Highlighting the food budget
Apr 17th, 2008 by Dani
The Bread Winner, in his altruistic way, has decided to pay for a local orthodontist’s children’s education for the next couple of years. Isn’t he sweet? Which has made me consider our budget overall and any way in which I can make savings on our regular expenses. The tricky part of that is that I already run a pretty tight ship. I live simply and generally speaking I’m quite anti-consumption. Our kids are at inexpensive ages too which helps.
The biggest weekly expense we have is, of course, food. Measures I already take to keep expenditure contained include;
- shopping at farmer’s markets (local and seasonal)
- shopping at local wholesalers
- growing my own vegetables and herbs
- buying meat in bulk at weekly market closing
- buying fruit and veg in bulk at weekly market closing
- buying dried legumes in bulk
- buying bread flour in bulk and baking my own bread
- making everything from scratch (sauces etc)
- buying milk in bulk directly from a farm
- using natural cleaning products such as vinegar and bicarb soda
I’m sure there are other things but that is what comes immediately to mind. I see many discussions on forums and the like on the topic and the one thing that disturbs me is that so often, food quality and nutrition is sacrificed in the name of saving money. I will not do that. I will make concessions I don’t want to make such as buying conventional produce rather than organic but that is as far as I’m prepared to go. So I have certain parameters that need to be met;
- 5 - 7 serves of fruit and vegetables per person per day
- an even mix of meat, vegetarian and fish based meals each week
- no processed, additive ridden food
Once again, I have probably left some important things off, I will come back and add them as they occur to me.
So expect to see an even greater emphasis than normal on budget food until the Bread Winner has beautiful expensive straight teeth! If you have any tips for saving on the food budget or important nutrition parameters, please add them in the comments. Every little idea helps!
Check to all those things; I can’t think of much to add, apart from using leftovers and meal planning, which I know you already do. With the garden I’m a big fan of grow what you eat and eat what you grow… and preserve excess in the harvest gluts so you aren’t fatigued by yet another zucchini or tomato or pumpkin. I bought a 2nd freezer to do this properly, and it’s so worth it.
Good luck with your budget, those teeth better increase his earning potential!
I’m after a third freezer! I’d love to buy a whole animal for meat but between bulk milk, butter and everything else, even the second freezer is usually overflowing.
I wish straight teeth would increase earning potential but somehow I doubt it. Never mind, as long as it makes the old fellow happy.
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