSA share. It actually ends up being less expensive than the store. You’ll have to be creative in using it up, but it’s a great option. Link: https://go.referralcandy.com/share/9TSC9RD?s=sp&t=cp
Wonder if there’s a version of this from the states.
Looks like this is: https://www.imperfectfoods.com/
Looks like it’s just major cities, which makes sense, but then again if you’re not in a major city you probably have gift overgrown zucchinis appearing on your front step anyway.
What months does it run where you live?
I just started, I think every month. I’ll find out, my SO ordered it so I’m not sure.
Obviously it’s either not fresh (which might be fine for onions or potatoes, by why not just deliver all at once?) or not local at all if it’s -20 outside.
I am also a subscriber. While some of the produce still comes from the US, I think it reduces our dependence by reducing waste. It is cheaper than the super market but still more expensive than the local grocers here in Vancouver.
I don’t mind supporting small farms in the US or buying their imperfect produce so it doesn’t get wasted.
