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Join the Real Food – Low Cost Challenge!

January 29, 2012 by Laura 20 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I’ve decided to do things just a little bit differently during the next few days, just for kicks. :)  Since most of last week’s posts were discussing the expense of eating healthy, whole foods – let’s do a little experimenting, putting some healthy recipes to the test. An “expense test”.

Instead of planning a full menu for this week, I have instead made a list of a few of our family’s favorite recipes – recipes that you’ll find regularly on our weekly menu plans. Throughout the next several days, I will be making each of these recipes. Then, I’ll pull out the calculator and do a price break-down to determine just how much it costs to make these healthy foods. I will post frequent updates, sharing the results I’ve found. I’m excited to see which of my recipes might be most costly to make, and which ones might be less expensive. This is not something I’ve ever done before, so I’m pretty excited about this experiment!

Now of course, I can’t help but want to challenge you to get involved in this experiment too. You knew that was coming, right? :)

I’d love for you to also take some of your family’s favorite healthy, real food recipes and do a little cost break-down on them. You might just be surprised at what you discover! Keep on the look-out, because throughout this challenge, I have a few fun surprises in store as we put these recipes to the test. Then mark your calendar, because on Thursday, February 9, we’ll all come together with a special Real Food – Low Cost Link-Up, so that you can also share with us some of your family’s favorite real food, low cost recipes.

Here are the recipes I plan to do a price break-down on during this experiment:

~ Applesauce Bread

~ Simple Soaked Pancakes

~ Homemade Poptarts

~ Warm Vanilla Soother

~ Chicken And Noodles

~ Homemade Pizza

~ Italian Pasta Bake

~ Cheddar Ranch Burgers

~ Taco Potatoes

~ Easy Noodle Stir Fry

Be watching for lots of fun updates detailing what I’ve discovered about the specific costs of our food. You can, at any time during those posts, share some of your discoveries too.

Sound like fun? Let the challenge begin!

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Are Vanilla Beans Expensive?

January 3, 2011 by Laura 27 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I’ve found it interesting that many of you have left comments on the Homemade Vanilla Extract post stating that “vanilla beans are expensive”. Vanilla beans do seem expensive at first glance. I wasn’t prepared for their price when I first looked into making homemade vanilla a few years ago. They do cost a significant amount more than say…pinto beans. :)

Ever checked the price of Real Vanilla Extract at the grocery store though? I’ve found that even the least expensive brands are around $2/ounce. If you buy your own vanilla beans and make your own Homemade Vanilla Extract, it’ll cost you half that amount. Plus it will be completely pure, unlike the “Pure” Vanilla Extract you buy at the store that has added…stuff.

So, are vanilla beans expensive? Not if you are planning to make homemade vanilla for half the price of purchasing it premade! Investing in vanilla beans to make your own Homemade Vanilla Extract will save you money in the long run AND be much healthier for your cooking and baking!

You can buy very cheap vanilla beans through Ebay…but I REALLY don’t recommend it. We’ve made several batches of Homemade Vanilla Extract at our house. One bunch of vanilla beans we ordered (through Ebay) was significantly less expensive than other beans we’d seen. We decided to go for it, since of course, we’d be saving so much money!

Months later, those beans are STILL sitting in the bag, untouched. They came to us very dry and withered and pitiful. We may have “saved money” on vanilla beans, but in essence, we wasted money. The quality of those vanilla beans leaves a lot to be desired.

By contrast, we’ve been so pleased with our vanilla bean purchases through Olive Nation. They offer high quality vanilla beans, excellent customer service, free shipping for vanilla bean purchases AND a special Heavenly Homemakers discount. I appreciate Olive Nation very much and recommend them highly.

The special Heavenly Homemakers discount expired at the end of 2010…and I’m very excited to share that Olive Nation has been generous enough to extend their discount for several more months! If you purchase vanilla beans (or any of Olive Nation’s wonderful products) and use the code home, you’ll receive 10% off your entire order!! (There will be a shipping cost for other products; Vanilla Bean shipping is FREE!)

So, my response to “WOW, vanilla beans are expensive!” would be:  Yeah, I used to think so too. But now I realize how much money it saves to buy the beans and how much healthier it is to make my own vanilla.

And did I mention the homemade vanilla is delicious? Yeah, that’s a pretty nice perk too. :)

vanillawafers3sm

Homemade Vanilla Wafers! What a great way to use Homemade Vanilla Extract !

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Investing Money in Good Food

August 24, 2010 by Laura 48 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

simplesteps

As our family was making our way toward a more healthy lifestyle in the beginning stages of our healthy eating journey, one of the biggest obstacles I had to work through in my brain was that I had to actually spend money on groceries. I didn’t like spending money on food. I had figured out ways to use coupons to get almost all of our food practically for free so spending money on food seemed crazy to me. 

I’ve done a complete about-face on that issue now. Not that I don’t work hard to keep our grocery spending low…I do. I work VERY hard as a matter of fact so that our family of six can eat a healthy whole-foods diet on a limited budget. But I’ve changed my way of thinking now about spending money on food. And…I’d like to encourage you to do the same as you make some simple steps toward healthy eating.

I see money spent on food as an investment. I understand now that food is meant to nourish us…not just fill a hole and satisfy hunger. I feel like when I spend money to buy top knotch food, I’m actually investing in a healthy future for my family.

I’d like to challenge your thinking just a little bit if you fall into the category of one who thinks that “you can’t afford to eat healthier”. You may not have much extra in your grocery budget, but that doesn’t mean you have to feed your family unhealthy foods. 

It does mean you may have to work a little harder to find good, whole foods. You may have to change some of your habits. You may have to cut some other unnecessary spending out of your budget. But you don’t get to cop out with excuses about not being able to afford healthy foods. (I know this first hand as our family was barely scraping by a couple of years ago, yet we did not have to compromise the quality of food we ate. We just had to be creative!)

I’ve just about come to the conclusion that eating real food costs less than eating processed food if you go about it the right way. Now, does grass fed beef and free range chicken and raw milk and organic produce generally cost more than the “regular” beef and chicken and milk and produce from the store? Sure. (Although I’ve found many ways to save on those items too which I’ll address later on in this series.)  But just hear me out on this. My boys and I did a little research one day when we were out shopping. Then we came home and did the math. We were shocked at the results we found!

The reason, by the way, that we did this little experiment is because I’m tired of people telling me that fresh produce is too expensive. So instead of giving their kids fruits and vegetables, moms (the ones complaining to me about “expensive” fruits and vegetables) fill them up on “cheaper food” like crackers and fruit snacks. I wanted to see if indeed crackers and fruit snacks were cheaper than fresh produce.

My boys and I went down the snack aisle, writing down prices and ounces of some popular snack items. Then we wrote down prices of some of our favorite fresh fruits like apples, watermelon, pineapple, bananas, oranges, peaches…

The cost for the best in-season produce averages to be around $1.00 to $1.50 per pound (or even much less in many cases). 

But check this out: 

  • The cost for a box of cheese crackers…$3.20/pound (yes, we actually calculated how much the cost was per pound!)
  • The cost for chocolate sandwich cookies with the white filling inside that you lick out and dunk in milk (yeah, you know what I’m talking about)…$3.84/pound
  • The cost for an off brand of fruit snacks…$2.56/pound
  • The cost for a box of granola bars…$4.18/pound

Now, I know this price comparison isn’t apples to apples (literally!). I recognize that you can use coupons to cut the cost of the boxes of snacks. I realize that when you pay for a watermelon, you’re paying for the rind that you cut away, so that part shouldn’t really count when you’re figuring cost per pound. Yes, I realize all of the variables that make this experiment not exact.

But I hope you kind of get the idea that when you break down the cost of processed foods (that do practically nothing to nourish us) compared to the cost of fresh produce (which do quite a bit to actually nourish us)…you aren’t really right on track if you think that buying “cheap” boxes of snacks is saving you money. Produce, if bought in season, is really quite reasonably priced. 

Alrighty…this post is getting long!! I’ll stop there and we can talk more later about all kinds of other things you can do to save money as you switch to a healthier lifestyle. There’s so much to talk about as we break down Simple Steps Toward Healthy Eating!

But do give some thought to your mind-set about spending money on food. Are you looking at it in the right way? Are you really saving money when you avoid some of the “more expensive” healthier foods and instead buy “cheaper” food?

And what about the long term effects of not eating healthy now? Will health care costs outweigh what we might be saving in groceries?

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