- The budget of $65 per week
- I am planning to purchase all (or at least most) of my produce in season
- All of the items that are on the “dirty dozen” list I am purchasing organically
- All of the products on the “clean 15” list I am purchasing conventionally
- All dairy products will be purchased organically including milk, cheese, butter, and sour cream
- All beef and chicken will be purchased organically, natural (antibiotic and hormone-free), and/or grass-fed
- My eggs are purchased locally direct from the “farmer.”
- For now, all frozen food, canned food, and other staples will be purchased conventionally
If you’ve been following this blog you also know that during the month of January (and maybe even longer -we’ll see!) I am taking the “Eat From the Pantry Challenge.” I am not making any grocery purchases (frozen or pantry) except for replenishing fresh produce and milk products (that won’t make it a whole month!).
So, here’s what I got:
Raw almonds- FREE with Coupon
Fair Trade/Organic Coffee
Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies (husband was with me – LOL)
Organic Milk
Organic Sour Cream
Organic Yogurt
Annie’s Organic Chocolate and Vanilla Bunnies (for Judah) – Used $1 off coupon
Organic Apples
Conventional Bananas
Conventional Brussell Sprouts
Organic Cabbage (no conventional to be found!)
Conventional Grapefruit – FREE with Coupon
Organic Potatoes
Organic Apple Juice
Organic Annies Cinnamon Bunnies (for Judah)
Local eggs (not purchased at the store)
Total Spent This Week: $61.97
(The few dollars left will remain for next week)
As you can see we did not make any meat purchases, and meat can be a budget-buster buying it conventionally not to mention organically. Even without the meat purchases we nearly spent our whole budget this week. Luckily, we’re not making any meat purchases for the whole month due to a well-stocked freezer, but this did get me thinking about what I will do when we do begin making meat purchases and buying other conventional staples. Here’s what I determined:
My husband wanted to try their coffee, but this will not be a future “organic” purchase because it really sunk its teeth in our grocery budget at $7.69 for about 3/4 of a pound. Organic cookies for hubby won’t make it on the grocery list either at nearly $5! LOL. We will continue to buy a few snacks for Judah but luckily these will last a few weeks since he only has a few each day. Other than that, fresh produce will last a couple of weeks around here. So, we’ll probably rotate some of our purchases: meat one week (buy enough for 2 weeks) and produce the next. Milk will be an every week purchase, but other dairy products last long around here. So, if we only buy what we need I think it can be done. On weeks that we don’t need quite as much, I’ll save the remainder of the budget since meat can be pretty pricey. Which leads me to my last point, we’ll be having a few “meatless” days and/or stretching our meat purchases with the types of food that I cook.
And, by the way, if you are wondering how “getting fit” on a budget is going, my husband and I have been working out (doing some cardio/aerobics we’ve DVR’d from Fit TV) for 30 minutes each day when he gets home before I start dinner. So far we’ve done this every day for a total of 8 days – we haven’t missed a day yet! By doing different episodes we’ve done something different and fun every day! We’ve discovered we have a lot more energy and our moods have improved! We hope to make this a life long change/goal!
