Reducing Weekly Food Budget to $75
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Anonymous
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organic sweet potatoes and squash are very cheap and make awesome creamy soups
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Anonymous
| do you have a deep freeze? buy some whole organic chickens from the farm and separate yourself. |
Anonymous
Can you provide the name of a local farm where I can buy chicken? |
Anonymous
| Costco? |
Anonymous
| lots of meal planning. we use thefresh20.com and typically spend about $90 a week. Could probably get it down more if my husband didn't insist on things like expensive cereal. |
Anonymous
| Though it's not the ideal time of year now, consider a small garden. You can do some stuff now even if you have an enclosed patio. |
Anonymous
| Aldi also sells organic apples (sometimes), organic grape tomatoes and bananas. Pineapples are also cheap. Go on line and find a coupon for aldi and stock up! Also, cut coupons. |
Anonymous
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I got organic arugala and organic baby kale on my last trip to Aldi!
But yeah, less meat. |
Anonymous
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make soup, lentil or bean. Need an onion, carrots, celery (these are pretty cheap organic) and a bag of beans. Serve with bread you can bake yourself.
if you can afford meat, do something like split pea with ham. |
Anonymous
| Doesn't sound like a good idea to save on food considering your budget is already as low as 75 and you have kids who desperately need sufficient nutrition. Can you squeeze out some money elsewhere? |
Anonymous
Agree |
Anonymous
| Turkey. Buy a frozen turkey and cook it each week. You can get sandwiches, soup, and pot pie or stir fry out of it. Turkey is cheap - less than $2 per pound usually. |
Anonymous
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Find something else to cut. $125 per week is already too low for a family of three. Invest in yourself and your kids, don't cut food bill.
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Agree that reducing to $75 a week may be too low, but you could shoot for a reduction to $100.
At the risk of getting jumped on-do you really need to eat all organic food? It sounds good and it makes us urban liberal types feel good about ourselves, but it's not the end of the world to buy non-organic food from time to time especially if you can't actually afford it. I'd suggest doing some research on where it makes the most difference in choosing organic vs. non-organic foods (for example, see http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/dirty-dozen-foods#slide-1) and figure out if you can make some price cuts that way. I'd also check out your local farmer's market and see if it has some good deals, particularly on fruits and vegetables. I find that each market is different and some can cost more than the grocery store, while others can produce a huge amount of savings. It might be too expensive for items like meats and cheeses, but you can get those elsewhere or cut back on meat as others have suggested. Agree with the posters who have recommended meal planning. You go to the store with your list and stick to it. Not sure how into cooking you are, but it also helps to learn about substitutions and how to make do with the ingredients you have on hand. I love to try new recipes, but I hate to buy a bunch of expensive ingredients that I won't use often or fresh herbs that go bad quickly. I've gotten around it by keeping potted plants of the main herbs I use (basil, oregano, etc), planning recipes that use similar ingredients for the same week (for example, use cilantro in burritos, then to top a thai stir fry, then use the rest to make cilantro lime hummus for snacks), and keeping my kitchen stocked with key spices and sauces that I know I use frequently (this makes it really easy to make a ton of different marinades or spice rubs from scratch). It might sound time consuming, but it's really not. I work long hours and commute 2.5 hours a day, so on the weekends I focus on meal planning and making sure I have what I need for the week. |