Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Real Food – Low Cost Challenge: Warm Vanilla Soother and Homemade Poptarts

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Beware – while reading this post, you will notice that I jump all over the place without making my paragraphs flow together and really without pausing to take a breath in between thoughts. All this exercise I’m doing is either giving me a crazy amount of extra energy, or perhaps it is just simply making me crazy. Or maybe it’s a little bit of both.

While breaking down the cost of my real food recipes, I have definitely learned that our breakfast time meals tend to be very, very inexpensive. We can often eat for around $0.50 per person at breakfast, making it easier to spend a little more for our lunches and dinners.

It is kind of funny to me that I break the food cost down per person in my household, when clearly, we don’t actually all eat the same amount of food. I would have to say that Malachi (our youngest at age seven) and I (the oldest at age 38) eat the smallest portions of food these days. Therefore, maybe Malachi and I can eat breakfast for $0.20 and everyone else eats for $0.70? Eh, never mind. I don’t feel like getting that technical. We’ll just keep it at an average $0.50/person for breakfast. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know how much it costs to feed my soccer playing, basketball playing teenager right now. ;)

So check it out – my Homemade Poptarts cost $3.13 for one batch. I figured that if one batch of homemade poptarts makes about 20 poptarts, that means the cost is around $0.16 per poptart. I haven’t purchased poptarts at the store for a long time, but I’m pretty sure I’m not only feeding my family a much healthier poptart, but I’m saving money too. Sixteen cents for a poptart made with real food ingredients? How about that?

Who is it that said that eating healthy food is expensive??? (Oh yes, that was me a few years ago.)

I should have become a real food calculating geek years ago. This is fun!!

(Pausing for breath. Does reading this post make anyone else tired, or is it just me? And here we go again…)

My Warm Vanilla Soother recipe breaks down to $2.87 per batch. This really only makes about four servings though, so the cost per person is $0.72. Not bad at all for a mug of hot, steamy, delicious, nourishing comfort. I mean really, can you put a price on comfort? No I don’t think so. But just think about the cost of a hot drink of non-nourishment at your local coffee shop. Pretty sure you can’t get that for $0.72, am I right?

And speaking of coffee – because it does appear that all the exercise I’m getting these days is indeed giving me extra energy – I believe it is wise for me to stay away from drinking coffee very often, even if I did enjoy my one cup of coffee with real Chocolate Caramel Cream. I don’t think giving me additional energy from caffeine is really a good idea right now? What do you think?!

Make plans to join us tomorrow for a Real Food – Low Cost Link-Up! Get ready to share your real food, low cost recipes. Cant’ wait to learn about your tried and true family favorites that are easy on the budget!

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Real Food – Low Cost Challenge: Easy Noodle Stir Fry, Chicken Noodle Soup, And My Heart-Felt Free Range Chicken Speech

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It is high time someone stood up and said a word on behalf of the free range chickens. I mean, if I don’t say something, who will? The birds can’t speak for themselves, you know? Bless their little chicken hearts.

Ok, real quick – I’ll interrupt this crazy chicken rant to let you know that it would seem that the Real Food – Low Cost Challenge has sent me over the edge to the land of insanity. You know me well enough to have guessed that this was likely to happen some day soon, and probably saw that the end was near when I was struggling so much last week in my effort to figure out the cost of a (stinkin’) cup of whole wheat flour.

But back to the speechless chickens, and my determination to see that they are no longer misunderstood.

I currently pay $12.50 for one free range chicken. Twelve dollars and 50 cents. Many people think that’s a crazy amount to spend on a chicken when I could instead go the store and grab a whole chicken for $3-$5.

But, I hold firm to the belief that my chickens are not expensive. The chickens I buy are very large – usually around five or six pounds each. In fact, I always, without skimping, get at least four meals out of my chickens, if not six. Read here about how I can stretch a chicken to get six meals. Therefore, my one $12.50 investment in chicken costs me, at the most, only $3.13 for a nice amount of meat/broth per meal.

Based on this figure, and on the fact that making homemade whole wheat noodles is also very low in cost, I was thrilled to learn today that I can make a big pot of Chicken Noodle Soup for only $4.03. Four dollars and three cents!!!!! This, for one of the most nutritious meals on the face of the earth. That is $0.67 per family member at my house. Doesn’t that just make you want to stand up and do the chicken dance?

Well, doesn’t it?!

Okay, me neither. But still, I’m pretty excited. In addition, I learned that a batch of Easy Noodle Stir Fry costs about $8.53, which breaks down to $1.42 per person.

I’m thinking that I need to make chicken meals more often since I’m able to pull them together for such a low cost. It is amazing what all I’ve been learning as I’ve broken down the cost of our favorite, real food meals.

So, tell me about the chickens where you’re from. Have you found a good price for a good chicken? Are you able to find free range chickens where you live? How big are your chickens?

I tell you what, nothing beats a good discussion about poultry. ;)

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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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Do You NEED to Cut the Grocery Budget?

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lettuce

Thank you all for adding suggestions and sharing your various circumstances in my last Real Food Grocery Budget post, Very Limited Income for Real Food Purchases. I think it’s great that we’re all helping each other think of new ideas for saving money on good food.

What I’d like to address now is that while I think it’s great to learn ways to cut down on food costs when you’re going through tough financial situations, I also feel like it is very important to make sure our families are getting the nutrition they need. Again, we are investing in our bodies when we spend money to eat whole, real food. Some foods we can cut back on, but there are some things we really, really need to be eating so that we can stay healthy.

That’s why I had such a hard time sharing what I’d cut back on or cut out of our diets. I have a hard time recommending that many people NEED to cut down their grocery budget. If you’re spending money on processed foods or splurging all the time on specialty items and buying food that isn’t in season or buying stuff to eat that will simply fill a hole but not offer any nourishment…then we need to talk about ways for you to cut your grocery budget.

But if you have $X amount in your grocery budget and you’re carefully spending that amount on real, whole foods that are nourishing your family…I think you should keep doing what you’re doing. Sure, let’s keep trying to find fair prices and good deals and shop wisely so as to be good stewards of what God has given us to take care of our families. But if you have the money for plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables or any of the high quality healthy foods you feel convicted about eating…buy them for your family. Don’t cut out necessary nutrition just so that you can say that you’ve lowered your grocery bill.

In addition – and I’m guessing that I probably don’t really need to be saying this to any of you but I’m going to say it anyway – before you talk about needing to cut your Real Foods Grocery Budget, please make sure you’ve cut every other un-necessary item out of your budget first. My family has always done without cable TV and expensive cell phone plans and frequent eating out and going to movies and expensive clothing and all kinds of other things I can’t think of because we don’t spend money (or rarely spend money) on them so I probably don’t know what I’m missing.  I’m NOT saying that you shouldn’t ever have or do these things. If you have cable TV, I’m fine with that and will probably even enjoy watching the Food Network with you when I come for a visit. I’m just saying that you really shouldn’t complain about not being able to “afford” real, whole food…and then turn around and fill your grocery cart with frozen pizza, soda, twinkies and chips, 24 new pairs of high heeled shoes and a big screen TV for your bathroom. Kapeesh?

My point ultimately is that we all need to be as careful as possible with how we spend our money…but I think that spending money on good, whole food for our families is wise and even necessary. It’s an investment in our health for today and for years down the road. Good food costs money…but I think we need to caution ourselves against feeling like, “ugh, healthy food is SOOOOO expensive.” Is it…really? I don’t look at it that way anymore. I look at healthy food as…healthy. And the price that comes with it?

Well…I’d rather not pay the price of eating cheap, empty food. To me…that is what is costly.
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Off and on all week I’ve said that I would share about some creative ways our family saves, earns and comes up with great sources for food. I’ve sprinkled some of that information throughout these posts, but really and truly I have a whole post devoted to sharing ways to stretch and grow your grocery budget. Other topics keep popping up this week as I’ve written this series, but I promise (probably, mostly for sure, I think) that I’ll post tomorrow about stretching the budget. And sometime soon…I’ll even post about stretching a chicken.
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What are your thoughts about the “cost” of nutrition-void food?

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Very Limited Income for Real Food Purchases

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farmers_market

Apparently I have declared it to be Real Food Budget Week here at Heavenly Homemakers. There’s just a lot to say about real food and money…so I just keep going with this subject. :) If you missed the other posts, be sure to read Our Real Food Grocery Budget 2011 and No Grocery Budget Comparing Allowed.

Several have asked me to offer suggestions for how to eat a Real Foods diet while cutting back on the budget because of a super low income. This is a hard question for me to answer because I feel that it is very important to invest money in good food. Very important.  If you recall, I used to be a Coupon Queen and spend only about $100/month on groceries back when we had only two kids. I’ve come a  long way since then, learning about real food and health. I now understand that food is NUTRITION for our bodies…and we need to be careful and intentional about what we feed our families. It costs money to eat well, there’s no way around it…more money than it costs to feed our families food that contains little or no nutrition. 

At one point during our family’s Healthy Eating Journey, we were making less than $29,000/year (with no benefits) for our family of six. We were still able to eat a healthy diet, because we made it a priority and because we were creative and because God is good and provides…all the time.

For some of you, $29,000 sounds like peanuts…for others,$29,000 sounds like a fortune. If you’re barely making ends meet, what are you to do?

The question has been presented to me from a reader with a very low income and a family of five:  How would you eat a whole foods diet on only $50/week?    What would you cut out? What would you keep?

First let me say that whole foods or not…it would be very hard to feed five people with $50/week and I would encourage you to find a way to supplement that budget if at all possible. In my next food budget post (because this truly is turning into a little series!), I’ll talk about food budget creativity and share how I was able to help supplement our family’s grocery budget when we needed to spend more on groceries but didn’t have the cash flow!

For now I will address, as best as I can, what I would do if I was only able spend $50/week on groceries….

Food I’d Keep:

  • Eggs – free range if possible
  • Raw Milk – though we’d likely cut back to 1- 2 gallons a week
  • Butter
  • Fresh fruits and vegetables – in season and rationed – and I’d look high and low for free sources and I’d garden like crazy
  • Venison – hunters often love to hunt but don’t always like the meat
  • Beans – I’d likely get much more creative with my bean recipes!
  • Rice
  • Potatoes
  • Wheat to grind and make my own flour

Food I’d Cut Way Back On:

  • Meat – which is tough because we LOVE meat and feel like getting good protein is very important! I’d likely focus more on buying chicken than beef, because I can stretch a chicken to last six meals if need be. Or I’d skip the ground beef and buy soup bones and oxtail so I could make rich beef broth and stews.
  • Cheese – this would have to be a special treat

Food I’d Cut Out Altogether:

  • Sweets – these would be VERY limited – birthdays and Christmas only maybe?
  • Purchased snack food – I hardly buy these anyway, but occasionally I splurge on a bag of chips or a box of Cliff Bars for a trip. 
  • Juice – again, I rarely buy juice anyway, but if I only had $50/week to spend on groceries, this would never make the list.

I know I’m not doing a great job of making these lists and there are a lot of holes. What about oil? Spices? All kinds of other things I’m leaving out? 

In my next post, I’ll address some creative ways we save, earn and come up with great sources for food. In the meantime, help me round out these lists!! What would you keep, cut back on and cut out altogether if you had about $10/person/week to spend on groceries?

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