Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

My Exciting Grocery Posts for the Week: In Which I Received a Lot of Bonus Groceries

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I may have forgotten to place my Azure Standard order, but just wait until I tell you about all the great food that has been delivered to my doorstep during the last few days!!!

I often order organic groceries from Amazon, using my saved up Swagbuck earnings, or simply when I find great deals on food we are sure to use. Remember when I told you about these great deals on Maple Syrup and Cereal? I cashed in on those too, because that was a great deal on Maple Syrup!

Anyway, when I order from Amazon, I’m never quite sure when to expect the food to come in. Some of this food was ordered several weeks ago (and I’d almost forgotten about it). Isn’t God cool?    Suddenly, it’s all been coming in right during my organizational hooplah…as well as right at the time I felt like I was missing out on a few item. I’ve been able to get all of these great groceries put away neatly in my “new” storage room, as well as expand our menu a bit since I have a little more to work with!

I’ve been having a great time playing with new grains like millet, and I just can’t tell you how much fun I’m having making these Coconut Flour Muffins. I have new coconut flour muffin varieties to share with you soon (because yes, I’ve been playing!). I’m excited now to have a nice supply of coconut flour on hand. A little goes a long way, which makes the investment in this healthy flour very worth it!

Here are a few snapshots of my UPS man deliveries:

Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour, Organic Brown Rice,
Nature’s Path Honey’d Cornflakes, 25 Pounds of Organic Millet

I’d also ordered several packages of organic nuts from Braga Farms so I can make more Larabars. LOVED it when that box came! Gluten Free Oats came in that same day from Amazon.

Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Oats, Pistachios, Almonds and Cashews from Braga Organic Farms 

Here’s my syrup, along with some organic popcorn…

Arrowhead Mills Organic Popcorn and Grade B Maple Syrup

I happily used some of the freshly washed plastic containers I’d found during my clean-up in the storage room. I filled a big container with popcorn for the storage room, then filled a jar with the rest to keep in the kitchen to grab easily.
(Here’s a full post about how I store and use my bulk food purchases.)

This last picture I have is of my trip to Walmart last weekend. I usually order quite a bit of produce and frozen veggies from Azure Standard, but since I forgot to order this month, we had to have some sort of fresh fruits and veggies. I filled my cart (most of this has been eaten already!). I compromised a little bit on some of these items. I don’t normally like to feed my kids apples that aren’t organic. But, they weren’t an option this month, so I bought a couple of bags of regular ol’ apples. Better than no apples, right? I think. Maybe. What are your feelings about compromising on non-organic foods?

The grocery store run purchase included:  broccoli, bananas, cantaloupe,
asparagus, pineapple, carrots, lettuce, apples, cheese sticks and Tinkyada Brown Rice Pasta.

I hope you had fun looking at my grocery pictures. I mean, it’s a total blast staring at a 25 Pounds of Organic Millet, in which you can’t even see the millet inside the bag. I’m sure you all got a big kick out of that.

Final storage room pictures are coming up Friday…can’t wait to show you the progress!

How’s your cleaning coming? Wanna tell me about any of the groceries you got this week?

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My Exciting Grocery Posts for the Week: Today’s Breakfast

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With Turkey Sausage and prepared Hashbrowns in the freezer, breakfast this morning was a feast…yet very easy to put together! 

Turkey Sausage, Hashbrowns, Creamy Orange Coolers , Fried Eggs and Apple Slices

I’m almost out of potatoes, so it was great to find one more bag of Hashbrowns in the bottom of the freezer! And I just can’t say enough about making up a bunch of Turkey Sausage for quick meals. Once they’re mixed up and frozen into patties, I just throw them in the pan to cook. SO EASY.

You should see my storage room now!!! So close to being finished and organized! What a great feeling. And now, I’m going outside to line up my boys for hair cuts.

By the way, you’ve probably noticed by now that I don’t always stick to my menu plan exactly. Some weeks I do…this week I’m not. It’s just working out that way. I had this turkey sausage/hashbrown meal scheduled for yesterday’s lunch, but we had it this morning instead. I figure if I at least have a meal plan, I can adjust as I need to. With my busy cleaning/organizing week…our menu plan is a little topsy-turvy. :)

Yesterday, I had so much fun hearing what you had for lunch (because I just get a big kick out of food and hearing what others are eating). So…you know what we had for breakfast…what did you have?

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My Exciting Grocery Posts for the Week: THE MESS REVEALED (Share Yours Too!)

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Let me just say it again:  NOBODY gets to go into my storage room. You have no idea how shocking it is that I’m slapping these pictures all over the Internet. Ask anyone who’s ever been to my house. That room is OFF LIMITS.

After you see these pictures, some of you are going to shake your head in dismay. Or you might giggle because you’ll see that Laura actually has a bottle of vegetable oil in her food storage (it was for a science experiment, I’ll have you know).

I have several excuses for how scary this room is, like:

  • This room is unheated, therefore freezing during the winter, so ain’t no way no how I’m going in there for longer than the time it takes to grab something out of the freezer or throw down an empty box.
  • Our recyclable items hang out in here waiting to be taken to the recycle center every few weeks. (Yes, we have to take all of our recycling to a recycle center – it doesn’t get picked up here.)  This clutters up the room very quickly.
  • The boys go into the room to get one box out of our pile of boxes so they can make a project, but they usually pull from the bottom of the pile, making all of the boxes fall down.
  • It’s a storage room. We don’t live in there. I can close the door and walk away and forget about it.

Here’s the view when you first walk into the room. Don’t you love how UGLY the front of my big freezer is? That’s how I got it for super cheap – the poor thing was ugly. :)  Putting an ugly freezer into my ugly storage room just makes sense, don’t you think? It was a great price, and it works just fine – ugly door or not! (Notice how I’m trying to distract you from the mess of the room by pointing out my freezer door?)

Here’s a closer-up picture of the food stash, and jars, and Walmart bags of canning rings. Now there’s a beautiful organizational method:  throw all unused canning rings into a Walmart bag and toss it onto a pile of bulk food. Adorable, tidy and practical. Yeah, right. (This is why we’re organizing this week!!!)

Here’s an even closer-up picture of the big shelf of food. And ice cream maker. And pressure cooker that doesn’t get used because I’m afraid of blowing up my kitchen.

Have you seen enough? Well…sorry, there’s more. If you turn around and look at the other side of the storage room, you’ll see this:

You know, when you go through six to eleven dozen eggs each week, you do accumulate a lot of egg cartons. Those need to be returned to our friends with chickens. And then all that other stuff really needs to be sorted through and taken to the recycling center or given away or thrown away or put away.

So there you have it. My mess revealed. 

And here’s what I’ve decided:  If I’m going down…I’m pulling you all down with me. :)  I wanna see your messes too…it’s only fair, right? 

Take a picture of the biggest messy spot in your house (or the one you want to tackle this week). Post it on your blog if you have one, and come link up here. Let’s make this the hub for all messes everywhere, shall we?  Show us your before pictures so we can all commiserate on how messy life gets.

On Friday (the 22nd), I’ll post my “After Pictures”, along with another link-up so you can show us your finished CLEAN and ORGANIZED pictures.

Just think about how many of us are going to get a scary mess under control this week! It’s inspiring, isn’t it? And yes, just a little bit intimidating. But c’mon…if I can do it, so can you! Show us those pictures!

(If you don’t have a blog and want to email me your before and after pictures just for fun, I’d love that too!)

So do tell…what’s the messiest spot in your house?

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My Exciting Grocery Posts for the Week, Part 1

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I made a big mistake this month in the grocery shopping arena. I completely missed my April Azure Standard Food Co-op ordering date, which means that I was unable to order groceries for my family and I can’t order again until May so in the meantime my family will have nothing at all to eat for four entire weeks!!!!

Okay, not really.  Not even close.  I did have to talk myself down from a panic once I realized I’d missed ordering, though. I have ordered from Azure Standard every single month for the past four or five years. My menus revolve around what I’m able to order and I very much rely on them for fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables.

But as you may recall, I always order in bulk, keeping a nice supply of food on hand at any given time. Plus, we still have quite a bit of preserved garden produce we canned or froze last summer/fall. Our freezers still have plenty of meat. So, just because I made a big goof-up this month, are we gonna starve? No.  I would imagine that even if I forgot to order from Azure for several months in a row, we’d still have plenty to eat (although we might have to get very creative with our tomato sauce and flax seeds after a while).

fruitleather7sm.JPG

I also still have a lot of fruit leather.
So we’d have tomato sauce, flax seeds and fruit leather.  :)

As I began to look around at all the food I have stored to get us through until our next Azure Standard order, I realized two things:

  1. We really have a lot of food.
  2. My storage room is a complete and total scary mess.

And so…this week I have decided to clean and reorganize our storage room and my pantry and all my food storage places, because enough is enough already with all the disorganized messes, and because without my normal Azure Standard grocery order this month, I’m going to have to be a little more creative.

I take this as a challenge to myself.  I don’t get to rely on having absolutely everything in stock like I usually have. I didn’t get to order the yeast I needed or the frozen broccoli I like to get or the white cheddar cheese I am almost out of.

And yes, I could go get some of this stuff at the store (because wow, we do have grocery stores around here), but how about I just work on using the abundance of food that we have been blessed with and what I have in storage?

Therefore, I hereby declare that I am going to get a shovel and dig out my storage room. Then I will reorganize it and make it nice and workable again.

What you need to know is that I hardly let ANYBODY into my storage room. It’s completely embarassing and a total disaster, and I’m not one bit proud of that room.

But if you scream loud enough, and say some really nice things about how you’ll still like me even after you see that my storage room looks 200 times worse that a boy’s dorm room…I may get over myself and take a picture to show you.

And then I’ll update you with my progress throughout the week and show you before and after pictures, as well as share with you some of the tasty things we’re eating with our stored food.

So, whatdoyasay? You wanna see the room? (Please say no.)

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Whole Foods Couponing…and a Thank You!

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As you may remember, I used to be a Coupon Queen. I was the one who would be in front of you in the check out line with 47 coupons and a cart full of groceries. After the cashier spent ten minutes subtracting out my coupons, my receipt total would be somewhere in the $24 range for a cart full of food.

If indeed we can call it food. I wasn’t exactly using coupons to get fruits and vegetables, you know?  But shucks…most of it was free! Free poptarts are great, right?

Learn to make healthier, homemade poptarts if you need a poptart fix!

Well, as you know, we’ve changed our ways a little bit entirely and now I shop completely differently. (You can read this post to learn how I grocery shop. And you can read this entire series to learn about our Healthy Eating Journey.)  I now recognize that spending money on good, whole foods is a perfect investment in our overall health.

But I still love finding great deals on great groceries!

This is where the “Thank You!” part of this post comes in. Remember how I mentioned that if you sign up for Shop it to Me…I could earn free gift cards?  Well…several of you signed up, which means that I earned several free gift cards. I appreciate it so much!  There were several gift card choices…but of course…I chose the cards for Whole Foods!! Who can pass up free groceries at Whole Foods??!

Matt and I were able to hit a Whole Foods store while we were away for the weekend at the Weekend to Remember conference. (Yes, part of our romantic weekend was spent shopping for asparagus. You know your relationship is solid when you can lovingly gaze at organic produce together.)

Not only did I have a few Shop it to Me Whole Foods cards to use…I had been doing my homework and had put together some coupons to use during our outing. It brought back memories and I have to admit that I felt quite giddy as I actually put coupons into an envelope again. I really haven’t done that (to this extent) for a long time. (Yeah I know…I’m a geek.)

The kids were pretty happy to see us when we got home…especially when they saw we had brought home cereal and yogurt!! (Hey guys…didn’t you even miss us just a little bit?)

We stocked up on chicken wings and boneless, skinless chicken breasts because I just don’t have a great source for those nearby. We found great deals on lettuce, asparagus, apples, pears and zucchini…Larabars, yogurt, butter and cheese.

And then, because they were on sale, because I had coupons and because they are gluten free…we splurged on a few items I lovingly call “organic junk food” that we’ll save for a rainy day. Cereal and chips…woohoo! Malachi sure does look disappointed with our loot, huh? :)

I had also been sent a Brat Hans Sausages coupon so that I could try them for free! We cashed in on that and WOW, you should have seen the boys when they found those in the bag! I thought they were going to eat me when they saw them! They must feel they have a brat deficiency or something?

So thank you to all who signed up for Shop it to Me …you made our Whole Foods shopping trip very fun!! If you haven’t signed up for Shop it to Me , you certainly can and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings even a little bit. :)  NOBODY  has to spend any money unless you want to – that’s the beauty of it!!! AND, more importantly, after you sign up, you can tell YOUR friends and family about Shop it to Me  so that YOU can receive free gift cards!!!

I did want to note:  I normally do the majority of this type of shopping through Azure Standard…Whole Foods is two hours away and I’m blessed to have an Azure Standard drop point right here in my town!! Azure is much less expensive and has everything I need. This Whole Foods trip was a fun splurge, gave me a “grocery store shopping fix” and well…I had gift cards. And coupons. And needed to get Brats, apparently. :)

Do you shop at Whole Foods? Do you have one close to you, or do you have to drive pretty far like I do? What do you like to get at Whole Foods?

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The Gluten Free Experiment

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I’ve been stubborn. I have not wanted to “go there”. And for Pete’s sake…I have 300 pounds of wheat in my storage room.

But our six year old, Malachi, seems to be getting worse instead of better lately with his eczema. This is SO disheartening. If you remember reading about his story, you’ll remember that he doesn’t just have just a “little bit of a rash diagnosed as eczema”. No, our littlest guy has always had a chronic form of eczema. He was covered head to toe for about the first three years of his life. From age three to now age six, the flare ups have at least been more tolerable, due in great part to all of the natural ideas we’ve tried to help his little body fight and become stronger.

But the past month or so, the rash seems to be tormenting him. It’s spreading back up to his neck. He scratches, he bleeds, he cries. Something has to give.

I don’t want him to need to eat gluten free.  I really, stinkin’, totally don’t. Which is why I’ve avoided this experiment for so long. But you know how God smacks us upside the head sometimes? I’ve felt Him doing that recently. First, Amy decided to go gluten free for a while to see if it would help her baby’s eczema. Then, my friend Danae was telling me about how she went Gluten Free and her rash cleared right up.

And Malachi has been so miserable at bedtime lately.

I feel like I need to do this for him. What if it actually helps? We’ve tried so many other things. What if this is the answer for him? What if he could be free of this misery?

And so…Matt and I decided to give it a try. It is our understanding that we need to try this experiment for a good six weeks in order to see if it truly is something that can help. We’re on day nine. So far, he’s not one bit better. But he’s not worse. So who knows?

Since I’m sharing my heart here, I’ll go ahead and tell you that I’m really, really torn when it comes to this experiment. I don’t want the Gluten Free Experiment to work. I don’t want him to have to avoid gluten for the rest of his life. I don’t want to have to cook differently for him. We already try to eat such a healthy diet…I don’t want to learn more and change more and work harder. I don’t.

But by saying that…I feel like I’m saying that I want Malachi to be stuck in this misery. Of course I don’t want that.  Which means that I really do want this experiment to work. I want this to be the answer. Except that I don’t. My selfish side wants something else to be the answer. Like the fact that the sun really is going to start shining more and he’ll be out getting Vitamin D which always helps. Yes, that would be an easy answer.

It’s not fun to sort out these feelings. And now I just spewed them all over you. 

My guess is that some of you can relate. Am I making this too hard? Yes, I’m pretty sure I am.

Thanks to all of you who mentioned these great Gluten Free Websites. It’s so helpful to know there are so many wonderful resources available! And you’d better believe I’m pouring over the eBook my friend helped me put together a few months ago, Gluten Free and Good for You. Not to mention all the other great recipes Kim has thrown my way as we’ve been putting together more eBooks that will hopefully be  ready to launch soon(ish). 

I even experiemented and made these Gluten Free Brownies 
(made with black beans…don’t tell my kids!) 
They really were quite tasty!

We can do this. I mean, if there are brownies involved…we will have the strength to do this, right!? :)

Thanks for letting me share. We just want Malachi to be better.  God is faithful.

I’ll keep you posted on how our six weeks goes. I may even share a gluten free recipe or two (sprinkled in with some wheat recipes because good grief…I do still have 300 pounds of wheat in my storage room.

If you or one of your family members eats a gluten free diet, would you please share how that’s working for you? Share why you/they are on a gluten free diet. How did your transition go?

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How I Store Bulk Food

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I received my Azure Standard food co-op order last week…one of my favorite days of the month! It’s slightly ridiculous how much I get a thrill out of boxes and bags of food. I know not everyone  has the storage space to purchase food in bulk…but this method works very well for me and I am so thankful to have this option.

As I mentioned several months ago in this post about why I buy bulk food, I don’t just buy in bulk to save money. Saving money is a wonderful perk, but I also find that buying in bulk makes cooking so much simpler for me. I don’t have to think so hard or shop so often. I buy large quantities of food items, enough to last much longer than a week. This way, I save on gas, time, energy and brain power.

I am often asked how I store my bulk purchases. Here is a little bit of explanation for what works well for me for bulk food storage:

I could just leave the food right in their bags, but I don’t feel comfortable with that for sevaral reasons. We’ve had trouble with mice in the past. Yowza, there’s not much that makes me more frustrated in the kitchen that seeing that those little rodents have gotten into and pooped in my oats. What a waste! Beyond mice, we find that if we don’t transfer food out of their bags and into something more properly sealed, it is easier for bugs to get in and ruin food.

In addition…I just feel like buckets and containers are easier to stack and store than bags. I know I’m a nerd…but I LIKE the way food looks when it’s poured into nice jars and jugs. Crumpled up bags don’t look nearly as cute in my pantry.

When my bulk purchases arrive, out come my jars, buckets and containers. I’ve accumulate quite a nice collection through the years, purchased from garage sales, Walmart or the dollar store. You know how I LOVE jars.  And in general, I avoid plastics. However, for dry food that isn’t as likely to absorb chemicals from the plastic, I’m okay with using plastic containers for bulk storage.

I take a few minutes to scoop out the sea salt or sucanat or wheat or oats or whatever dry bulk item I’ve purchased into large storage containers.

From those, I will funnel smaller amounts into smaller jars for simple cooking use. I  keep these smaller jars in the cupboard right above my stove so I can easily grab them while I’m cooking. As they get low, I refill them from their larger storage container.

Once I have everything divided into the appropriate jars and containers (I stare at it in happiness for a while and then) I put them all away in either my storage room, or in my pantry if there is space.

I especially like to keep my nicest jars full of dry bulk items like beans, rice, popcorn and pasta in my pantry door where it looks pretty everytime I open it!

You may also want to read about how I store bulk grain. And, if you’d like to see a more thorough view of my whole kitchen, I invite you to join me on my kitchen tour!

Do you buy in bulk? What have you found that works best for you to store your bulk food?

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Compromising Our Whole Foods Diet

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Tonight we’re hosting Elias’ 9th birthday party. 

You know how our house is always full of boys? Tonight there are even more of them. Right now they are all running around shooting each other with laser guns and Nerf guns and somehow I think there is a hallway basketball game going on at the same time. Now that takes talent.

We always let the birthday boy choose his party food. He usually takes into consideration what he thinks his buddies will like. And, surprise – surprise, he usually doesn’t choose “Tossed Salad” or “Spinach Smoothies”.

I was recently asked by one of you (but for the life of me I can’t find the comment to quote it exactly):  “Laura, can you tell us what foods you will occasionally buy at the store for convenience…and which foods you will NEVER buy?”

This probably doesn’t answer that question as specifically as the commenter was wishing for, but well…here’s what I bought for Elias’ birthday party dinner tonight…

If that’s not a compromise I don’t know what is.

I have to say that it was more than a little bit painful pulling them off of the freezer shelf and paying actual money for them. Incidentally, I also had TWO GALLONS worth of vodka in my cart on this shopping trip as we’re getting ready to start yet another big round of Homemade Vanilla Extract. Yep, it looked like one BIG party in my shopping cart tonight. ;)

The pizza rolls were Elias’ choice and while the ingredient list is longer than my hand (I am not even kidding), I have to say that it was a nice relief to just throw them in the oven and put out some paper plates and call it dinner. Besides, I was in the middle of baking his birthday cake and getting Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls ready for tomorrow’s breakfast for all the boys. The ease of dinner (if we can actually call it dinner) was really nice.

Here’s why I feel okay (not great, but okay) about buying and feeding my family these pizza rolls tonight:  We eat a really healthy diet about 357 days of the year. On those other few days or moments of the year when we are traveling, eating with others, hosting parties, going to parties or attending any event that has a meal comprised of chips and candy…we go with the flow. We don’t act all “weirded out” about the fact that we’re being served food that doesn’t meet our normal healthy eating criteria. If I’m offered Nacho Cheese Doritos at a get-together, you better believe I’m going to have a few and I’m going to enjoy myself.

We try not to go over-board and pig out because yikes…our tummies aren’t used to eating that kind of stuff. But we really cannot be enslaved by healthy eating.  Being paralyzed by these fears can be unhealthy in and of itself.  Compromising used to be a huge fear of mine, especially when I was first learning about what was healthy and what was SCARY and unhealthy. But I’ve “come down off the ledge” and realized that a few crazy junk foods here and there are not going to kill us. Especially when we follow it up as soon as possible with good, wholesome, nutrition-filled foods.

Which we will, by the way…tomorrow.  Those spinach smoothies will be making their appearance.

And for the record, while there are many things I just close my eyes and compromise on occasionally…I will never, ever knowingly or willingly purchase or eat margarine. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Can’t even think about it.

Blech. Helgpaht. Mliiegylk. Pgvughhha.

Eeek, I get very gaggy when it comes to the thought of the yellowed tub of chemically created fatty-fattness spread that we’re told is better than rich cream whipped into golden goodness…otherwise known as REAL butter.

But a pizza roll or a Dorito…yeah…I’ll eat one here and there. That doesn’t even make sense does it?

So what types of “food” will you compromise on sometimes?  And which “foods” make you screw up your face and say Helgpaht-blephln?

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The Real Foods Grocery Budget Week Wrap-Up

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Thank you all SO much for the wonderful interaction this week during the impromtu Real Foods Grocery Budget series! I usually have a plan for the week for what I will be writing about, but somehow, with all of your comments and questions after I wrote about our 2011 Real Foods Grocery Budget, I got off course and just kept talking about food and money. :)

What I loved most about this week is how so many of you were reading through each other’s comments and offering suggestions of what works for YOU. While I can write about what works for ME and for our family, I don’t live where you live or have the same food sources you have. It was great to see all the comments coming in from those of you willing to help others find great sources for food in your communities. Isn’t the internet cool?

As I wrap up the week and the series, I just want to encourage you all to be prayerful about how you feed your families and to do whatever you feel God is calling you to do. HE can make it happen!

AND DON’T GET DISCOURAGED!! Some of you have mentioned that you are very new to the Real Foods way of eating. If you’re interested in making some changes that’s great, but changing everything at once can be very overwhelming, as can the idea of increasing a food budget. You may find that you can make Real Food changes and not increase your food budget at all…or you may find that you need to slowly figure out ways to at to your food budget to fulfill the desire you have for feeding your family a Real Foods diet. 

Take small steps.  Don’t feel like you need to change everything at once. Read through my Simple Steps to Healthy Eating posts for some ideas on where to start. There is no order to these steps and no right or wrong way to make changes. Just pick a step and take it! (And guess what, by the way? I really do plan to add to that series soon, even though I haven’t posted a Simple Step in a while!)

simplesteps

Also, if you haven’t read through Our Journey to Healthy Eating, please click on over so that you can find out more about why my family chooses to eat the way we do and what our journey looked like along the way. 

Just so you know, we’re still on the journey! There’s still a lot I need to learn and some other changes I need to make and shucks…sometimes I still get hungry for Nacho Cheese Doritos. With a beef hotdog.

Anyone else feel like sharing something “not so good for you” that you have a hard time giving up?!

Thanks again everyone for your participation in this week’s series!!

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Ways to Stretch the Real Foods Grocery Budget

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strawberries

Today I am (finally) going to share a few ways our family has made our grocery budget stretch as we’ve been on Our Healthy Eating Journey. My husband and I strongly believe that if you truly desire to do something for your family, through prayer and hard work, you can make it happen. There are creative ways to save, creative ways to earn, creative ways to come up with food sources. Nothing is too weird…think of some ideas and give them a try!

I loved this comment that Cery left on my Very Limited Income for Real Food Purchases post:

I am a single mom with 2 teenagers and haven’t worked a “real” job for a year and a half. Since then I have done mostly cleaning and odd jobs, so I don’t really have a monthly budget, since income varies. I pay the bills first (electric, rent, and house phone) and then buy food. I bake all my own bread and barter that with friends for organic, grass fed beef and free range chicken (it’s cheaper to buy baking supplies than meat, and I use a sourdough starter). I have also recently started selling baked goods. I am blessed with friends who have fruit and berries and allow me to pick all I want to can, and another friend who keeps bees and gives me honey in exchange for cleaning. I have a garden in the summer and can and freeze as much as I can. I even have friends that buy fruit and veggies in bulk at the Farmer’s Market and let me have half if I will can it for them! I am truly blessed! Strangly enough, I think we eat healthier now then we did when I worked 60 hours a week and had a grocery budget. God is good!

I love how God works and I love how being creative and working hard can provide your family with exactly what they need. How inspiring!

Here are some of the ways we have found to stretch our grocery budget:

  • I make just about all of our food from scratch. Occasionally I buy something “pre-made” if I’m in a bind (and for the record, I feel like there are certain seasons in our lives where boxed/packaged foods can be a lifesaver, if used sparingly). But if at all possible, I make our breads, tortillas, cookies, muffins, noodles, sauces, pizza, dairy products, peanut butter and salad dressing from scratch. It saves loads of money to do this and is much, much healthier. Even organic processed food isn’t the best nutritionally and WOW is it pricey! Making homemade food REALLY isn’t hard, and it tastes SO delicious (except for when I burn things, but let’s not talk about that.)
  • We garden. We’re blessed with a large yard – one that’s big enough to handle soccer games and a garden too. We grow tons of tomatoes so that we can make all of our own tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, tomato juice and tomato soup for the year. We also grow and freeze a year’s supply of green beans and peppers each summer. We eat up all of the lettuce and spinach we grow, but that sure saves money in the late spring!
  • We keep our ear to the ground and have formed many wonderful relationships with people in our community who have an abundance of produce and other items they’re willing to give away or sell at low cost. This is how we have been able to acquire so many delicious berries and peaches and apples and pears that we freeze and preserve. This is also how we’ve gotten our hands on venison. Sometimes the meat has been free, sometimes we’ve paid for processing…either way…what a fantastic deal on great meat!
  • We’re willing to work hard and go about finding food sources non-conventionally. We love that our kids are learning that food comes from trees, animals, farms, gardens, fields and bushes….not just from the top shelf at the store. Yeah, sometimes our food comes off of a truck, but you know what I mean.
  • We’ve done what we needed to do to stretch and grow our income. I’ve almost always done something (from home) to supplement my husband’s income. We felt this was extra important once we decided that Real Food was a high priority even though it would increase our grocery budget. When there wasn’t any wiggle room in our regular budget, any money I could earn from home went to help buy healthy groceries. One summer I sold baked goods each week at our local Farmer’s Market, earning enough to buy our Nutrimill Grain Mill, fresh produce all summer and quite a few of our other grocery needs. (In case you’re wondering, these Soft Pretzels were a huge Farmer’s Market hit!)  I’ve had babysitting jobs, mended clothes for people, sold Stampin’ Up! products…just about anything I could do to help add a few extra dollars to our single income. Starting this blog and writing ebooks three years and a half years ago was another way I decided to try for a little supplemental income. I sure am glad I did…otherwise I wouldn’t have met you! (That sounded cheesy, but I really did mean it.)  Deep down from depths of my soul.  (That added bit of cheesyness was on purpose and written just to make myself sound ridiculous.)  Be sure to read this post for more ideas on great ways to earn extra money for your family’s needs!
  • We’ve turned our Swagbucks and Shop it to Me  “earnings” into groceries. These two are great because it doesn’t cost anything for anyone and you can earn points toward gift cards by referring people. I’ve been blessed to share these with you here on my blog, and through referrals have been able to earn some lovely Amazon cards and Whole Foods Gift Cards. While I could have turned my points in for other fun things…I really just wanted to be able to buy organic groceries. Does that make me a geek, do ya think? Don’t answer that. I highly encourage signing up for Swagbucks (a search engine that helps you earn points that can be turned into quite a few things – I just always turn mine into Amazon cards to use for groceries, or books if it’s school time). You can read more about Swagbucks here. AND…Shop it to Me  is a very fun (and free) way to earn gift cards. I’ve turned mine in for Whole Foods cards because who could pass that up? Not me, because I’m a food geek.

What other ways have you found to creatively save money or earn money to stretch your grocery budget?

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