Coming to this point

5 years ago, our food bill was out of control.  For our family of 4, we were spending between $900 and $1100 dollars a month between groceries and eating out at least 2 times per week.  That was doable, if a little crazy in retrospect, when my husband and I were both working; but when we came to the decision that I needed to stay home with our two children, it became a big problem.

For about the first 2 months, we continued to live as we had before; then we hit a nice, big, financial brick wall.  Looking at our accounts payable and accounts receivable, it became immediately apparent that eating out would henceforth be only a "special occasion" kind of a thing.  Food, and controlling the costs of food, was the most obvious choice for monthly savings.

Serendipitously, I saw a news clip about the Economides family.  I bought their book "How to Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with America's Cheapest family" and read it cover to cover in a couple of days.  I started making meal plans, and buying groceries according to the ingredients on the meal plans.  I started doing my grocery shopping once a week, instead of running to the store 2 or 3 times a week.  Then, I moved to every two weeks; then once a month.  I wound up going back to once a week for produce, milk, bread and eggs.  Yet, it was still much more manageable financially to do a large push once a month, with fresh supplementals each week for more perishable items.  Setting aside $20 or $25 per week, and keeping my goal at $250-$300 for the large monthly trip worked well for me.

It took a little over a year, but I had finally tamed our food bill to a range from $350 to $420 per month.  And, on that $350 to $420 per month, we were eating what is traditionally accepted as healthy meals with whole grains, 2 vegetables on the table at dinner every night, fruit smoothies to round out breakfasts of spinach and mushroom omelets, french toast with turkey bacon, or oatmeal with cut up fruits.  Brown rice and whole grain pastas, 12 grain bread, lean meats, seafood.  No juices and no sodas, because they were sugary and expensive when compared to decaffeinated tea with Splenda or water. 

I made a 30 day meal plan full of "good for you" foods.  Lentils and rice, red beans and rice, meatloaf and mashed potatoes with steamed carrots, broccoli and cabbage with broiled tilapia.  The challenge of putting together meals that my family would like, according to the choosemyplate.com guidelines gave me a little bit of a thrill - I am not going to lie.  I felt better feeding my family meals that I had assembled in my own kitchen.  They were better for us than what we could get at a restaurant, and much cheaper too.   Even going to McDonald's made me cringe.  Not only because it was not the most nutritionally sound food I could feed my children, but for the cost of a single happy meal, I could make a meal of red beans and rice, with a side of steamed vegetables. 

Taking what I had learned about meal planning and food budgeting, I started teaching an informal class on grocery budgeting at a local transitional housing situation for young women aging out of foster care.  At the same time I started doing small challenges for myself.  I had heard of the SNAP challenge, in which you do not spend more than the allotment provided to a family of your number under the federal guidelines of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or the Food Stamp program.  Looking up the amount for a family of 4, I found out that our states assistant amount is $668.00 - much more than the amount that I was already staying under. Then, I did various personal challenges; including the $55 dollar challenge, feeding my whole family for the week for $55.  That one was the hardest, and probably the un-healthiest challenge - in retrospect.  I provided only one vegetable choice per dinner, and we ate loads of pasta dishes.

I could not find my meal plan for that week, but I do remember some of the meals:
Breakfast: French toast, fruit smoothie
Breakfast: oatmeal with an apple peeled and chopped into it, topped with a sprinkle of sugar.
Breakfast: pancakes from mix and grapes
Lunch:  Sandwiches, carrot sticks, yogurt cup
Dinner: 2 boxes of 40 cent mac and cheese mixed with a pound of ground turkey and onion powder and garlic powder for a very cheap version of hamburger helper; salad of iceberg lettuce, a chopped up tomato, and 1 carrot - grated.
Dinner: Red beans and rice, broccoli.
Dinner: Spaghetti and iceberg lettuce salad.
Dinner: Split pea soup, and I forget what the vegetable was.
Dinner: Spaghetti a la carbonara with steamed zucchini.

Knowing that I could, if push came to shove, feed our family in a healthful-ish way on very little money was a source of pride and accomplishment in this climate of financial insecurity.  It made me proud, and feel like I had achieved something.

Then, someone within our circle of friends wrote a book.  An honest to goodness book, and he got it published!  Titled "Don't Die Early",( http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Die-Early-Life-Save/dp/0985404507)  it chronicled his decision to take his own health into his hands after an episode of atrial fibrillation sent him to the ER.  I bought the book, because that is what you do if somebody that you know writes a book, you buy it.  Then I started reading it, and it made a lot of sense.  He wrote about inflammation, and the effects that it has on your body long term, and how grains can cause inflammation.  At the same time, some friends with whom my husband is closer began to eat the diet advocated in Rocky's book, with very clear and beneficial results.  My husband approached me about changing the foods that we ate, and I was right there with him.

Researching an anti inflammatory diet that we could live with our whole lives, Paleo seemed to be the one I kept coming back to.  I guess what you could call our diet now would be closer to a Paleo/Primal hybrid, or Paleo adjacent.  We have eschewed all processed foods, so I guess we are also incorporating "eating clean" into how we are doing all of this.  The source and diets of your foods also matter.  Butter should come from grass fed cows, beef should also come from grass fed cattle, not grain or corn fed.  Eggs should be from free-range chickens, and poultry meats should also be cage free and fed on insects and seeds.  We have not transitioned to grass fed and organic food totally yet.  Honestly?  We may never totally transition in that way.  I am still navigating my way in this.  Check back later.

I am lucky enough to live right on the border of suburban and rural areas.  20 minutes either way from my home, and I can be on country dirt roads with farms on either side, or I can be on very suburban roads with shopping opportunities and restaurants lining the 4 lane street.

I have found a source for cage free eggs.  A stay at home mom down the road runs a small side business raising organic chickens and selling their eggs.  She also takes chickens to be processed locally for sale as whole fryers, so I may start buying whole fryers from her.  But, that is something that I will address later.  I am still going through some of the meat that I bought during "stock up" sales.  Aldi had leg quarters on sale for 69 cents a pound a few months ago, so I bought the 10 lb limit that they would let me (so other folks could get some too, otherwise I would have cleaned them out) and then I price matched at Wal-Mart for another 50 lbs, came home and separated the thighs from the drumsticks, double freezer bagged them, and put them in the deep freeze.

I also do this when they have the bone in skin on chicken breasts for 89 cents per pound.  I will buy 60-70 lbs, double bag them and put them in the freezer.  Same for tubes of ground turkey.  When they are 99 cents per pre-packaged tube of meat, I buy 60 of them and put them in the deep freeze.

Sorry, I got derailed a little bit.  What I hope to do here is chronicle my grocery shopping, all the tips I learn along the line, and some of the recipes that I gather along the way.  My goal is to sit down every week and blog about what I have learned, and how I have incorporated that into how I feed myself and my family.

T