Last night we (me and A) were going over finances. After some realization that we are spending a ridiculous ammount of $ on food, she determined that we should be able to live off of $200 per month.
I agree that this sounds reasonable at first, but once I started the breakdown this is what I realized. That is $100 per person per month. That is approx $23.31 per week and $3.33 per day.
Does this seem crazy to anyone?
How can I buy quality food at this price? I can't even touch the organics for this price and stick to my budget.
Short of living on beans and rice and eggs, I don't know how I will do this once I run out of the meat I already have in the freezer.
Oh yeah, I didn't mention that A probably has a cleaner diet than I do, consisting of many organically grown and processed foods. I asked her how she is going to keep that up on $3.33 per day and she said she won't have a problem, so I guess I will see...
I'm the one who does the majority of the shopping, so I think she is in for a surprise, but she never ceases to surprise me and I'm sure my comments have probably given added inspiration to prove me wrong.
Anyway, comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
I'm interested in low cost, high quality food sources rich in protein and good carbs.
Thanks and have a phantasmagorical day.
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hello ~ perhaps I know you, perhaps not, but my suggestion for keeping the prices down is this:
buy frozen vegetables (they also come in organic) simply because they're cheaper, they keep their nutritional value longer, and well...they're cheaper. Same goes for fruits if you like smoothies and such.
Hope this helps! I was able to save quite a bit by applying this lil' more saver.
Hi Amy,
Thanks for the suggestions.
Good ideas.
Do you have any specific brands that you would recommend. I have yet to see the frozen organic option in my area, as organics from the grocieries here are limited mainly to "fresh" produce, milk,frozen meals such as "Amy's" and lots of dry goods. Interest in organics seems to be on the rise here though, so I would expect to see the frozen vegetables soon.
I did find a good site online that seems to be very reasonable and I have had good luck with them.
http://www.iherb.com/Default.aspx
Thanks again for your suggestions.
I guess that site I posted isn't the one I was thinking of...
Sorry, although I have ordered a few products from iherb and the price and service were good.
Bismarck + organic food = tough. Not so easy here in Fargo either.
I wondered around two Whole Foods Markets in NYC (Chelsea and Union Square) on Sunday. Let me tell you it is a food paradise. Yesterday, I wondered around Cash Wise in Fargo and it was not nearly as fun, interesting, or healthy for that matter. They do have the more reasonably priced organic section of groceries in Fargo. I'm guessing I spent an additional $3-$4 to buy organic goods like mushrooms, potatoes, eggs, and mac & cheese (Annie's!).
I wish we had a Whole Foods or Trader Joes up here in Fargo. I'd make that $3.33 a day work dang it!
Maybe you and your family would be interested in gardening? You can grow a lot of produce to eat during the gardening season and even freeze, can, dry, or otherwise keep some to help the rest of the year.
And checking out local fruit and other edibles works pretty well, too, at least here in Fort Collins. A friend and I actually made a zine that includes a map of all the urban edibles we could find on various bike rides last spring and summer. I was amazed at the amount of food--apples, apricots, raspberries, plums, edible "weeds" (dandelions, mallow, lambsquarter, purslane, milkweed, violets, prickly lettuce), peaches, cherries, grapes, mint, and rhubarb. That's kind of a long list and I don't know what all you could find there but I'll bet there'd be some things.
And then there are dumpsters!
Of course, other than gardening, the above examples don't allow a lot of choice concerning organically grown food. If you live where there are plentiful options for organic food, dumpsters become more of a reliable source for food that is specifically organic.
Anyway, those are some suggestions. Maybe even a really small garden plot to start with would help. Maybe there is room to plant an apple tree?
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