Living Off Local - Raleigh, NC

A Local’s Guide for Breaking Free of Big Box Stores, Chains, & Outdated Norms.

Because I want this info get across to everyone, regardless of how much time you have free to spend reading, just take my word for it and do the things listed below if you find yourself short on time to read everything.

If you have time, and want to read about hard data, science based research, and want to support the many hours of work I spent putting this together, please read the entire post to learn how I came to these conclusions and use this data to draw your own as well.

Thank you!

TLDR CONTENT

Frankly, I’m not. I am just a guy from Raleigh who wishes the world could refocus back on their hometown communities and I am aiming to help achieve that in my own.

As the Owner of The Raleighwood Inbox, I have a deep interest in local business and events, my day job in technology provides me the know-how to do in-depth and mass research, and my interest in bettering the community and future generations, led me to create this guide.

This guide is an attempt to present the issues with major chains, big box stores, and with mega corporation fueled shopping and how it actually HURTS our local communities and businesses.

After explaining the issues, it also aims to give an in-depth game plan to using local alternatives so that you can maintain or improve your quality of life, with minimal to no interruption in your daily habits.

The goal is to provide you (and thus the Raleigh community) resources to better support your neighbor and bolster our local economy. You may not be able to incorporate everything on this list but any little bit helps.

This guide is not a 100% full proof way of providing support to ONLY local businesses and we understand that many times, it may not be possible. While it attempts to be a great resource, we may miss things like:

I won’t lie here, sometimes they are. But not always. You see, big box stores, online giants like Amazon, and many chains benefit from economies of scale¹.

So, with all of that info. Where can we begin in our own community? Well, I am glad you asked. First, lets break down Categories, then where you can go.

Here, I will break things down by category of shopping and general tips on saving money.

One of the biggest things you can do here is buying in season but in my experience it is hard to remember what is and is not, so here is a hand guide for our state below.

Spring

Summer

Fall

Winter

Meat Prices Slightly Vary by Season

We all know meats are mostly available year round but when buying local you may see greater fluctuations as local stock will vary more. This also is less of an issue for North Carolina in particular, as we are a major agricultural state but it is still something to be considered.

As such, pasture animals tend to sync with grazing seasons in accordance to their natural life cycles. Many animals, especially four-legged ones, tend to pack on weight for winter.

As an example grass-fed beef is generally more abundant in late summer to early fall, as the animals have had a full season of pasture and grazing time.

Buying local, especially in these cycles, also helps promote animals eating in their proper season, which in turn leads to more humane and organic farming practices.

Below, I will attempt to break down and list business options that can replace your current shopping setup and I will try to organize it my area of Raleigh. Let’s begin.

You guys have it the best as many of the things you would generally need, become walk-able as well.