Eating Cheaply and Healthily

We are always trying to come up with new ways to eat more healthy and more cheaply. Towards that end, I just found a gold mine of blog posts about this topic. Check out this blog post and then follow the links and then follow the links from there... you can go on forever! I'm excited to sit down and really consider lots of these ideas. Those posts run laps around my following dinky ideas.

Here are some ways we save money at the grocery store:

We play the Grocery Game. Using this service, today I bought Smuckers Jelly for .30, Pam Olive Oil Cooking Spray for .80, and 1 lb of fresh Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts for .98, Russell Stover Private Reserve dark chocolate for.50 (a girl's gotta splurge), and Peter Pan Peanut Butter 18 oz for free. The GG philosophy is to load up on food items when they are at their lowest price, never buy at regular price unless you have to, etc. This service costs about $1.25/week and they match coupons with local sales. It's not a perfect system but we've saved lots of money and learned a lot about shopping cheaply. And I only have to shop at one store, the grocery store down the street.

Doug dug (I just had to type that) out a space for our new garden. We plan to plant yellow squash, zucchini squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, melons, lettuce, carrots, and probably some herbs. We plan to save lots of money at the store during harvest time... and I plan to freeze and (learn how to) can so we can benefit from the harvest for months to come. This summer, I'll get back to you about how cost effective this was.

The only beverages we buy are milk (albeit it organic for the boys) and orange juice... of which we only drink a small amount with breakfast. Oh yeah, and we do splurge on free trade organic coffee and the occasional bottle of wine. We don't purchase any other juices or sodas.

We try to reserve desserts for really yummy homemade ones and go without at other times.

We sold our 3rd son in order to purchase a Vita Mix (sorry we hadn't mentioned him to you; we didn't want you to bond with each other). We've more than gotten our money back on making Nathan's baby food alone... not to mention all the smoothies, soups, chopping, etc. Instead getting back our 3rd son with the money, we're reinvesting in seeds for the new garden.

The last few months, we've cut eating out down to a family trip to Chic Filet or for a pizza once/month. If Doug and I go out on a date (we mostly "date" at home these days because we're lazy, it's more comfy, it's easier with the kids, and cheaper), we just make it a coffee and dessert or wine/hors devours time.

I've stopped buying convenient snack food like granola bars. I used to think I "needed" those things around for those busy, hungry moments. How ridiculous... if I'm that hungry, then maybe I should take the time to make something more substantial. But actually, I can probably simply wait for the next meal.

We try to eat meat at dinner only 4ish times/week. Other meals, we have meals that include eggs or beans.

We invested in a separate freezer last year so that we can stock pile items when they were at their lowest cost... like meat, veggies, virtually anything really. I've adopted the thought "if I'm going to take the time to cook, then I'm going to cook a lot!" If I decide to make my banana bread, I make 4 loaves and throw them in the freezer. I do the same with large quantities of soup, chili, cake, pies, etc. I'm slowly that you can freeze virtually anything. When we have a busy afternoon or hit a season when we're all sick and we don't feel like cooking, I can run to the freezer to save the day and not run out for a quick (and expensive and unhealthy) meal.

It takes more time and energy to save money at the grocery store... but I get motivated so that our family can eat more healthily, eat more enjoyably, spend that money on other more important things, give more money away, and save more money.

I would love to hear what you do to help save money in the food department!