What We DON’T Eat Saves Money

How do you know organic rice isn’t worth the money? Do you know what chemicals they contain?  Have you done a study of the health effects of these chemicals? Do you know the effects of the chemicals on the rice? Can you name even one of the chemicals or pesticides that are used to raise such rice?

Buying organic is generally the better choice. But it may be one of the things you have to sacrifice with a large family. It’s disingenuous, however, to say it’s not worth the money.

I am amazed that you guys are able to eat so cheaply. We eat a vegan diet and have for 15 years. There are only 8 of us (until July:) ) Where it gets so expensive for us is that 6 of us have to eat gluten free. It is so expensive!!!! The oats we buy are more than three times the amount of regular ones. That is just one example. I wish we weren’t dealing with food issues because it would be much cheaper. We don’t eat convenience foods or out of boxes but our food bill is much higher. Thanks for sharing with us!

Buying meat on sale and stashing in the freezer helps us a lot. Meals made of soups and fresh homemade bread ( we are gluten free and continue to make our own bread to save money). Chili and rice, rice pasta and a veggie/tomato sauce can be eaten twice. I like the challenge of cooking for our big family, most days that is:)) 

Every winter I pressure many many quarts of chili, cheeseburger soup, and country hamburger soup.   I then use these meals throughout the year as my quick meals, they are so much tastier and economical than pre-made or boxed items.  Healthier too………

One thing that we do, is a meal swap. One night a week I make dinner for another family… The whole meal is delivered at dinner time, ready to eat. The next night she makes me dinner. This saves money, it is less expensive to double a recipe than make two different meals. We also enjoy having a homemade meal without having to cook it one night a week. This gives me one afternoon I am free to clean more, do school or a fun activity. I think it is also nice to eat someone else’s cooking. Of course, you have to have another large family in close proximity and similar meal expectations. This has been such a blessing to our family for over 10 years.

One way in which we keep our grocery bill down is to always take a picnic lunch with drinks if we are going out ie; parks, zoo, beach etc. With five children and two adults this saves a considerable amount of money. We also go shopping on full stomachs with drinks in my handbag (water usually) for the children. Lastly, I always have a list with at least two weeks worth of meals planned out and the ingredients needed, what is not in my pantry etc, to be purchased.

Oh and a heads up to miss Clara, different countries have different legislation about which “pesticides/herbicides and chemicals” are deemed safe and to which amount is “safe”. Yes in an ideal world this would not be necessary but unless you are growing your own, much smaller scale, it is usually a “necessary evil”. Life is all about choices and I think if you read up on it and make up your own mind (and not jump on the latest marketing ploy or fad bandwagon) then thats all that matters. And as for “organic” do a little research on the companies that endorse these claims and the legislation  to which they are bound and you might be surprised to find that they only need a certain percentage of organic product to be able to make the “organic” claim.

Just found your blog… Loving it!  

We have ten children and people are always amazed that our grocery bill hovers between $400 to $600 a month…($120 of that is for milk!) … less in summer when we are eating from our garden.  I go to the store when I need to — usually when we’re out of fresh fruit or milk.  In our region of the southern United States, we have a multitude of grocery-salvage stores, at which I can usually find great deals.  Every now and then I go to a “real” grocery store, if my seventeen-year-old gourmet-wanna-be daughter needs some obscure ingredient not found in my very simple pantry.

 I didn’t read all the way down the comments to see if this has already been mentioned, but I’d like to put in a plug for making your own broth from bones.  My kids know, whenever we have a cut of bone-in meat, the bones are placed on the “bone plate” not the garbage.  I throw the bones in a crock-pot, cover with water, add salt, a half an onion, maybe some garlic, or that leafy inner stalk of celery no one wants to eat, and simmer for at least a day.  Strain it and, Voila!, absolutely delicious bone broth, full of healthy benefits.  If I don’t use it right away, I’ll freeze it in gallon zip-top bags for another day.  I am trying to get away from bouillion cubes as they are loaded with MSG.

By the way, I love the photo of the 50 pound bag of popcorn from Sam’s!  Looks just like mine!  We keep ours in five-gallon buckets with “gamma-seal” screw-off lids, same as our bulk rice, flour, and sugar.

for a few of our children we have gone on the feingold diet, removing artificial colors, flavors and preservatives, another has multiple food allergies in addition to this.  the learning curve was hard, and very expensive at first, but I have learned now to make so many things from scratch.  “how to make your own…” became my new google standard.  The only thing I can add is about eating healthier is that my food bill may be a bit higher, but I would rather pay money for FOOD than for filler.  I am still learning ways to save within my parameters.

Discount store prices aren’t always cheaper, meats are ‘enhanced’ with up to 30% ‘solution’ so you paid for less chicken and more chemical water, canned products even have added ingredients, breads have lots of unnecessary ingredients.

Take a regular inventory of your pantry and ask if there is anything you could make yourself, a marinade? a snack product? a canned soup staple?  most are easy, there’s bound to be a kid that would like to try their hand at it, and chances are most ingredients are already on your shelf.

In addition to buying it in bulk, I find cooking ahead large portions of ground beef and cut up chicken and then freezing allows me to use ‘less’ than a recipe may call for, stretching my meat budget.

Mus-go soup: homemade broth and everything else in your fridge that ‘mus go’ is a weekly meal here for us.  when you pay more for ‘real’ food, you don’t EVER want to waste a mouthful of it.  There have been some strange combinations, but it always gets eaten!