We plan to pay off a huge chunk of debt this year and save about $4G to take the kids to Disney next January. To do this I need to only spend $500 a month on groceries. We usually spend a couple hundred more than that so I need to find some less expensive yet healthy and balanced meals. I also need to come up with some meals that don't rely so heavily on meat. We are big meat eaters currently and I know that eats up alot of our budget especially since we buy mostly organic meat.

We do not eat white flour, white sugar, or caffeine so many of the things on sites like hillbilly housewife don't work for us. We only drink water so beverages taking away part of the food allowance is not an issue. I also want to make sure that we all eat the correct amount of fruit and veggies a day (dh and I are shooting for 7-9 for us).

We have our own garden and eat abundantly from it but since we are in Michigan our garden produce season is only about 3-4 months and our local farmers market is only open from July 1- Oct. 1.

Edited to add: We do buy whole chickens and I can get 3 meals from one and the only convenience food I buy are apple sauce cups and a few granola bars. I have also gotten into a cereal rut so I need to taper that as well.

I know this is a tall order but if you have any links or ideas that you can share with me that would be great.

I am in a similar situation. Our food costs have spiraled out of control. I was watching a news story on how they have increased dramatically this past year and will do again this year, so I am trying to figure out what is realistic.

I order all my meats except chicken from a local organic farm. I also order my eggs from them. That is a quality over price thing.

Otherwise, I think eating more in season and growing our own garden are two other ideas.

Soups are a great cost-effective, healthy meal.

Buying a whole turkey or chicken, as opposed to them already cut up is cheaper. (and make great soups)

Whole wheat spaghetti with chunky veggie sauce is cheap and yummy.

Meatless chili (buying beans and soaking them yourself) is cheap.

Our beef is cheap since we bought 1/4 cow recently (we generally do this once a year or so) and we also have 3 deers' worth of meat in our freezer because my dh is a hunter. So using red meat doesn't cost us a ton when we do eat it.

Eating breakfasts for supper is cheap and yummy. I like to do egg bakes (shredded potatoes on the bottom and then cover with eggs that have been scrambled, meat like ham or sausage and some cheese. Pour over potatoes, shred a bit of cheese on top and bake till done--usually about 45 minutes or so).

I make my own bread using our bread machine, so sandwiches are generally cheap. We do a lot of cut up veggies. I started buying regular carrots instead of baby carrots since they are half the price.

I do lots of crock pot cooking...cut up carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, etc. with chicken or beef or whatever.

Try and make everything from scratch if possible. Cut out convenience and snack type foods. I have a dehydrator now, so I can make my own fruit leathers, dried fruits, jerky, etc.

ETA: I generally cook twice as much as we need when I'm cooking so we have leftovers. Dh takes them to work and we eat them for lunches during the day. That cuts costs significantly and makes my job a lot easier when it comes time for lunch.

i don't have a ton of advice, since my food costs are even higher than yours. But I do know that Rachel has some great advice. I also find that making a lot of soup or lentil stew, then freezing the leftovers for another meal, is really helpful.

Post some of the meals you've been having.

I do some of what was mentioned. I wish my dh would hunt. We get some venison from my dad but the kids love it so having a full deer or two in the freezer would be great. I buy 20 whole chickens a year from a local farmer who lets them pretty much have free range and supplements with organic feed and we get our eggs from a local source as well.

I think doing a soup night once or twice a week would be great. The other problem I have is that I have one kid who is super picky and who has a gag reflex to certain textures.

Mama,
We're in the same boat as you. We've even been thinking it would be cool to take the kids to Disney in 2009 as DS #1 will be 10 this year, and we want it to still hold it's magic, YK?

We are also big meat eaters, and, for the most part, DH hates beans, so that makes things rough.

I know you already make a ton of stuff from scratch, etc.
I just went to Hillbilly Housewife last night and printed off her $70 meal plan. I showed it to DH, and he was grossed out, mostly, so I sat down using it as inspiration. Knowing what I have in the freezer, pantry, etc., I worked up a two week menu, which should mean I don't have to buy anything except possibly milk and eggs in the next two weeks.


It gets harder after that, LOL. I'm posting my menu in another post shortly...

Owen is picky too. There's usually something that I can find for him to eat if he really hates what we are having. But I do encourage him to try it before he decides not to like it. :)

Bobbi Jo, advertise in your local paper that you would like to buy deer. Many people that hunt don't use all of the meat. Also if there is a place that does deer processing that is local to you, put the word out there that you are interested in buying deer meat.

these are great ideas; we, too, have found ourselves in a financial rut... so this is definitely helpful!

Oatmeal or eggs for breakfast. Homebaked muffins or biscuits for snacks. In-season or on-sale fruits and vegetables. Stocking up on sale-priced meats and other items.

We eat well on about $300 a month. But that's because I have lots of practice at it and now where/how to get the local deals. Buying rice, oats, flour, potatoes, carrots, onions, etc. in huge bags saves a ton too. I agree that you should contact a local meat processing place to see about getting wild meat.

It's all about looking at things another way. It's not about buying everything all pretty and wrapped from Safeway. Not saying you're doing that, but I know lots of people who don't even know how to think outside the box. LOL.

Kerri

interesting...around here most folks "get their deer" and really do eat it. Probably because deer are very scarce around here and people very tuned in to self-sufficiency and frugality ideals. Dh hunted, but didn't get one.

I know it's hard when you already don't buy prepackaged stuff.

We recently added beans and rice or quinoa for me and dh to the menu for most nights and it really cut down on the bill. I do have insanely picky kids, including one who has a neurological reason for it (autism) so we gave up on them eating beans and rice and cooked 2 separate dinners. It's not so bad if you make up huge pots of beans and rice and then for the next 3 days you have all variety of burritos, tacos, tostadas, etc., all from that one big cook. Makes cooking chicken and potatoes for the kids easier, since you and dh are just eating leftovers. It has really saved us a bunch of $ on groceries.

Quinoa *ahem* is still a fave of mine, you can dress it up any way, and since it's a complete protein a quinoa-based salad with chopped up veggies *is* a one dish, complete meal. Great for lunch.

Love Rachel's suggestions. Soups are wonderful. Everyone but my ds eats them.

Scheduling in 2 "breakfast for dinner" nights of eggs and pancakes helped us, too. If we didn't schedule it, we'd kind of forget to do that little money-saving trick. Edited to add, based on the breakfast thread, I really think this helps us when it replaces a meatbased dinner or a "quick" dinner that would be spendy. And we do half pancakes, half scrambled eggs. Our pancakes are cheap, they are more like crepes, we can use powdered milk if we need to, we use lots of eggs and not much flour. Our eggs are "free" from our own hens so a dinner like this really does save us money. We use real maple syrup but not much of it.

oh and cereal. Man, dh pissed me off when he brought home a few boxes of it. Go back to oatmeal and eggs and your grocery bill will go WAY down.

This year, maybe go for making the garden bigger and doing more canning and freezing from the garden? This is one of my goals for this year. I want to be eating more from the garden NOW - as it is I have some frozen spinach and kale, acorn and pattypan squash in the cold basement, but nothing else!

see around here they arent at all scare, and people hunt as much to keep population down as anything else. I know I remember one year when a friend of my dads killed 17 deer in a season-- he definitely had meat surplus! He didnt want to pay for the processing himself (or do it himself) so he was trying to give away meat .

We get cereal when it's $2 or less a box - usually things like Cheerios, shredded mini wheats, honey nut cheerios, etc. I've found that for our family, it's far cheaper than the eggs we buy and the kids will eat it with rice milk (which we can get cheap at TJ's) or a small amount of organic milk. So, it works for us. But, I see the prices at some stores and I can see why some families avoid boxed cereals like the plague.

My kids also eat a lot of instant oatmeal. I know, it's not ideal, but we tried every kind of it under the sun (including the homemade instant) and several of them, depending on what it was, wouldn't eat it. This one everyone eats, no complaints, and we can get a case of it at the warehouse clubs pretty cheap.

When I'm really tight on the budget, I focus on dehydrated things and frozen things that pop the most nutrition in a small quantity. Lauren's quinoa is a great one - brown rice, dried beans, whole grain pasta, etc. I always buy a huge bag or several bags or organic broccoli florets - those can be stir-fried or steamed quickly and are really good. I buy carrots, whole, and peel/slice them myself in one fell swoop - sometimes even enlisting the kids to peel and then using the CuisinArt to slice. A bag of potatoes is super cheap at a warehouse store and can be made into baked potatoes (or baked potato "bar") as well as potatoes for eggs and potatoes or a frittata or potato soup. I also make a huge crockpot of veggie chili with the canned chili beans from the warehouse store (they're like $2.88 a ginormous can) and way easier than dried. :o Then, I freeze smaller portions in canning jars and we defrost those to add to taco salad, nachos, chili mac, baked potatoes with chili, etc. I also make up cans of vegetable soup. It's easy for DH to grab one on his way out the door.

I have a freezer stocked with tons of berry jam, a huge bag of frozen whole blueberries, tomatoes (both roasted cherry/grape tomatoes from the CSA and plums ready for sauce), pesto and basil oil, we just finished off the last of the snow peas, I still have a bit of pepper jelly, and I think a few jars of apple butter.

Those things keep me sane. I will absolutely, positively continue the efforts of blanching/shocking/freezing next year because the fresh taste of those fruits and veggies are SO phenomenal when it's cold and wintery. I will work harder on that this spring so that next winter we have it to fall back on again.

Things like that make it easier to scale back on the budget. I buy big cans of tomatoes (we like petite diced and always use crushed in my homemade sauces) when they go on sale super cheap. Once you get an overflow pantry set up (and freezer stash) then replenishing it when things go on sale doens't really cut into the budget because you're also eating from it, kwim?

When I get a baking bug (or have surplus fruits/veggies) I make loaves of bread and freeze them. I still have a loaf of zucchini bread in there that we'll have for breakfast one day this week. Making muffins ahead of time and freezing them works very well for easy/quick breakfasts, too. I have an oatmeal muffin recipe that uses a cup of yogurt and a cup of oats and makes just one dozen, which works SO nicely for us.

I think part of my problem is that I over buy and don't have a plan for all that I buy so we tend to waste food weekly. We have a stocked pantry. I put up over 100 qts. of food this year and we have two fully stocked freezers. I think it comes down to being prepared and having a schedule and a plan for meals.

We have decided to not spend more than $50 a week for the next month or more and concentrate on eating down the pantry. After that I will be very selective when I re-stock and time things so that I can re-stock when things are the best bargain.

We currently have 4 4 x 8' raised beds and will be adding 3 more this spring so I should be able to put up almost double my normal amount of fresh veggies this summer. I have also realized that we need to pick way more strawberries and blueberries since our strawberries are gone and we are on our last gallon of blueberries. Hopefully we can double up on those next summer to help us out as well.

Soup in the evenings is a good idea as well as breakfast for dinner. Gabe cannot stand oatmeal but the rest of us will eat it so I will need to start incorporating that in as well.

The funny thing is that I used to be the queen of thrift but since our move and dh's move to administration I have gotten off track.

I really appreciate all of your input.

See? You're already ahead of the game! :)

Your budget should be easy. I'd love to hear your input on planting. Last summer the only thing that thrived in our drought was the basil and peppers - the tomatoes fizzled big time! I want to do WAY more this year. I finally let the plants grow in (new house, new landscaping, we didn't know what was weed and what was planned) and now I think I'm going to rip out all of the daisies along the back fence and maybe do blueberries and strawberries back there. But, I think the berries take a couple years to really take hold and produce, don't they? Any input is GREATLY appreciated.

As for an already stocked pantry and freezer, I'd start with the master list. I make a list of everything I have (since I don't see it on a daily basis) and then go from there - starting with the ingredients on hand and building meals off that :)

We have friends who have put PVC pipes into their raised beds thus allowing them to water their tomatoes and melons underground so less of the water evaporates. Since we live in Michigan we actually have a harder time with peppers and plants like eggplant. This year I am going to try to make little greenhouses that fit on the raised beds to give them some extra heat.

Another thing I need to add is that we really need to get away from eating so much meat. Meat alone can be $5-7 dollars or more of a meal for us so their goes alot of my daily budget right there. Fruits and veggies are also very high for us especially right now since we live where there is a true winter. Apples (non Organic) are $1.10 a lb. right now and you can't find grapes this week but last week they were close to $3 a lb for non organic.

see around here they arent at all scare, and people hunt as much to keep population down as anything else. I know I remember one year when a friend of my dads killed 17 deer in a season-- he definitely had meat surplus! He didnt want to pay for the processing himself (or do it himself) so he was trying to give away meat .

That explains it. The limit in Vermont is ONE deer per season. No one is selling extra meat.

Bobbi Jo, you are totally ahead of the game! 100 qts of food, wow. I have never done anything like that...but plan on expanding the garden this year. :) But I mean, you know that is pretty impressive!

I bet just what you said - just a bit of planning and retightening the belt - will get you right back on track.

I find when we have more money, I tend to spend more - it's definitely a challenge to keep the grocery budget low.

both my husband and i are pretty sad that we don't live back east or in the midwest where we were raised.... he loves to hunt. in the summers here, we fish... but he wants to go back home to hunt next year for us to eat the meat... mmm :D

Add variety to jazz things up too.

Think about introducing some regional foods that people have used for inexpensive eating for centuries.......

Southern cuisine

Try grits to see if your family likes that (makes a yummy breakfast with brown sugar and butter or supper with melted cheese).
Corn bread
Greens galore (collard, chard, turnip etc)
Beans on rice


Hispanic

corn tortillas
beans
rice
savory sauces

and so on

great thread. I find that when I plan better, we eat better and spend way less. Sure, it's easier to grab something, but man, does it dent the budget.

I know several people that use this:
Angel Food Ministries (http://angelfoodministries.com/menu.asp)

I have never tried it though, so I don't know how well it works out.

Bobbie Jo,
I have been finding that we can get by with WAY less meat in cassaroles, chicken pot pie, etc. than I used to use. We can eat chicken divan, pot pie, etc., with maybe 2 chicken breasts for the 5 of us. Add more veggies on the side.

I need to sit down and set a food budget too. I haven't figured out the prices of most of our meals...I might be in for a shock.

These are GREAT ideas!!!!

Hey, Bobbie Jo,
I can't remember if you make your bread from scratch or not...Do you have a day-old bread store near you? There is an Aunt Millie's Outlet here, and on Mondays, they have 50 cent day. There are also quite often English muffins and bagels on their 39 cent table (and sometimes other good stuff). They have good bread, too--Kopplinger's Naturals and Aunt Millie's Organics, and Meijer Organics quite often. Their prices are good on other days too, but, obviously, 50 cent day rules.

:)

Okay, I haven't read all the replies but this got me thinking. $17 a day doesn't seem like much... at all. But then when one adds it up, it is like... $500ish a month. And I really don't want to spend more than $500ish a month myself. I just don't have any inexpensive shopping choices here, Kroger is basically it or places SO cheap, I worry about the safety of the food they are selling. Walmart would be an okay choice but every time I shop there, it ends in misery (1 hour check outs, terrible traffic in and out, parking issues, difficulty finding stuff it is so large).

Anyhow, I am sitting here thinking of what healthy, filling, nourishing, good foods I can feed my little family of 4 on $17 a day. It seems that these days even cheap food I make ends up not being cheap.

I know several people that use this:
Angel Food Ministries (http://angelfoodministries.com/menu.asp)

I have never tried it though, so I don't know how well it works out.

I was thinking about this, and then read some bad reviews on mdc. Apparently everything is super cheap and processed. Also, they raised the price here to $30 a month. It makes it seem like even less and less of a deal.

Where is the Aunt Millies place and is the organic stuff 50 cents as well? I am hoping to start making bi-weekly trips to GR and it would be nice to check the outlet out.


On the $17 a day thing I totally agree it doesn't seem like much when broken down to a daily amount but $500 is alot for a month. We usually spend at least $700 though so reigning in our budget by $200 is going to be difficult.

buy in bulk.. especially for breakfast.. you can get big huge bags of bob's red mill oats and quick oats for around $13. My friend with a large family does this, and a bag lasts a few months. Most natural foods stores will allow you to buy a whole bag of bulk food, they usually give you a ten percent discount, even when the food is on sale. So if organic black beans are on sale for 59 cents, you pay less than $11 for a twenty lb bag, which will easily give you beans for 40-50 meals. My natural food store also lets you buy things by the case for the same discount, even when the item is on sale.

Grocers will usually give you the food grade 3-5 gal plastic buckets that icing and oil come in for the bakery, you just have to ask. They are great for storing this stuff.

My biggest suggestion is to cook lots of whole grains and beans for your meals, because they can be bought in bulk, and then add your veggies. Meat is a treat. Eggs and beans are great for most meals.. leave meat to two or three times per week.

And of course you know to buy your fryers super cheap (assuming you do buy the non organic or otherwise fancy chickens) and freeze them.

Oh, and my friend is able to buy from a co-op in town through the feedstore... she buys lots condiments and frozen berries and such like this, because it comes out cheaper than the natural food store. Freeze all you can from your garden and local fruit stands to last longer.