Today, I wanted to expound a bit on how to make the real food budget friendly. When I first started on this journey, I really knew nothing. I went out and bought 100% organic, grass-fed beef and milk, and pastured eggs and chicken–all the stuff I “thought” I should be buying. I came home near tears from the sticker shock. I had just spent $250 for 1 week’s worth of groceries for 4 people (2 adults and 2 boys). There was absolutely no way that our budget could afford over $1000 a month on groceries. At the time that was over half of our monthly income. This was about 12 years ago, when I first discovered Nourishing Traditions and hearing about things like “real food”, the 100 mile diet, etc. I knew that there had to be a better way to eat healthy, yet still stay within my budget. Through trial an error, I’ve discovered a few secrets that have helped and I’ll share with your. First of all, you need to decide on which products you’ll slightly compromise one and which you are sure you will only buy a certain kind. One of the best things I’ve ever purchased was the Shopping Guide by the Weston A. Price Foundation, it costs a whopping $3.o0. In that little book, you get a wealth of information. It lists all sorts of foods, and then gives the Best option, Good options, and so on, and options to avoid. I always try to choose the best or good options.
For example, I *TRY* to always get raw milk. It’s one of those things that I’m a real stickler for. But I’m not always able to find raw, grass-fed, unpasteurized milk (which is the best option). But I am able to find grass-fed milk that has been not been ultra pasteurized at the farmer’s market. Yes, it’s still pasteurized, but it still a better option than the regular milk from the grocery story. The hormones alone in other milk are enough to keep me from it. A friend of mines daughter started her period at 6. She drank A LOT of milk and the doctor’s told her mother that it was the hormones in the milk that caused her to start her period so early. Milk and the hormones given to cattle is part of the cause that kids are going through puberty so much earlier now days. This is the one thing I really don’t mind spend the extra money on.
I have made changes in our diet that we can afford to make. There are some items that I try not to skimp on (unless we just can’t afford it), such as milk, eggs, meats, and the “dirty dozen” vegetables. Those are the things I try never to skimp on. Other items I buy either organic or natural when I can afford to. This is a good article to read about when to buy organic and when not to, otherwise known as the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15. This is a pretty good guide.
One of the main ways that we’ve cut back on our grocery bill is by eating less meat at each meal. Use to, we could easily eat 2-2 1/2 pounds of ground beef per meal. That’s a lot! So I’ve learned how to take 1 pound and spread it. At first there was a bit of a riot over that here, my husband’s a meat eater. But when eating that much meat per meal AND choosing the grass-fed beef that was better for our family, he wallet started taking a hit and he finally “got” why I wanted to cut back! I cut back in a variety of ways. For example, we have tacos usually once a week. Use to be that we’d use 2 pounds of ground beef seasoned, tortillas, and grated cheese. Now, I use 1 pound seasoned ground beef, with about 1 cup salsa and 1-1/2 to 2 cups beans and serve as a taco salad. The salsa and beans spread the ground beef some and then eating it on the lettuce greens spreads it even farther. So we save about $7-$10 on the ground beef. Salad “fixings” are cheap (even organic), so with the changes, the entire meal goes from costing about $20 to costing about $10-$15. That’s $5 that I can use in my grocery budget for another meal. Just by shopping this way, I save at least 3/4th from what I originally was spending. Our current grocery budget is $100-$150 per week. And we eat good food.
Another secret is to cut out some things that you don’t really need–mainly prepackaged or boxed foods. The big secret of trying to eat better in a budget is to start making things from scratch whenever possible. All those prepackaged items sound really cheap, but usually are still more expensive than homemade. It’s cheaper and healthier to even buy non organic fresh fruit & vegetables on sale and then freeze them yourself than to have to buy them from the store canned or frozen (no preservatives or additives!). Jelly is something that is so easy to make yourself and in the long run you can make it cheaper and healthier than buying it. They do have high sugar content, but you can substitute healthier sugars cup for cup usually or make them with fruit juice. Another book I’d suggest is Stocking Up by Carol Huppings. This book tells you how to preserve nearly everything by canning, freezing, drying etc. It will help you preserve fruits and veggies you buy on sale at the grocery store or get from a farmer’s market at a good price.
If you have room, plant a big garden, raising your own vegetable is the cheapest way to get them. If you don’t have room, plant a container garden. You can read my blog post, Creative Gardening: How Does Your Garden Grow? Having lived in everything from apartments, to duplexes, to city homes, and now to the country on acreage, I can honestly say that everyone can grow at least a little bit of their food. If you do have room, I would suggest doing a few container gardens with vegetables. If you have the room, I’d suggest making the biggest garden you could handle. That’s what we try to do. What we don’t grow, I try to buy from local farmers. A lot of times, I’ve found, that they’re prices are cheaper than the grocery store. But I admit, if I don’t grow it, then I usually have to purchase it at the grocery store and can’t often afford organic. But I do ALWAYS try to purchase the Dirty Dozen organically grown.
I really think the most important change you can make is to get away from prepackaged processed foods. Buy as close to the way it naturally comes as possible (and what you can afford) and then process it yourself. Then, you know what’s in your food and don’t have to worry about preservatives, additives, etc. Make as much as possible from scratch. Only buy prepackaged foods if you just can’t afford fresh alternative and then try to buy the healthiest prepackaged food possible. If you can’t afford a lot of grass-fed meats then supplement them with beans, legumes, rice, etc. You can make a pound of grass-fed ground beef spread pretty far with these things.
As for reading more about saving money with real food, I suggest you consider purchasing my ebook Real Food Real Frugal, it’s only $1.99 from Amazon. It’s available in Kindle format from Amazon, as well as in PDF and Nook/ePub format from my shop. I would also suggest reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, Long Way on a Little by Shannon Hayes, and Real Food by Nina Planck. You might also want to join the Facebook group, Frugal Real Food & Natural Living, where members discuss how they save money, live on a budget, and still manage to eat real food and live a more natural lifestyle.
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Essential Traditions/Real Food Real Frugal 