Tricia from FarmishMomma very kindly asked me to contribute a post about how to eat real food at home on a budget. I agreed . . . and then I realized I might be a terrible person to ask about this sort of thing. The truth is that budgets are real in our life – we run a small business and make poverty level income. We are strict about how we pend money in a lot of ways in our life – clothes come from the thrift store, our house is a cheap fixer-upper, we have one small old car, we don’t take fancy trips or own lots of gadgets and gizmos, our kids don’t go to costly schools or classes.
Food is, actually, what we don’t budget. My husband and I run a cafe & bakery, and a grain CSA, so it’s no surprise that food is very important to us. Food is what we are (all of us, whether we consciously think about it or not), and at the end of the day, two things are most important in our family: that we showed love to the people around us, and that the food we ate nourished us well. Yes, we occasionally eat crappy pizza or buy a bag of chips. But for the most part, food is our passion and what we love to share with others.
Even though we aren’t strict about how much we spend on food, that doesn’t mean our food expenses are outrageous.
We grow a lot of vegetables for ourselves, especially salad greens (which are very labor-intensive, and therefore expensive to buy). If we had a tiny yard and could only have a few plants, I would have berries or a fruit tree. Fruits are highly perishable, never taste as good when you by them (even from the farmer’s market), and fruit is very expensive to buy.
At the farmer’s market, I can easily get carried away and buy more than we can even use, so I bring a certain amount of cash with me, and that’s all I have to spend. At the grocery store, I don’t even walk down the aisles with packaged foods. Expensive, and mostly very unhealthy and hard for our bodies to digest – what a wicked bad combo! Usually my two small children are shopping with me, which is an extra incentive to stay far out of sight of cereal, chips, cookies, etc – much easier to just avoid that fight altogether.
Because of our cafe, I’m able to get a lot of our food in bulk, which is much more reasonable. If I didn’t own the cafe, I could do the same through our local coop – foods like grains, oil, sugar, salt, nuts, dried fruit, etc don’t spoil quickly, and if you have the space to store them, it’s much more economical to buy a 25 pound bag of them.
I’m a huge fan of meal plans (see my old post about that here), and also of leftovers. Food shouldn’t be wasted, and good home cooking is delicious re-heated. We have one night a week where we eat up all our leftovers, and that’s usually what we have for lunch, also.
I hope this was helpful! I’m happy to answer any questions, and I have lots of simple recipes available at Fields & Fire. Blessings on your weekend, everyone.
Adrie
http://www.localgrain.org/fieldsandfire
Thank you Adrie for taking time away from your super busy schedule to join me here. Â Love your post on Meal Planning!
My family is getting so good at repurposing the leftovers that we actually look forward to them.
Thank you for sharing about your family and how you budget! After reading this post I realize that we do unfortunately throw away a fair bit of food each week…probably from lack of better menu planning or to the opposite, that I try to stick to my menu and forget to grab those leftovers!
Julie, I think we all struggle with the leftovers 🙂 When we had chickens it was not a problem but at least for the next two months until we get chicks and they are big enough to eat leftovers, leftover day is my saving grace. My husband takes it a step further. If he is in charge on leftover day, he pulls them all out and just reheats and each person chooses their own. I try to refangle them but if there are enough leftovers, that's what he does. And then he adds desert to fill them up 🙂
I've been trying to do a retrospective budget on our eating organic, but the conclusion I've come to, with a washing machine broken, the need for a mattress – destroyed by damp and mould which took months for the landlady to address and we're still sleeping downstairs because we can't afford to replace it – is that there really is a budget cut-off point and we just cannot manage it until we get our garden up and running (which is rather bittersweet because we've been steadily planning for that, but may well move, again, in the coming months).
Being in rented accomodation we moved 3 times in 18 months, so it's rather challenging to get a garden up and running (although it's something I used to do years ago in another life before my husband left and I became temporarily homeless with my children). Sometimes (well in our case pretty much always, everything I'm currently wearing save for underwear is second hand) clothes may come from the thrift store (etc) but there still isn't the money to be able to manage it.
Bulk-buying is fantastic, though, I've done this in the past (when we've been able to afford to pay up front) and it really does make a difference and all sorts is made from scratch, but, the harsh reality is that, it can be really hard for some families – it can be very hard to save for a bulk buy when there is very little left over to save a month! A garden makes a massive difference (and it's amazing how much can be grown in a small space), but there are quite a few who cannot manage to do even this.
Still, it is absolutely possible to cook real, good and wholesome food on a budget (just not always organic) 🙂
Nicola, you have given me much to think about! I visited your blog and wanted to stay all morning. I would love to hear more on how you are doing what you are doing. I do realize that there are those who don't even have a budget and I will try to address that soon!
I've hit a bit of a watershed moment, if I'm honest, because something has to give here. I've been trying to do a retrospective budget and planning record to see if we could truly transition to being more organic (where organic was available) and, for me, grain free (because I have had various health issues and would like to transition to GAPS).
The planning is 'retrospective' because we get an organic veg box delivered and that is the 'better deal' so it's harder to do a meal plan in the way many would do maybe cycling through a few weeks because we only know a few days in advance of delivery what will be delivered, although we can add items to it).
I'm guessing for people on coupons it may be difficult as well, as if you're relying on couponing for deals you have to be pretty flexible? I'm aware there is some sort of stamps system in the US – it's not something we have here, although it has been suggested (and the concern is that it may well do away with choice and tie people into certain shops).
I'm not sure how budgets stack up GBP vs USD because it's not as simple as a basic conversion because costs of foods vary so much (I seem to remember you posting quite a while ago under your former blog name – yes I've followed you for a while, although sporadically, as it can be hard to keep up with everything – regarding the price of eggs and I think I was a little surprised at the differences in price between the various US suggestions vs what I know to be the case in the UK).
I follow a US expat living over here who is interested in wholefoods and says she's on a tight budget, but her budget for herself, her husband and young child is pretty much the same as we have for the 5 of us (and that's not including when my older sons come to stay and my eldest has a girlfriend, who when she's in the area – she's studying in another city – will usually come too to eat) and yet I consider us rather blessed on the budget front (per head) in comparison to some, as even though we're low income, one of us works.
But these past few weeks have been difficult and, if I'm honest, we just can't afford it and I've been percolating a post regarding this and how I feel about it and what I'll do about it, but it's a hard one because I know that in many other ways we are privileged (because I know what it's like to be truly hungry having been homeless).
It is possible to eat home-cooked wholesome food on a budget – I know, I've done it, having fed 3 teenage boys, 2 children, a friend and myself (neither of us working – my friend ended up on my sofa and the 3rd teenager was a homeless friend of my older boys) on pretty much the same and usually far less budget as we have now (times were very tough when my ex-husband walked out) – but there are some things that have to give and I believe some dietary approaches just aren't do-able for some groups of people.
Not that any of what I've said is a criticism of your series – I'm really enjoying reading through (and catching up a little on what you've all been doing of late – I do enjoy the snippets of your life that you share.) x
Nicola, please do not think I would take anything you say as criticism. I do not mean to imply that everyone has to eat organic in order to survive. Believe me, growing up with a single parent, I know you can survive on very meager foods. My series is more to help people who are spending alot of money on groceries but think they cannot eat organic/unprocessed because processed foods are generally more expensive and not good. I know that is also an exception since a box of macaroni and cheese can be purchased for under a dollar. I just hope to inspire those who see the ingredients to make real food and do not see how it all turns into a meal. You have my wheels turning in my mind right now Nicola. I have been sick in bed today, coming up with a plan for eating if I only had say $50 for the week. It would be stressful but somehow I would have to figure out a way yes? I thank you for your honesty, always!!
Oh I didn't think either yourself or Adrie were suggesting that at all and you are absolutely right – it would be good to see more people get back to basics!
$50 a week! Wow, that is a scary thought! That would be just under £30 here and I cannot imagine trying to feed my family on that. There's a lady here who blogs at: http://agirlcalledjack.com/ who has become rather well-known here recently campaigning about food poverty (a topical thing here with the rise of food banks).
I hope you feel better soon!
Oh, I guess I missed the link to the guests blog with their recipes but every week I have found great recipes in this post 🙂 Thank you for doing this.
such beautiful pictures but I love it when you share recipes.
Thanks Reggie – It's greens, raisins, goat cheese, sunflower seeds, and homemade vinaigrette. I'll share the recipe at my blog in a few days – great idea!
Adrie
The salad above looks great. What exactly did you put on it, and do you have a salad dressing recipe you use and could share? Thank you