How Our Family Spends Less than $400/month on organic and gluten free groceries
Last Fall, I wrote a post about how to shop at Trader Joe’s for less than $100/week for a family of 4. To this day, it is still one of my most popular posts, with a few hundred views a week.
I thought that I would update things, because not everyone has a Trader Joe’s nearby, and some people care about eating only organic, grass fed meat and dairy (I do!).
I’m not a nutritionist by any stretch– I have just done a fair amount of research, and I have quite a few dietary issues to be on the lookout for. It’s harder to act on the knowledge that “this could deteriorate my health over the course of many years”. It becomes easier and a much higher priority when you eat something and it hurts 2 hours later.
Our family has many dietary challenges, which is what has lead us to be as creative and thoughtful as we are about food. I cannot eat gluten, chocolate, dairy or potatoes. Gregory cannot have gluten or dairy, and since we are Orthodox, we all eat vegan on Wednesdays and Fridays.
While I devote time and energy to our meal planning and shopping every week, I’m also not willing to let it consume me. Deal hunting and making things from scratch is all good by me– up to a point. Cooking and baking have never been passions of mine, they have become learned skills in order to save money and avoid digestive issues. I know that if something is too arduous or time consuming, I simply won’t keep it up. Simple, therefore, is the “name of the game” for me!
The number one thing that I’ve learned about groceries and meal planning is that there is ALWAYS a compromise. Even if someone promises you the moon and beyond, there has to be a catch. I’ve seen “how-tos” that basically involve couponing until kingdom come (I like couponing, but I also like my time and the freedom to buy what I want instead of having it dictated). Many posts that promise to feed a family for “x” amount of dollars are also telling you to buy the cheapest of the cheap, regardless of whether or not it’s organic or has scary “mystery” ingredients.
My FIRST and MAIN piece of advice is to first decide what you are willing to compromise on. If you can’t have it all (you can’t), what is it you DO want? Is budget your only concern? Are you wanting gourmet meals, or are you okay with simple and repetitive? Are you willing to buy in bulk or do you only like purchasing a few days at a time?
For me, personally, I am not willing to compromise on budget. I have decided that we will keep all of our groceries under $400, not because it’s all we have but because it’s a challenge and I know that I can. 95% of the time, I am not willing to compromise on organic/grass fed ingredients, with a few exceptions here and there.
But I am willing to compromise on variety, and we only go out to eat once a week, at most (and even then it’s somewhere cheap). It’s a lot more expensive to eat out when you want healthy and gluten free, but even then, we’ve found some ways around it (chipotle? Thai food? amazing taco stands?)
So, without further ado, here are the ways I’ve found to keep our organic grocery bill under $400 for a family of 4!
1. Double Up: Let’s get “variety” out of the way. I’ve found that if I double up at least 2 meals a week, refrigerating the other half and using it on a second day later in the week, we ALWAYS save a lot of money. And every time I learn more about film folding wrappers, the more I seem to save on things that are struck with exorbitance. No matter what way you slice it, more ingredients= more money. For a family of 4 (with 2 toddler boys that eat as much as grown men!), we still don’t use an entire bag of carrots in one meal, or an entire 8 serving package of quinoa pasta. Doubling it up and having the same thing as another night a few times a week really saves a lot of money. And, if I make Tuesday/Thursday’s meal together, then I only have to cook on Tuesday! No meal prep on Thursday required. On an average week, I only “cook” dinner 2-3 times, and the food still tastes good one or two days later (vs. freezing stuff for a long period of time, which always tastes kinda gross to me).
My one piece of advice for gluten free folks like me: avoid doubling up on pastas. Gluten free rice and quinoa pasta does NOT save well! Just double up the sauce, save half the package of pasta, and boil it later.
2. Use the Crockpot: In order to stretch the organic grass fed meat we buy, I almost always throw it into a stew of some sort. 3-4 servings of meat becomes 8 when you are adding tons of veggies, broth, and any other ingredients. Liquid is filling, and you also get the “veggie” part of dinner out of the way (although eating raw uncooked veggies a few times a week is still essential).
And here comes the compromise part: when you cook beef in a stew, for instance, you are able to use tougher meat. Choice cuts=expensive, especially when you’re buying organic and grass fed. If you choose beef cutlets or ground beef, you pay half of what you would for a strip steak or filet. Drumsticks in a crockpot are delicious, and 1/3 the cost of breasts or thighs (plus, if you’re SUPER “crunchy”, you can use the bones to make your bread broth!).
Many people would not be willing to compromise on this, because they love a good cut of steak (I do!). So it all comes down to which compromise you’re willing to make. We would rather eat organic grass fed beef ALL the time, saving the cost of a really good cut of steak for a special treat or occasion.
And, as our naturalistic doctor told me, the 95% is what matters. If you eat non-organic (say, for a meal out or for a good cut of steak that’s not organic) only 5% of the time, your body can process out those toxins easily. It’s when we over-saturate ourselves with pesticides and additive hormones that the body has a problem and deteriorates.
3. Buy staples in bulk: I have friends who are much more hardcore about this than I am. My biggest fear about buying in bulk is that I’ll pay a lot of money up front, then not use the quantity wisely.
A happy medium (for me), especially since we don’t have a TON of storage space, is to buy 5-6 of our biggest staples through Amazon Prime. When you subscribe to 5 or more items, you not only get the subscribe and save price (with free shipping), you also save an additional 15%! A large jar 32 oz. jar of organic coconut oil at Sprouts is $23, $17 at Costco. I get ours for $12 using all the discounts on Amazon, knowing that we will use it over the course of 2 months. We also bulk buy coconut milk, gluten free organic oats, gluten free cereal, gluten free protein bars (a small amount, treats!), toilet paper and almond baking flour. I reserve about $100/month of our $400 for our bulk items, since I know that I have to buy them anyways. Just make sure you have at least 5 items to get the extra 15%, even if it means you have to “subscribe” to super little things in order to hit 5. I once bought $3 worth of Betta food in order to meet my quota!
Word of advice: The way automatic shipments make money for their company is by sending things to you when you’re not done with the previous shipment. Track how quickly you are going through items, and if you only need to replenish things every other month, have a few additional staples to rotate in on the off months. We only buy a shipment of toilet paper every 3rd month, for instance, so if you can group things together to fit your needs, you won’t spend additional money by using the automatic subscribe and save shipments.
4. Buy local: Of course buying organic fruits and veggies at the supermarket is enough to break anyone’s budget! Produce is very expensive to begin with , which is why we have an obesity epidemic (especially among the lower class) in our country.
Buying local is better than buying the non-organic in a supermarket, in most cases. Granted that it’s hard to find things like a Critical Cure Strain anywhere but online, it still pays you (literally) to first scan the local stores for whatever it is you’re looking for. For instance, if your grocery store gets their produce from Mexico, the standards on pesticides are even lower than in the U.S. (which is saying something!). Most people already know this, but many local farmers do practice organic farming, they just haven’t paid for the right certifications. Buying local is also extremely good for the environment (if you care about this). Basically, buying non-organic at a farmer’s market is almost always better (and cheaper) than buying non-organic at a supermarket.
So, when you compromise on “organic” or not in order to stay in a budget, buy from a local farmers market first, and then buy organic whatever else you could possibly need. And if you don’t need to buy it organic (avocados, bananas, etc.), don’t! Don’t throw money down the drain if it’s not going to actually make a noticeable difference in your health! Stick to the Dirty Dozen list, and then try not to worry about it.
Another compromise that our family is willing to make is, once again, variety. Certain fruits and vegetables are a lot pricier than others. Bananas and carrots are EXTREMELY good for you, they don’t have to be organic (carrots are a ROOT for heavens sake, haha!), AND they are dirt cheap. Apples, pears and raspberries, on the other hand, would add an extra $100/month to our budget if we were to eat them every day. They require the highest amount of pesticides to grow non-organically, so, simply put, we don’t buy them very often. I wait for a good sale, stock up and freeze a bunch! People have been eating foods in season for thousands of years, and my kids will not be malnourished eating “special” produce less often.
5. Cook From Scratch: Our family has to do this anyways, since we have so many special dietary needs. Unfortunately, gluten free comes with a price tag– unless you cook it from scratch or forego it altogether. Gregory and I share one small loaf of gluten free bread a week– anything more than that I force myself to make it. Same with gluten free cookies and pasta. We use corn tortillas instead of buying expensive gluten free ones.
6. Go Meat-Free: When I really sat down and looked down at our budget, I realized that eating vegan on Wednesdays and Fridays was a huge money saver. I can make a meal that will serve for 2 dinners for only $6!! That’s $3/dinner, folks (if you need ideas, try our Thai Quinoa Casserole which has been “pinned” nearly 800 times!). Just make sure not to buy any fake meat or pre-packaged meals– so many chemicals and additives!! If you are only going vegan for a day or two a week, it doesn’t need to be fancy, complicated or expensive. Quinoa and nuts provide a TON of good protein, and you might not even realize you didn’t use meat or dairy.
7. Use “Fillers”: No, not the hotdog kind 🙂 With 3 hungry man-sized portions at stake for each meal, I have to make it stretch (or double our grocery bill!). Although Paleo fanatics would not agree (starches=evil), you can add rice, potatoes or rice pasta to almost any meal to stretch it. I can’t have potatoes, but sweet potatoes do the trick. For 50 cents more at Trader Joe’s, you can buy the more nutritious quinoa pasta, or just add quinoa (well rinsed, it doesn’t bother most tummies, which is why Paleo followers are on the fence about it). Spending an additional dollar or two on adding these things can make a 4 serving meal into an 8 serving meal.
8. Make a Plan: I once heard the saying, “Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.” For me in our meal planning, this is SO true. Back before I meal planned, we ate out a LOT, simply because the evening would sneak up on us and before we knew it, we were hungry. When I go to the grocery store without a super itemized list, I always spend at least $40 more (no matter how hard I try!). I know ahead of time what I want to pay for different things like meat, pasta and veggies, so I add it up ahead of time to get a rough estimate. If the number is higher than I want, I spend an extra 5 minutes tweaking the meal plan to get things in order.
Likewise, make sure to plan enough time for grocery shopping, and don’t do it when you’re cranky or worn out. I go into my grocery shopping time like I am playing chess. The moment I am not concentrating or I get exhausted, I end up paying more “just to save time” or because it “looks so yummy!”. Taking that extra trip to a different store, however inconvenient, could save $10-20 per trip– something that would equal $40-80 more per month.
Usually this means I don’t take the kids with me to the store, since I end up concentrating on them instead of my “grocery chess game”. Lately, however, I’ve started taking Gregory because we get a little date out of it, and he gets super involved and stoked about each deal. Sometimes he even cheers me on!
9. Know Your Stores: This probably goes with the last point. I make sure to go to my grocery stores in the right order, so that if I forgo buying something at one because it’s “too expensive”, I can get it at the next place. For me, I always start at Sprouts, Natural Grocers or Whole Foods (depending on my mood, haha!) and get my organic meat and a few gluten free products. I end at either Trader Joe’s or Aldi, and if there’s STILL something I didn’t grab (specialty), we grab it later at Kroger/Vons/Albertsons.
10. Grow Whatever You Can: I left this one for last, since lots of people don’t have room for a huge garden or orchard. When we had a garden bed in CA, without hardly any gardening know-how I was able to grow enough lettuce for months worth of salads, along with hundreds of cherry tomatoes. My parents had an apple and pear tree in their backyard, which, eventually had to be taken down because they had started to rot. I distinctly remember granny calling The Local Tree Experts to do the job. The trees used to produce enough fruit in season to can and save for an entire year– not that we ever fully took advantage of this, but it’s true that just one or two fruit trees can take care of an entire family.
And, there you have it! The little things I’ve done along the way to keep our meals organic AND budget friendly! If anyone has any additional tips, please feel free to comment and I will add them to the list (giving you the credit, of course 🙂 ). Happy grocery shopping!
Afternoon Coffee Date– Pain, Suffering, and whether God is really Good
Today’s coffee date is brought to you by my second round of coffee late in the afternoon. Why? Because this morning I was blessed with a real-life coffee date, you know, the kind with real people sitting in front of me? Not to diss this blog or the friends I’ve made here, but I kinda prefer the real-life version! Any-who. Who says I can’t have both?
A group of my friends from church (all of whom have remained my friends from the first time we lived in Dallas, through our time in CA, and now for Round 2 of Dallas) have started a twice a month get-together, where we all convene at a different house and let the kids go crazy in another room while we chat.
We have also been inviting a wise lady (the one in the picture above, who did not want her face shown!) from our parish, a mom to 5 kids, Grandma to many, who’s been married happily for 50+ years. This lady has experienced trials within the family, including job loss, cancer and divorce, so she knows what it means to suffer, praising God through it all. My friends and I have decided that while she still worships on this earth with us, we would love to sit at her feet and glean knowledge from her like breadcrumbs. She’s also one of the most humble people– truly, she is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.
We talked last time about motherhood, but today’s topic of conversation was about being a wife. We read from an Orthodox book (I need to track down the title!), from a chapter titled, “Give Up Control to Have More Power”. This was so convicting and deeply powerful for all of us.
What we have to remember in this day and age is that information– thoughts and words– and our interpretation of information– feelings and emotions– are not the fuel of life, nor the substance of change. LOVE is the fuel of life, the very substance of our being. God created us out of love and sustains us literally by Divine Grace., by His Energies, which is precisely Love. When we receive the Holy Mysteries, we receive the very Body and Blood of Christ, who, St. John testifies, “is Love”. Love does not turn us away in the communion line despite the faults of our own that are even obvious to us(and more so the ones that aren’t). Neither should we consider it our job to withhold love pending some change in behavior on the part of our spouse. When our husbands come to learn that our love is there for them whether or not we personally get what we want, even if it means that something they are doing is causing us to suffer, they find a springboard to what Fr. Paul calls the metanoia (or literally, change of heart) that turns us back to God and further towards the person we were created to be.
There are so many times I hear about marriages that come to a stand still because change is needed, and the couple has no tools with which to conquer the things that are separating them. It’s so easy within a marriage to withhold our love and approval until change has been met, no? Today’s conversation revolved around supporting our husband’s decisions, because until he feels loved and supported for who he is, regardless of outcome, he will continue to make the same mistakes. Tough love doesn’t work within a marriage– unconditional love and support do.
The world would probably tell us otherwise, but I decided long ago to listen to people who have been married for decades than the world’s 50% divorce rate! Yes?
We also talked a lot about fighting the world’s definition of feminine, and pursuing what we were created to be– the difference between “submission”, and the better, more Orthodox way of “surrender”. Surrender looks like giving up control for intimacy, because fighting for control can rob us of our humanity. We talked about how to be truly feminine, we have to be what we were created for. No matter how hard our culture tries to blur the line between men and women, women can do the one thing that men cannot– they can nurture and bring forth life, whether that’s in the form of babies, friendships, art, or important causes. Instead of fighting to replace everything masculine with something gender neutral, we can own what is already ours, something that is more powerful than any of the other posturing and bravado we see shouted by the media. Orthodox churches, for the majority, do not struggle with the gender battle (ie., why can’t we have female priests? female readers? female deacons?), because we look at the altar and see Mary, the Mother of God, holding the highest place of honor that any human other than Jesus can have. She held the Life of the World within herself, and brought it into the world. She fulfilled the most important act in all of humanity, breaking the curse of Eve. She did not just give birth to a baby, she gave birth to what would save all of Humanity. All the other roles women have been fighting for pale in comparison.
Anyways, it was a wonderful coffee date, and I am so thankful to have this group of women who constantly amaze and inspire me. I have felt for the past few weeks that I am in the middle of a huge growth spurt, one that comes after many months of chaos and hardship. It’s easy to think that times of rest should go on for as long as we want, but I have felt that part of what it means to rest is also to grow. To take stock of so many things that have happened and how they have affected me.
One of the things I am currently processing (and, this comes last, but it is definitely a doozy!) is how God can be a loving God. I have heard of many who go through this crisis of belief, where they struggle with believing that God is truly Good, given all the evil that goes on in the world. Although I have experienced a lot of loss and death in my life, I have never had this crisis firsthand.
But I’m neck-deep in right now. Just a few weeks ago, I found out that our beloved foster boys, the ones who we left in CA with a permanent adoptive home, are now back in the system once more. We are in Dallas, across the country, unable to help them, unable to barely get a word in with their social worker, and it feels helpless and heartbreaking. Like truly gut-wrenching heart-breaking. Not a night has gone by since we heard the news where I haven’t cried myself to sleep.
And I think: God, these are your babies. You took away their earthly mother and father. You have not provided them with another mother or father. The system is their parent, and it is failing them. God, if you are not even choosing to protect your babies, who are innocents caught in the cross fire of adults who keep making mistakes, why would you ever choose to protect me?
I love that I was able to bring these raw thoughts forward today and have our mentor (who was also a foster parent, in addition to mothering her 5 children!) tell me that I can scream and shout these things to the Lord and He won’t love me any less. She told me to read the Psalms, where David spends chapter after chapter crying out in anger and anguish at the Lord. If these things pain me, they pain God much more, because He loves them more. Pain and suffering are not indications that we are far from God, or that He is not looking out for us. We do not believe in a “Prosperity Gospel”, where God only shows His love through earthly blessings and rewards.
Someone else also brought up their favorite part of Revelations, where the martyrs cry out saying, “Don’t forget about us and the blood we spilled!” and the Lord listens and gives them their say. Someday, even if it’s not soon, I know that our boys will be given a chance to be heard, and that the evils done against them by their parents will be healed.
I will continue to struggle and grow through these thoughts and frustrations, but I am so happy for a group of friends who can walk alongside me in these ways.
Travel Worn and Weary
Our family is known for having some pretty spectacularly bad traveling times, especially when it comes to planes going to and fro from TX to CA. Till date, the only time we had a pleasant flight with no disturbance, was when Rick decided to Go Jettly and chartered us a jet from thier site. There is beauty in travelling in private jets.
There was once a time when Jesse and I had to spend the entire New Year’s Eve night in the freezing cold Denver airport with our 2 month old Gregory, with nothing to keep us warm but a few jackets that we had in our carry ons. And then, to top it off, the airline lost our bags for over a week!
Another time, Jesse had to spend 2 hours with Gregory in the airplane lavatory because he screamed the entire trip.
Yet another time, one in which I was traveling with 5 month old Gregory by myself, he screamed so much that when he finally grew exhausted and fell asleep, the entire plane applauded. And then he had a diaper explosion during landing (during which no one applauded, naturally).
I’m not going to pretend that this one was the worst or anything, but it was less than ideal. We were supposed to leave yesterday at 5pm. Because Jesse had an after-school meeting to attend, he had to take us a bit earlier than we would’ve preferred, but I figured it was better to be really early than cutting it super close. We were at the gate waiting for our flight by 3:15. Just an hour and a half to keep the kiddos occupied? No problem. I had snacks, mac and cheese dinner in a Tupperware, and a DVD player armed with lots of movies they’d never seen, along with a handful of toys. What could go wrong?
Instead of leaving at 5, our flight left at 6:45, after delaying it a few times, boarding everyone, then getting everyone back off the plane because the a/c no longer worked. They then switched our gate to one that was across the airport and said it was leaving in 20 minutes. Naturally, I sprinted (I didn’t want to miss the flight I’d waited hours for!) with two unwilling kids… only to wait at the gate ANOTHER HOUR! I had wrangled the kids alone by myself in an airport for 3.5 hours before we’d even gotten on the 4 hour plane ride! Everyone on our plane was more than a little disgruntled by the time we actually made it on, and the stewardess’ jokes about not serving us the good food they had on the last flight didn’t help things.
So, instead of arriving at LAX at 7:45 PST (9:45 OUR time), we arrived at 9:15 PST. The plane ride was actually the easiest part of the trip, because the boys were more than happy to snuggle up with me and watch movies. I had lollipops for take off and descent (we had a brief stop in San Antonio), which helped with their ears. There was only a 10 minute period where Gregory cried because “the bubbles were in his ears!”, but I was even able to talk him down from that.
Upon arrival, we had already made plans to meet our newlywed Uncle David and Aunt Emily for burgers around the corner, and we were hungry, so we went ahead, despite the fact that it was almost midnight in our TX minds.
All was well, until Gregory started gagging. I took him to the bathroom, but he didn’t want to stay there. On our way back to the table, he puked all over the restaurant aisle and floor. After we cleaned him up (all of the super nice servers assured us this was not the first time this had happened), he passed out asleep on the booth.
And then began the four hour drive home, which went from around midnight-4am Texas time. I drove the last leg of the journey, through fog that was so thick you couldn’t see more than 20-30 feet ahead of the car. The dangerous fog element actually helped keep me alert and awake, surprisingly, so it helped in a way. Boy was I exhausted. Wrangling two kids across the airport, a long plane ride, a dinner, and then a 4 hour drive home made for 15 straight hours of travel while on high alert.
But we are here safe and sound, and I am thankful. Gregory woke up happy as a clam, no sickness in sight, and has been eating normally and using Grandma’s potty like a champ. We are just a little tired, but not too worse for the wear!
Here are a few ADORABLE pictures of my not-so-little baby Gregory (who is about to turn 4 in a few weeks…still in shock).
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