For years, my husband and I have tried to be as healthy as possible. We don’t eat junk, we exercise, we don’t smoke, we drink very little, we don’t take any medications, and we’ve created a low-stress life for ourselves. We’re coming up on our fourth anniversary, and we’ve started talking about having a baby. We’re thinking about maybe starting to try later in the summer… we’ll see how we feel then. But we did commit to being even healthier than usual this year. Starting January 1, we gave up all alcohol, and redoubled our efforts to eat right. We were already doing pretty well on that front, but we’re doing even better now. The idea is that we want our bodies to be as healthy as possible before we even try to conceive – creating a new human being is a pretty big deal, we want to leave as little as possible to chance. Anyway, we’ve virtually eliminated sugar from our diets (and no, we don’t use any artificial sweeteners – we just skip it all together), and we’re eating about 95% organic food.
Organic food is not cheap. I’m sure everyone has noticed this by now. In the grocery store yesterday, I saw that the cage-free, hormone-free eggs I buy are now $4.29/dozen, compared with the store brand for under $2/dozen. And the organic mushrooms I bought were also double the price of conventional ones. We get veggies delivered to our door every week from an organic produce company, and we pay $38/week for 20 lbs. I still consider that a good deal, since it just shows up every week and I don’t have to shop for it. Also, it’s gotten me out of veggie rut – we get all sorts of variety in the box. But still, we’re paying almost $2000/year for our produce delivery. And the soy and rice milk that we buy runs about $7/gallon. Ouch. But when we gave up dairy milk, my husband’s allergies all but disappeared, so we decided that it’s worth it.
We almost never go out to eat, and we eat very little meat, so that keeps our total food bill reasonable. But it’s still pretty high. Especially when I look at how I shop for pretty much everything besides food. I’m the thrift store queen, I have been known to swipe stuff out of dumpsters, I drive a 16 year old Honda with 210,000 miles on it… and yet, I have no problem paying $4.29 for a dozen eggs.
I think the reason is that I tend to look at the long-term picture whenever I’m spending money. If I need a shirt (ok, I don’t really need any shirts, since I have plenty – let’s say I want a shirt instead), I know that I can go to a thrift store and get a great shirt for under $5. Or I can go to the mall and spend $40 for a similar shirt. After I wash them each a couple times, I won’t be able to tell the difference anyway – the $40 shirt won’t bring me any more pleasure than the $5 shirt, so why the hell would I pay an extra $35? Food on the other hand, does have long term effects. I’m thoroughly convinced that processed food and chemical-laced conventional food are a primary cause of ill health. So when I look at an organic tomato that’s double the price of a conventional tomato, I see a lot of value in the organic one… and that’s the one I’ll buy.
So I’ll keep on being frugal in every other aspect of my life, so that I can buy the best food I can find and not bat an eye when the Vitamin Cottage cashier tells me my total is $345. It’s money well spent.
Jenn says
I don’t know if you use canned spaghetti sauce, but the Dollar Tree stores near us (NY) have had Hunt’s Organic, 28 oz for a dollar. I posted the tip online and Meredith over at Like Merchant Ships checked out near her (TN) and found the same thing, and various readers from both of us have found it across the country as well as some folks reporting cans of organic diced tomatoes, 2 cans for 1 dollar.
Just thought it might help :)
Livingalmostlarge says
I have found that eating healthy, cooking from scratch costs substantially a lot more. Before we could afford eating healthy, organic, or just better cuts of meat, seafood, etc I could feed two people on $25/week. But I was not eating healthy, granted we were young so we were never overweight, but when I look back I cringe at our eating habits.
I am currently couponing, but I stopped using coupons for food after the first week. Now I use them exclusively for non-perishable toiletries, occasionally soup, and whatever grocery coupons are for basic stamples like sugar, some bread, meat, veggies, etc.
Am I saving a lot? No, I can’t get back down to $25/week unless I would be willing to eat only preprocessed food all the time. I’m not willing to do that.
Diehard couponers claim they eat free, but at what cost? I have been trying to buy what they buy, but it’s too disgusting. They buy 20 boxes of cereal, 20 boxes of pasta, hamburger helper, duncan hines, cookies, chips, junk food, all center of the store. But they walk out paying $20 or nothing. I have pushed on these blogs to post what they buy and for how much. Because on my blog I challenge them with a list from my recipt of what I bought without coupons. No couponer has been able to help me get our eating down below $75/week.
So my thing is I’m not going to be overweight, high cholesterol, unhealthy for a couple of bucks. I’ll save that when we’re all 50 and they have to take a ton of meds for their bad health and I’m still in good health.
FrugalBabe says
I hear you, Living Almost Large. Coupons are almost always for non-food crap. There are very rarely coupons for organic, non-processed food. Our Vitamin Cottage newsletter does include a few (4) coupons most of the time, but that’s about it. I refuse to eat boxed cereal (we buy organic oats and quinoa in 25 lb bags instead), packaged dinners, white pasta, cookies, etc. So I use coupons once in a while, but for the most part, food is my largest expenditure, and I’ll happily keep it that way.
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