The initial purpose of this blog was not just to discuss food, but to discuss economical food. It must still taste good, and be healthy. I haven't done enough of this.
It has been brought to my attention by friends in several places (US) that in their area, it is cheaper to buy junk food than healthy food. That is just about the worst thing that can happen to you. Obviously it can happen anywhere if there are transportation issues and the only food shopping available within walking distance is processed, packaged, etc. I must make more effort to understand this problem when handing out advice.
For now I want to get you lot involved in creating a thinktank for money-saving ideas. We all have different situations, and a variety of ideas is more useful than just one experience. So I urge anyone reading this to write their own blog on the topic, and link to it in the comments below. Please give the reader an idea of your situation, here's mine....
We are a family of 5, me aged 50, and men aged 53, 20, 18, and 16. Two of the men do heavy manual work, mostly outdoors and require more calories than the average person. One is partially active with me here on the farm, and one is still growing. So I cook hearty meals, and keep my own portions down to allow for that.
We are on a fairly tight budget, of around $600 a month, some of our meat, eggs, and vegetables are our own produce, but I take that into account when talking figures (it's not free, animals need feed, and butcher's fees etc. can put meat prices per pound almost at supermarket rates). The main advantage economically is salad and herbs in season, and of course there is the quality factor. It is not possible, this far north, to be self-sufficient unless you adopt a very strange diet. More on that later.
We have plenty of storage space, some a little unorthodox (potatoes under the bed), but we do not have the common problem of not being able to buy in bulk. We also have several freezers. So we have a tremendous advantage there. AND we have a truck. That's a huge advantage.
I believe (not certain) that food prices in the area we shop, are some of the lowest in Canada. That helps too.
I still think my biggest advantage is my ability and willingness to cook the majority of our food from scratch. In this house ketchup counts as processed food. (I did make it myself once, it was horrible).
There are several other points that make it possible for me to spend less money.
1. We are not picky eaters. I can put almost anything on the table and it will be devoured.
2. Nobody has any special dietary needs.
3. My family accept any restrictions I place. They don't complain about lack of certain items. They're all happy for their main drink to be water.
So, co-operation is a huge aspect.
I'd like to examine several key areas that I think are important:
1. I think it goes without saying they we eat out very rarely, once a month or less. Nobody buys lunch out unless it's from their own personal money, i.e. not from the housekeeping budget.
2. We buy hardly any snack foods. Snacks here are restricted to fruit, crackers, cheese, yoghurt, and grazing leftovers. Snacking is not encouraged. I lead by example.
3. The main family treat (when it's on sale) is ice cream. I feel this at least has some food value. Chips, likewise are an occasional treat and not a food group.
4. We try very hard not to waste food. Leftovers can be your lunch, or can be included in another meal, such as soup or stew. If it is beyond human use an animal can eat it. If all else fails we compost it. Zero food goes in the garbage. I am offended by food in garbage, anywhere, at any time.
5. We only have dessert about once a month. There is always a selection of fruit in the house if people want it. When we have dessert it's usually a special occasion, but it's still something home-made and nutritious.
6. We shop infrequently. There is some meal planning, with room for change. But it's better to shop less often, and pick up fresh foods in between, than to shop little and often, unless of course you are lucky enough to have a market nearby (as in farmer's market).
Obviously, as I said earlier, every family is different and what works for me might not work for you, but these are tried and tested ways I keep my food bills down.
A typical day then...
Breakfast is usually toast-and-something. Eggs, cheese, peanut butter, or occasionally the boys like jam. We have a variety such as bagels, English muffins, home-made bread, and store-bought multi-grain bread, to stop it getting samey. We look for bargains. We tend only to have bigger breakfasts at the weekend, with bacon or sausages. The boys also eat oatmeal. If the price is good I will pick up the more substantial boxed cereals such as Mini Wheats.
Lunch is usually sandwiches or leftovers. Everyone is responsible for their own (we did this even when the children were very young). If you pack your own lunch, in theory you will eat it - no complaints, no waste. It's not a big deal really. I will buy lunch meats if they are on sale, but I won't pay full price for them. Currently the local supermarket is doing cheap bulk packs of ham, roast beef, roast turkey, and salami so I am picking a few up, but our standard selection is cheese, tuna, salmon, egg, and leftovers from meats we cook ourselves. There is always salad items in the fridge to add to these. There is nothing wrong with a cheese sandwich.
Dinner is a hot meal, with meat most days. The basis of my cooking is the potato, and I use it whenever possible. I am not personally keen on rice but as I can buy it cheaply in sacks, I do use it. Pasta less often, although I buy that in bulk too. I aim to put a minimum of 3 vegetables into dinner, one way and another, although one of those is usually onion. I try to have something green in every dinner, even if it's only a bit of pepper, or zucchini in a tomato sauce. I'll do a side salad if nothing cooked works. In summer we have salad every day. I cook a wide variety of dishes, from all around the world to keep things varied. We try not to eat the same meat two days running, aim for fish at least once a week, and red meat twice a week, with the exception that if there's lamb in the freezer, it takes priority.
OK, open to questions, and don't forget to do yours.
Rice is really cheap here for some reason and it is easy to store. It seems when I try to make a meal out of it I end up spending too much money making something like sweet and sour chicken or something. I guess I need to investigate rice recipes. I will be checking back often.
ReplyDeleteCurry is the easiest, tastiest, cheapest thing to serve with rice. It's impossible to cook a bad curry, but you need a bit of practice getting the "heat" right. I still mess up sometimes, but I find a bit of yoghurt tames them if I overdo the hot peppers.
DeleteBut pretty much an stew-type dish can go on rice. You can use it instead of pasta, with a tomato-based sauce. So long as it's moist, it'll work, or you can just make the rice "fancy" and serve it as a side dish.
Since I avoid grains, spaghetti for me ends up being sauce, onions, mushrooms, meat and the appropriate cheese in a bowl. I eat 'pizza' the same way - toppings in a bowl and no crust. Breakfast is usually coconut custard made once a week. A snack is frequently an avocado or an apple. Meat cooked with a bunch of veggies in homemade broth feeds us for days. I freeze the carcases of Thanksgiving turkeys and organic chickens to later make and can bone broth for this purpose. Salads have nuts instead of croutons and homemade dressing. We rarely eat out and my too-lazy-to-cook dinner is a cheese omelet. No soda. We drink pretty much water and sometimes wine. Our diet never seems odd until we have guests. Then our lack of liquid variety and lack of bread/crackers/chips seems odd.
ReplyDeleteWith your dietary needs it's way more difficult and I commend you on how you deal with it. There's no soda in this house, and rarely even juice. Even my grandchildren accept this, they can have milk if they really don't want water.
DeleteJuice isn't necessary. Cut out snacks, offer fruit instead, then lose the juice, that's two savings and two health improvements all in one hit.
I also make my own yoghurt. It is WAY cheaper than buying it. Same with jerky - WAY cheaper to make it.
ReplyDeleteThat's my next task, to get into making my own yoghurt. I have access to fresh goat's milk so I can have even better yoghurt.
DeleteI make yoghurt a gallon at a time, but in quart containers. I heat and cool the milk in a standard pot and then add starter. I use a package starter in the Spring and then use a tablespoon of yoghurt from the last batch for every batch made since the first one. People here stop eating it in the winter, so I start over with a fresh package of starter every Spring. I have a crock pot that has a nice, heavy ceramic liner. I soak it in hot tap water to warm it and pour the water out when the gallon of warm milk and starter has been poured into quart containers (I cap the quarts with lids). Then the quarts go into the warm crock liner and I cover the whole thing with towels. Several hours later I have lovely yoghurt.
DeleteThanks for sharing how you make your own yoghurt. As much as we eat of it, it would be nice to make our own, too. It would at least keep our crock pot busy. ;) ~ Blessings!
DeleteI'll have to try that Zusi, I have a crock pot like that. So you use the "keep warm" setting? We eat it daily.
DeleteNo, I don't use any setting on the crock pot. The crock pot is off during this process. I've tried to use the keep warm setting but it gets too hot and then the batch separates and is ruined. I just use the heat retained by the ceramic liner. Yoghurt is a bit touchy to make. Not warm enough and it won't get thick. Too warm and it separates and smells foul. Also, warm and cool the milk SLOWLY and covered and use a thermometer. Rise slowly to 160F and cool slowly to 110F. I then skim off the 'skin' and then add the starter. It is not a hurry-up process.
DeleteAh, I see, so I wonder if the ambient room temperature makes a difference here then. Would be better in a warm kitchen. Hmm. As the temperature is the critical part, I could use my egg incubator.............
DeleteYes, the room temp does matter, which is why I cover the crock liner very well to keep the temp constant. The crock liner is warm from the hot water and the quarts are filled with warm milk and they fit tightly in the liner so they share their warmth. The crock liner works quite well once it absorbs the heat from the hot water you soak in it. It would even work in winter. Interest just falls off here for yoghurt in the winter so I quit making it until Spring arrives. An egg incubator might work, depending on the temp it holds.
DeleteIt's designed to sit at a constant 100 degrees, but it can be adjusted a bit.
DeleteOh, BTW: A quart of yoghurt, a tablespoon of vanilla and 2 cups of fresh chopped or crushed fruit tossed into an ice cream maker makes a fantastic frozen yogurt. You decide if it needs a bit of sugar. Sometimes I pour that into forms and make frozen treats for hot days. Being able to control the sweetness is a big plus.
DeleteStorage for buying in bulk is a huge plus. We are working on creating storage for more food. But the money to buy in bulk needs to come along too.. Living on one salary just isn't cutting it anymore.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, if you switch to bulk buying there's a period during which you eat weirdly before it gets into a routine, and that's hard, no matter how much your budget. Once you're in the swing of it, then it's easier, and MOST of our shopping now is bulk purchase of bargains.
DeleteI bulk buy paper products and cleaners. I know those items are not food, but since most people tend to buy them at the grocery store, they cut into the food budget.
DeleteTrue, it all has to be paid for. That was actually the first thing I noticed on arriving in Canada 20 years ago, packs of 16 rolls of toilet roll. I'd never seen more than 4 before. I knew right then it was going to be easier over here.
DeleteI use vinegar for most cleaning, and I buy the big 4 litre (gallon) jugs, enough for a year, when they go on sale at pickling time. We don't use white vinegar as a condiment here, only real vinegars, but I'm sure people seeing the amount I buy (including what I buy for actual pickling) must think I own a pickle factory.
I use vinegar for fabric softener on towels.
DeleteYep, and it works just fine. Don't need dryer sheets.
DeleteOur family of four gets by on about $550 per month, in large part thanks to the children participating in the school lunch program. (Some may argue whether it is food, but it can be the only part of the day when they choose to eat meat.)
ReplyDeleteWe do not usually cook meat, except on rare occasion. I may buy a pound of bacon once a month, or get a small ham or turkey for a holiday. Primarily, we eat pasta (and have tried alternates to wheat pasta at times). I do watch for organic specials. Half of us eat veggies; 3/4 of us eat eggs. I watch the kind of breads and cereals that we use to help avoid high-fructose corn syrup or other chemicals that get processed in with the ingredients. Fresh fruit and veggies are preferred over store-bought canned or frozen items. We do use a bit of dairy (on average two gallons of milk per week, and I use almond milk for coffee and cereals--about a gallon per month).
We switch up as much as we can between pasta, potatoes and rice. Most dinners run with pasta, and our eating out/ordering in is also greatly curtailed to maybe once a month--it's just far too expensive. Treats are minimal, except around holidays when there can be a few store-bought and homemade items. We've cut back greatly on soda, leaning more into water and the occasional kool-aid when something different is chosen.
Our food storage is minimal (one fridge/ freezer) and pantry items are kept in a small cabinet so we do not have a lot of older items sitting around. Mindfulness definitely plays a part in what we consume. ~ Blessings!
I also try to keep a healthy kitchen, but hubby makes it difficult because he frequently buys cookies, chips, and other processed snacks for our monthly D&D gatherings. Contrary to popular belief, those store-bought granola bars are not as 'healthy' as one thinks, they're full of sugar.
ReplyDeleteThe insistence of Missy's school to provide healthy snacks and lunches has made a big difference. We always have fruit, carrots, crackers, and bell peppers in the house. I prefer to carve up roasts for sandwiches instead of using deli meat. Leftover casserole portions are often frozen and given a second life as part of spaghetti sauce. I would certainly use a composter if we had one, but I'm unsure if the city would allow it due to the small size of our yard.