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Apparently when I took the summer off from blogging I forgot everything that I learned about menu planning. Boy is it hard to get back on track!

Last week my precious flylady told me that I was whining and procrastinating about menu planning. She was right! Sometimes I miss the good ole days of just buying cold cereal and milk. I do NOT miss how I felt after eating cold cereal and milk though so I must have some sort of plan.

Right now, part of the biggest problem I have is that I no longer have a basic plan in place. We get paid every two weeks so I decided to figure out how much meat I’d need to buy for those two weeks.

I can see that I am already missing things that I need. But at least it’s a start!

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Image Credit: o5com

Is it really more expensive to eat a primal or paleo diet? I don’t think so {click to read the post.} Am I spending more money on groceries. YES!!!!

How to Grocery Shop on a Budget

If you need to grocery shop on a budget, take a look at the list over at Archevore.Com. Steps 1-3 won’t cost you any extra money. Eating “fillers” such as bread, pasta, etc. make you FEEL FULL, but don’t actually nourish your body. Replace those items with frozen vegetables and healthy fats and you won’t spend any extra money (we eat peas and green beans with butter a lot.)

Why do I spend more money now than I used to? Quite simply, I have realized the importance of food. I have been buying the following items that have increased my budget significantly.

Kombucha

I bought Kombucha and OH MY GOODNESS!!! I can’t even begin to tell you how much this has helped my stomach. I know that I’m not completely healed after eating crap for 40 years…apparently the healing process takes a while and Kombucha has helped tremendously. It’s $3.00-$3.65 per bottle. CRAZY. Is it worth it? YES!!! I have water kefir grains in my fridge right now so I might try to make some of that again, but I didn’t notice an improvement in my health when I drank water kefir.

Sardines

Wild Planet Wild Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 4.375-Ounce (affiliate link)

I order via subscribe and save (often times I change/cancel the subscription because I don’t need them as often.) Right now they cost $11.99 for 6 cans.

Butter

I was buying Kerrygold butter, but recently found Rumiano butter from Azure Standard $4.40 for 1 pound. Here’s the description:

rSBT Free. GMO Free, Pasture Butter

Ingredients: Pasteurized Cream (Derived from Milk), Sea Salt.

What I don’t buy is as important as what I do buy.

I don’t buy nuts very often because they kill my gut and cost a fortune compared to the nutrients in them. I will buy macadamia nuts, but those are pricey! I rarely buy steaks or vegetables that aren’t on sale. I don’t buy very much fruit. Over time as my body heals, I don’t need near as much protein as I used to. I used to eat a ton of hamburger, but don’t feel like I need that much protein anymore.

Although I need to update this post, you can read about my primal / paleo story over at my other blog: HummingbirdHomemaking. Every week I post a grocery shopping tip. Enter your email address below to receive automatic updates:

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This post has been linked to:   Food Renegade and WorksForMeWednesday. *This email contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy.

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If you are on a strict grocery budget, I highly recommend paying close attention to step 5 and step 6. You wouldn’t think these steps could make that much difference, but I know for a fact they do.

Mindfulness

If your budget isn’t quite so tight,  I would practice being mindful at the grocery store.

I was talking to another person in town about our small mom/pop type grocery store called Lueders versus going to Wal-Mart. At Lueders, you go in and buy what you “need” without throwing other items into your cart. Junk food is priced extremely high there while meat and vegetables are reasonably priced (possibly a bit more than Wal-Mart, but not always.) The person I was talking to said they don’t like the lack of variety at Lueders. As a person following a primal “ish” diet, I find it refreshing (for the most part.)

Rush Hour

At 5:00PM if you want to buy a gallon of milk it takes just a few minutes to walk to the back of the store, grab your milk and check out. The customer service is quick! They always open extra lanes so you don’t have to wait. If you try to do the same thing at 5:00 at Wal-Mart, you park 5 miles away, fight the traffic and stand in line.

Being mindful of the items I buy with my grocery money as well as where I spend my grocery money is one of my goals (step 1.)

Another goal is to budget as much money as possible for food that makes us feel good. Therefore we’ve bumped up our grocery budget considerably. This is a 180 degree difference compared to how I previously felt about grocery money. My goal before I believed in “you are what you eat” was to spend as little as possible on food.

Unfortunately, I may be spending too much on “healthy” treats and snacks. I think that I’m trying to bribe my kids into the primal “ish” lifestyle. It doesn’t appear to be working. They are still buying (and eating) junk food all the time. I’m afraid if I say no all the time, they’ll end up being closet junk food eaters. They know what happens when they eat junk, but it doesn’t seem to affect their teen age minds.

I know that I need to break down our spending (step 7) so I can see where I’m spending most of my money. Good food = meat/protein, fats (butter, olive oil, coconut oil) and vegetables which should be where the bulk of my grocery money is spent. I shouldn’t be spending a lot in the following categories:

• Fruit
• Dairy
• Snacks/Treats
• Other

I get more grocery money tomorrow.  For the next two weeks I’m going to keep track of how much I spend on good food vs. the rest of the categories.

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{Image Credit: m.mate}

Primal / Paleo “ish” Way of Life

In my last post “Groceries: Where Do I Begin?” I wasn’t clear about something and wanted to expand a bit about seeds and nuts (thanks for the comment!)

When I first begin eating a primal or paleo based diet, I really had no clue what I was doing. I knew I had to cut out the grains, but wasn’t quite sure what to replace them with. I bought a bunch of seeds and nuts to keep my hunger at bay. In my hours upon hours of research I discovered the following that beef has a lot of protein in it.

Protein Comparison

I was spending a lot of money on seeds and nuts because I thought meat was too expensive. I pay $4.50 a pound for burger that is locally raised and not corn fed (they add some lentils to the mix.) If I eat 1/4 pound burger (with Kerrygold butter on top of it) for breakfast then I don’t need very much food the rest of the day. The cost is $1.13 per hamburger. If I eat $1.13 worth of nuts or seeds, I eat a lot more food throughout the day. I *think*  it is 35 grams of protein for the hamburger versus 12 grams of protein for the sunflower seeds.

Each person is different…my husband (the athlete) eats 2 sausage links with 3 eggs almost every day for breakfast and that seems to work well for him.

Resources:

• About.com: List of High Protein Food
• NutritionData: Burger Crumbles (I’m guesstimating that I eat a bit less than this amount)

According to about.com’s list I should be able to eat chicken and keep hunger at bay…just doesn’t work for me. The other thing to consider is how inflammatory a food is. Nuts are high in Omega 6 and it seems like I read that chicken is too.

 Please let me know  if there is anything I can help you with!

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Food is such a critical part of our lives. If we feed our bodies the “right food” we will have energy, feel nourished and we will avoid many diseases. So where does that leave people who are struggling financially? People who have to rely on the government for a time until they recover from whatever issues they are struggling with (job loss, death in the family, single parents, etc.)

Groceries 101: The basics 

1. Realize that it takes time to figure out how to feed your family healthy and frugal meals. If you are a person who stops by the store when they are hungry (hello…that was me!) it will probably cost more than if you have some sort of a plan.
2. Although every person is different, if you eat wheat and/or sugar it’s been proven that it will satisfy your hunger for a bit, but then you will be hungrier later.
3. Again, every person is different, but I have found that if my family eats a big protein breakfast, we can get away with a lot less protein later on in the day.

Groceries 201: Break down the cost of each meal.

• Cricket over at ThriftyTexasPenny wrote an awesome post the other day showing how she broke down the cost of each meal. Penny wrote:

I’ve been trying to convince friends and readers for years that our groceries (or eating out) don’t have to cost us an arm and a leg.

You can read the post by clicking on the following link:

 Live Below the Line Challenge Day 1

•  If you break down the cost of your meals then you can see where you might be able to cut out some non-essential items. You can see where I’ve broken down the cost of our Primal Foods breakfast budget over at HummingbirdHomemaking.Com. Even though Cricket and I have chosen to feed our families differently, the concept of breaking down the cost of the meal is the same. Note: before I discovered my protein breakfast I would eat green beans smothered in butter. I was much better off than when I had whole grain pancakes ~ each person is different.

• You can see more dinners broken down by cost over at 5DollarDinners.Com. Here’s a fabulous allergy free / budget recipe for pork roast by Lindsey.

 Please let me know  if there is anything I can help you with!

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Awesome Photo by Adam Fields

How to Make a Paleo / Primal / Whole Foods Diet Easier

When you choose to eat a whole foods, paleo or primal food diet, convenience food takes on a whole different meaning. I try to do the following to help with food prep: 

1. Stock the freezer with meat (chicken, bacon, burger and roasts) and vegetables (green beans and peas).
2. Transfer meat from the freezer to the fridge consistently (on Monday put 3 pounds of burger, 1 pack of bacon, 2 packs of chicken and 1 roast in the fridge.)
3. Stock the fridge/freezer with quick and easy fruits and vegetables ie. avocados, frozen blueberries, baby carrots or sugar snap peas.
4. Keep pre-cooked meat in the freezer (fry 5 pounds of burger and package them separately in the freezer.)
5. Keep cooked breakfast sausage in the freezer AND fridge.
6. Stock the fridge with dozens of eggs.

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Feed Your Family: 7 Steps to Success

The first step is to Define Priorities and Set Goals. After you’ve completed step #1, it’s really important to look at the items you bought at the grocery store and ask yourself this question: 

Are the items that I purchased in alignment with the goals that I set in step #1?

One of my goals is to eat food that makes me feel good (for a long time…not a short period of time.) I’m fairly certain that the items I purchased for making a cheesecake were NOT in alignment with that goal.

You have to ask yourself if it was it worth it. Only you can answer that question honestly.

Honestly….the cheesecake was amazing, but it didn’t make me feel good. It made me feel HUNGRY, starving, tired, ravenous, etc. Was it worth it?

What would honest Abe say?

Please let me know  if there is anything I can help you with!

Every week I post a grocery shopping tip. Enter your email address below to receive automatic updates:

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Flylady 101

Have you ever heard of Flylady? She is the reason that I can manage my home. Until I started reading emails from her, my house was a disaster. For Flylady…it all started with a shiny sink.

I listened to what she had to say and I kept my sink clean. Although that didn’t quite transform my house into a well run home, I figured a few things out. 

1. I had to try a new system and TRUST that person.
2. Nothing had to be done perfectly.
3. Anything worth doing was worth starting.
4. Your timer is your very best friend
5. I had to figure out the “shiny sink” in every area of my life.

The ONE thing that allows you to control a part of your life.

In my home it’s my kitchen island (well…and my toilets, but that’s another story).

Feeding Your Family

When it comes to feeding my family, my “shiny sink” is having a menu plan. The way I plan has changed several times over the years, but I always have some kind of a plan. Except when I don’t…and then we go out to eat. Last weekend, my plan was to go to Sam’s Club and pick up some food for the weekend that we wouldn’t have to cook. I didn’t know how things were going to go at the basketball tournament so I figured this would be the best route for us. Once I got to Sam’s I decided I didn’t have enough money to do a big shopping trip and it wasn’t worth the trouble. Unfortunately, I didn’t create a new plan.

We went out to eat….saved money in the grocery budget, but blew the entertainment budget.

Paleo Eating on a Budget

What’s the ONE thing you can control that will help you feed your family healthy meals on a budget? Here are a few I can think of, let me know what I missed:

• Menu plan
• Food in the house
• Thawed meat in the fridge
• Cooked meat in the freezer
• Will power to stay away from fast food/restaurants

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Why do I grocery shop weekly?

I’ve tried shopping weekly, every other week, monthly, multiple times a week, etc.

I have found that if I don’t focus on a weekly plan, then I get overwhelmed. When I first learned how much money I could save at the grocery store by having a plan, I focused on planning and shopping for just a few days at a time. We went out to eat frequently so I needed to break that habit first.

I also use the pantry principle concept. I stock up on the items that I know I am going to use every week. We eat hamburger for dinner about three times a week and we eat it at breakfast frequently. I just found out that our local meat supplier sells 50 pound boxes of burger. I’m looking forward to having burger on hand so I don’t have to factor that into my weekly grocery shopping trip.

 Please let me know  if there anything I can help you with!

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Grocery Budgeting

Someone left a comment over at MoneySavingMom stating that they were struggling with their food budget. I suggested that they break down their food budget using categories. This has been so enlightening for me, I hope that it’s helpful for you. 

In our family we’ve decided to eat a primal/paleo “ish” diet (we’re far from perfect!) The most expensive part of our dinner is the meat that we have chosen to eat. As much as possible, we buy local meat that is either grain fed without corn and soy or we buy grass fed meat.

You can see from my spreadsheet that 71% of my grocery budget is allocated to meat for dinner. I know that I *always* buy too much fruit so I need to figure out what percent of our budget that I am willing to spend on fruit (I’m still a bit of a fruit/sugar addict so I need to be careful.) I also need to figure out what percent of the budget should be spent on fats, vegetables, dairy, etc.

You can see how I broke down our breakfast budget over at my other blog.

 Please let me know  if there anything I can help you with!

Every week I post a grocery shopping tip. Enter your email address below to receive automatic updates:

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This post has been linked to:  GroceryCartChallenge, Food Renegade and WorksForMeWednesday.