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>A new month, a new year and a new time for food tracking. If you missed my post finishing up December food tracking you can find it here.
In December, we spent a total of $510.68 on food. This included food cooked at home and food from restaurants. Our finances are looking pretty tight for January so our food expenditures will be even less. We have a well stocked freezer right now and some pantry items such as beans, grains, and flour so I do not anticipate having any issues preparing nourishing meals even with the smaller budget. I was very fortunate in December to be given frozen antelope, elk and venison and fresh fruits and vegetables. I was able to preserve the fruits and vegetables so they will carry over to this month (and beyond) by freezing some and lacto-fermenting some.
So far this month I made a trip to the regular grocery store (Albertson*s) for a few things. Here’s what I brought home.
- 2 pounds Brown Rice
- 5 pounds Unbleached Flour 8
- 8 pounds Regular Sugar
- Mustard
- Whole Coconut Milk (1 can)
- Coffee
- Tuna (2 cans)
- Vanilla (2 jars that were buy one get one)
- 2 pounds Tillamook Cheddar Cheese (Tillamook cheeses are antibiotic and growth hormone free)2 pounds of Butter
- 2 gallons Whole Milk
- 24 ounces Daisy Sour Cream
- Frozen Chopped Spinach (1 box)
- 1 Fillet of Yellow fin Tuna (frozen- to use later in the month for sushi)
- 1.12 pounds of mushrooms
- 1 head of garlic
- 2 bell peppers (not in season but we like them on pizza. I chop them up and freeze them to use through the month)
- 6 pounds of onions
- 10 pounds of potatoes
- Kale (one head)
- 2.34 pounds of cabbage (one head)
- 1.41 pounds of bananas
Total cost: $67.35
You probably noticed a few questionable purchases for a real food menu. Namely sugar, flour, coffee and milk.
I use the sugar for kombucha and water kefir. I would 100% prefer to use organic cane sugar but our budget at this time doesn’t have the room in it for this. I buy the regular processed white sugar when it is on sale ($1.88 for 4 pounds was what I paid) and it lasts for a long time. The least expensive organic cane sugar I have found is my area is just under $5 for 3 pounds. It is rare that we use that sugar for anything else (at Christmas time my daughter made some cookies using regular sugar to take to an event). For the rest of our sugar needs we use Sucanat, organic cane sugar and raw honey. My thinking is that with the kombucha and the water kefir ‘most’ of the sugar is eaten up by the cultures of bacteria and yeast. Again, this is not optimum but a choice that we make for now.
I buy the flour to use for rolling out dough and occasionally when I am trying to convert a recipe from something that uses white flour to whole wheat I’ll mix it 50/50 the first time to introduce my family to things slowly. This method has worked well for me to be able to get my family eating whole wheat tortillas and other things. With having older children I have found that the more familiar a food is the easier it is for them not to turn up their nose at it. This is one of the baby step methods we have used and it works for our family.
Coffee. I know I shouldn’t, but I love it. It does not belong in our diet but I’m not yet ready to give it up.
Milk- we drink raw milk and I use whole milk that is hormone and antibiotic free for dairy kefir, yogurt, buttermilk and cooking. Another compromise until we can either afford enough raw milk for all our dairy needs or we get dairy goats (something I want to do but my husband is not sure is a good choice for us at this time). I hope that by culturing the milk that it is putting back in some of the enzymes that pasteurization kills. I don’t even want to think about what homogenization does to it right now.
As I mentioned, this month we will be eating out of the freezer and pantry quite a bit. I was tempted to take this pantry challenge that Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom are co-hosting (I heard about it from Angela) but since I knew I did need some things and I couldn’t figure out how to completely not buy anything (like milk and produce) I’m not doing the challenge (officially). Unofficially, I do look forward to cleaning out a freezer a bit and enjoying some of the goodies we have in there. I took a full freezer inventory the other day and have made my meal plan for the month. It looks pretty good. I will need to purchase a few things that I didn’t get the other day (because either they didn’t carry what I wanted or the price was insane) and of course, I’ll be picking up my regular cow share. I do not think that our Co-Op is putting in an Azure Standard order this month but if we do I’ll place a small order through there.
>Looks like we have the same thoughts about the challenge! It doesn't work well with the way I shop. I will be planning as many meals as possible using what I have…but still need to restock on some items. And I think that we all have a few things we buy that aren't "real foods"–I'm of the opinion that as long as I'm making a sincere effort 95% of the time…I don't sweat the 5% that falls through the cracks.
>I love all the information you put into this post. We are a family of three, and I am always disappointed at how much we spend on food each month. Since May of '09, my husband has been mostly unemployed as he was laid off from his job and we started a solar business – a worthwhile endeavor but a lot of hard work and not much yield yet.
Most of our money goes toward our mortgage and food each month. I simply won't compromise on food quality, so we do spend more than some people. We have been living off of unemployment, money from our 401K that we cashed out, and the few jobs and sales we've made since May. Our budget is going to get even tighter if we don't start making sales soon, but the job market is terrible right now and also, people are just not spending money on solar (it's considered a luxury item, despite promises the government has made about the importance of pushing for alternative energy). But it's always great to get ideas and it's true, sometimes you are forced to buy food items you'd rather not because of finances. Thanks Millie!
>Raine,
How exciting to be starting a solar business!
I appreciate you sharing your story and your statement that you will not compromise on food quality. When times are stressful (such as when money is tight) we need to be feeding our bodies well in order to help us with coping. And some good choices are not any more expensive than poor choices.
Ang,
I'm pretty sure we are closer to a 75/25 breakdown 🙂
But I'm still very pleased with our progress over the past year.
>I love the wealth of info you shared! I am trying to go unprocessed but as you saw in my pantry, I have alot of cleaning out to do. One of the reasons I'm particpating in the challange. For me, the challange is as much staying out of the store as it is using up the pantry items! I am going to be visiting your blog quite often in the next few months to figure out how to get healthier. I love the idea of 50/50 (white flour/whole wheat) I tried whole wheat brownies and no one (not even me!) ate them. Maybe if I did 50/50 it would work for now. LOL
>Hi Keli!
I'm still using up pantry items too from before we switched over. But my pantry wasn't/isn't as impressive as yours. As we run out of 'conventional' foods I replace them with a better real food choice as our budget allows. Sometimes I have to compromise and sometimes we just eliminate that food from our diet. That is not to say we never eat things like chips. On my birthday I ate an entire bag of Doritos by myself. And I loved them. And I paid for it the next day…
The 50/50 plan works for me. I also do it for rice. My girls like white rice, I prefer we eat brown rice. If I make a funky dish (like the time I made version of congee using fish stock) I'll use white rice for it to make it as familiar as possible. If the dish is good and should be made again then the next time I'll do 50/50 white and brown. The next time 25/75 and then hopefully can switch over the next time to 100% brown rice. That is the same method I use for the flour. I have found that with the gradual switch we don't notice it as much.
>We are doing the pantry/freezer challenge too. But like you said, we still need to purchase fresh milk and fruits & vegetables. That's part of my goals for the month. We are still purchasing what's free or less than $1.00 for pantry related items because I sure don't want to have to play catch-up next month and end up over-spending on my monthly budget. Our goals is to spend $30 a week on the above mentioned items. I did pretty good today…under budget by $1.33. I was so happy. I look forward to reading more about food journey. We love deer meat, but have never had antelope or elk. I hope you share recipes 🙂
>Candi,
Congrats on coming in under budget!
I do have a couple of antelope recipes (antelope has a tag in my sidebar) that you could easily adapt to deer (or beef for that matter). Antelope is definitely my 'local' food. We often have anywhere from 10 to 50 in our yard! I do like antelope but the elk is my favorite. I'm very pleased to have been gifted it. I will share more recipes as I make them.