My Real Food Story . . . Part I

I feel like I am the last person that should be talking about this.  I want to talk about it, but I wanted to wait until I feel like I perfected it.  I have tried so MANY ways of grocery shopping and menu planning over the years.  It was actually about 2 years ago that I changed a lot of things.  I started reading blogs.  It opened up my world, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the not-so-good.

I began by reading Crystal's blog, Money Saving Mom.  I am thankful for her blog.  She has saved me some money and brought great deals to light.  I do have to respectfully disagree with her regarding coupons.  I do a few coupons, but for the food I buy, there just aren't many coupons.  I tried buying and making a coupon folder/binder thing.  I spent hours organizing my coupons and my grocery store deals.  I just don't do that anymore.

About this time I started reading other blogs, like Passionate Homemaking and Heavenly Homemakers.  I read a post from Lindsay regarding their Real Foods Budget and this is how I started doing my shopping.  I even wrote to Laura at Heavenly Homemakers and asked her a question, and guess what, she answered it on her blog.  You can read that here.  I would highly recommend reading her "Getting Real with Food" series as well.

Well, I did what I usually do, I changed everything at once.  I also joined a wholesale buying club.  All of this while I was about 7 months pregnant with my second child.  In retrospect, I shouldn't have joined that buying club because I did not know enough and it was such a process.  I have learned a lot since then including backing off a little.

I do not buy everything organic. 

Here is what I do:

1.  I use real butter.  It is rarely organic but it is real, actual, unsalted butter.  Organic butter runs $4.99/lb. and I can't quite wrap my head around that right now (probably because I use too much butter).
2.  I stopped using white sugar and white flour several months ago.  I still use it but only occasionally and usually if I am making food for other people.
3.  I read labels on everything.  I look to see if it has high fructose corn syrup.  I check the country of origin.  I check to see what additives and preservatives a food has.
4.  I buy grassfed beef from a local farmer.  It is about $3/lb. and I order a quarter of a beef at the same time. 
5.  I do make a lot of stuff from scratch.
6.  I do buy in bulk from Sam's or Costco (we are trying Costco this year).
7.  I have recently started buying my main groceries at Trader Joe's.  Trader Joe's is a 45 minute drive for me, but I have to go to my job 2 days a month so I always have my list ready and I go to Trader Joe's then because I am there anyway.  It works for me. 
8.  I use whole wheat flour and I sometimes soak my baked goods.  There is a lot of discussion about soaking your grains and you can go here for more information than you ever wanted to know.
9.  I buy organic fruits and veggies as often as possible and try to always buy organic from the dirty dozen list.
10.  I buy several items from a local organic dairy including eggs, honey, buttermilk and sometimes milk.


Now, how do I do it and not spend a lot of money?  Come back next time and we will talk numbers!

For more frugal ideas, please visit Frugal Friday at Life as a Mom.