Wood at the grocery store

blacktail said:

My jaw about dropped this summer when a coworker said he spent $80 on wood for a weekend camping trip with another family. That was to cover HIS HALF of the cost!

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My son and I do a lot of whitewater boating and camping. Due to the various bug restrictions, you can't bring wood into state parks, forests, etc campgrounds. Usually it' restricted by county. Seeing as I have so much wood at home it is a little frustrating to have to buy wood "on location", but it is what it is. We are usually on the river all day until dark so there is little time to scrounge on site.

I am thinking about buying some prest logs or the like for this season's campfires.

nate379 said:

I suppose the same could be said for people that buy eggs or meat at the store vs directly from a chicken or cow...

Many people have better things to do than cut firewood for the couple nights a winter they light up the fireplace or go camping.

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I dangled a buck in front of a chick once and only got a cluck and a squawk.

While that seems like a lot-- think about this: People gladly pay a buck and half or MORE for a stinkin' bottle of "sugar water" (soda). Now think about what it takes to make ship the soda vs. the wood. Makes the wood seem like a pretty good bargain to me...

gd9704 said:

I'm guessing this has been discussed before, but I have to chuckle at the firewood stacked outside my local Giant Eagle grocery store. "Firewood - Great deal- 2 bundles for $10"

These bundles contain 5 very small pieces of wood. I'm sure it's dry and burns nice, but holy cow I must have half a million dollars stacked in my back yard!

I'm rich, RICH I say

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tymbee said:

While that seems like a lot-- think about this: People gladly pay a buck and half or MORE for a stinkin' bottle of "sugar water" (soda). Now think about what it takes to make ship the soda vs. the wood. Makes the wood seem like a pretty good bargain to me...

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As difficult as it is for me to believe, many people with fireplaces don't want more than a few fires due to the mess. For them, this would be perfect. It's hard for us to imagine, because we know our annual need in terms of multiple cords.

My wife sometimes buys the smaller packages of food even if they carry a premium as we otherwise would end up having waste to dispose of. Difference is, would doesn't rot if kept dry.

I sell a lot of cooking wood throughout the year. $10 for a 50# bag of cherry or hickory averages to about $500/cord. I can sell 50 bags easy enough.

The difference between buying wood at the store vs a firewood guy is price.......The markup is insane......Buy a 1/3 of a cord for 80 or whatever dollars....have it stacked and put where you want it by the firewood guy....done. Still way ahead in savings vs the store

I sold firewood thru this summer and I had several people that asked for 1/4 of a cord, etc. $225/cord, so they wanted that 1/4 for $55.
Had a few people get actually angry to the point of swearing at me when I said it would be a bit more or would have to wait until I had a full load coming somewhere near them.

leftyscott said:

I sell a lot of cooking wood throughout the year. $10 for a 50# bag of cherry or hickory averages to about $500/cord. I can sell 50 bags easy enough.

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nate379 said:

I sold firewood thru this summer and I had several people that asked for 1/4 of a cord, etc. $225/cord, so they wanted that 1/4 for $55.
Had a few people get actually angry to the point of swearing at me when I said it would be a bit more or would have to wait until I had a full load coming somewhere near them.

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more is less....less is more. simple economics.

We calculated the cost of firewood at our local convenience store at $940 a cord.

The other day I was at Lowes and saw they sell a very small bag of Kindling for $6.00.
I laughed and thought, you could go back to the lumber department and buy an 8' pine board for about the same and get twice as much.
Point is, I guess, those who buy wood from the convienence stores and bagged kindling from Lowes just do it for the occassion.

I bought some of this wood while camping in Delaware this summer. I was actually pretty happy to do so after trying to burn the incredibly wet pine the camp ground sold us.

With all the firewood transportation bans because of the EAB, a thousand dollars a cord seems to be the only way to go when camping. It's either that or burn wet wood from the camp ground or other local sellers. The camp grounds wasn't actually much cheaper.

The stuff we bought was cut, kiln dried and packaged in PA. I remember calculating the price and I believe it came out over $1000/cord. It was very good wood, but certainly hurt the wallet. If anyone lives near Lewes and wants to sell me some firewood for camping next summer at not such an obscene profit, please let me know.