My husband and I live on a budget, the "Dave Ramsey" envelope system, to be exact. And so I know exactly how much money I have to spend for groceries, IN CASH, each week. It's been that way for 25 years! As the economy has changed, the price of food has risen, and so our grocery budget has increased to reflect that.
However, now that we're no longer buying processed food, junk stuff, cheap "fill-the-hole-with-this-carb" items, we're going to have to sit down and revamp said budget!
Because this week, I went to Kroger with a limited time frame, a list, and made it through the produce section and grabbed my low-carb bread and tortillas, and headed to the check out lane.
$73 later, I was picking myself up off the floor!
WHAT?!
Seventy-three dollars for fruit and vegetables and 2 loaves of bread and some tortillas?!
Excuse me, Mrs. President, since you're so concerned about the state of America's children and obesity, can we talk about the REAL reason the entire country is overweight?!
It's the PRICE OF HEALTHY FOOD!
Now, understand, I am a bargain hunter/coupon clipper/buy things on clearance kind of girl, all the way. But guess what? They don't put coupons in the Sunday paper for broccoli, or spinach, or apples. It's double a $.50 coupon on Lay's Potato chips, but I need to spend almost $6.00 for a bag of good apples. I could get 10 boxes of enriched macaroni for $10, or I could buy one a fair sized piece of wild caught salmon.
So, what's a family to do? How do we make this healthy lifestyle work? How can we stretch the money to meet the need?
That's the topic of tonight's conversation over dinner on the date that my husband is getting ready to take me on.
I would LOVE to hear your feedback on how you make your money stretch to buy healthy, not necessarily organic, food to feed a family.
I use Aldi for most produce as well as for my salmon and tilapia. I don't like their lettuce, but you can't beat their prices on grapes, strawberries, bell peppers, and avocados. I pick and choose my organics. Toxins are stored in the fat so I simply wash fruits and veggies well and use low fat meats and dairy when buying standard fare. I only use organic for butter and oils, whole milk (for my little one), and fatty meats.
ReplyDeleteI stretch meals with rice and potatoes. They're not ideal, but better choices for fillers than bread and pasta. Low carb anything is EXPENSIVE! Aldi has just begun stocking a decent selection, but it is still quite a bit more... I use it as a treat. Large lettuce leaves make healthier and cheaper "sandwich" wraps anyway.
This may not work for everyone but here is what we do. We get our beef and pork once a year from Dave's sister because we want meat that is raised hormone free. Dave always has a garden so we have canned green beans, canned tomato juice, salsa and pasta sauce. In our freezer we have carrots, corn, green peppers and onions. The only groceries I buy are milk (very little), some fresh veggies and fruit and that is about it. For now, this is what is working for us. :)
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