Cheap Clean Eating

So, here is the list of what we spent money on this February:

From Wholeshare/Regional Access:
French Lentils (25 lbs) = $26.08
5 Lettuce @ $1.95 each = $9.75
45 lbs Oats, Rolled Thick Organic @ $1.29/lb = $57.88
Olive Oil, Extra Virgin (3 L) = $26.87
0.5 lbs Peppercorns = $5.45
1 Pumpkin Seeds(10 lbs) = $37.06
1 Sea Salt, Finely Ground, Celtic (1 lbs)= $7.62
1 Sea Salt, Light Grey, Celtic (1 lbs) = $5.44
1 Walnuts, Light Halves & Pieces (10 lbs) = $75.21

From Wholeshare/Four Seasons
24 CT Hass Avocados @ $1.07ea = $25.76
1 Tommy Atkins Mangos (10 CT) = $7.84
10 LB Yams @ $0.78/lb = $7.77

Farmer's market week one- $24 potatoes, cabbage, onions, apples
Farmer's market week two- $53 maple syrup, honey, apples and more apples
Farmer's market week three- $25 potatoes, apples, carrots, garlic

Wegmans week one- $9 clementines, blood oranges
Wegmans week two- $40 milk, hot sauce, rice noodles, blood oranges, grapefruit, clementines, butter

Price chopper week one- $6 ice cream, bananas
Price chopper week two- $10 donuts, bagels, cream cheese (mental health splurge!)
Price Chopper week three- $6.50 clementines, bananas

Total for February: $467

How we put it together:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Week One		noodles + sauce*	pesto* pizza	beef enchiladas*	falafel + hummus*	quiche*	guacamole and chips*
Week Two	venison pho	lentil + spinach soup	pancakes (Fat Tuesday!!)	sushi	spring rolls	avocado soup*	leftovers/eggs
Week Three	leftovers	homemade ice cream + candied nuts**	spinach + egg pie*	zuke burgers* + yam fries	pesto* pizza	skillet lasagna*	greens + beans*
Week Four	quinoa + veggies*	venison spanish rice*	garlic biscuits + sauce*	spinach dahl*	sweet potato latkes

*meals that depend heavily on our freezer/pantry
**Everyone left Mama and littlest to fend for themselves and this is what happened!

Makes me hungry just looking at that menu! While we might not be buying much food, and I might be spending all of my time in the kitchen, we have been eating like KINGS!

For breakfast we primarily eat oatmeal with berries/walnuts, with occasional substitutions of eggs and homefries or some pancake variation. Lunches generally are leftovers, or apples and sunflower butter/honey, tortilla + sunflower butter/honey or tortilla + egg sandwiches. Snacks include apples, oranges, carrots, applesauce, nuts, smoothies, fruits, yogurt, chips, avocado creations....

So, as you can see, we eat out of our freezer and pantry for nearly every meal. Can I confess that my favorite season to cook in is winter? All of my produce is already chopped and ready to throw in the pot! Booyah!

Because I'm really trying to rein in those numbers, I've taken this food budget even deeper and have begun to figure the costs of individual meals. I've figured that if I keep each day to under $14, we have some wiggle room to stay well under the $450/month limit and everything is gravy.

I am going to write my calculations all out here because it helps me to see it written out and because I am hoping it helps you think about food and budgeting on these terms also. By nickel and dime-ing my menu, with practice, I'll be able to pair things up and stay within budget a little bit easier each day. It will also help me make decisions about the food we buy and how I use it. If I find oranges for $1.00 each, I will portion them out a bit differently than our $.50 apples. Please note that most of the costs are by estimating, but are still fairly accurate. I figure if I buy about 20 apples for $8, each apple is $.50. If I buy 10 lbs of onions for $8.00, each 1/4 lb of onions (approximately equivalent to 1 onion) is $.20. So on and so forth.

So, for example, let's say for breakfast we have oatmeal with berries, walnuts, and syrup. If we use a pound of oats($1.29/lb), plus 1/4 lb berries(2.99/lb), 1/4 lb of walnuts($7.52/lb), plus 1/2 cup of syrup($48/gallon=16 cups) our first meal of the day works out to be $5.42.

For lunch, we eat leftovers, tortillas($.05 each) with eggs($.10 each) and apples($.50 each). So lunch works out to be about $2.75.

Our tea time snack includes 1/3 container yogurt(2.79/half gallon) with syrup($1.50/1/2 cup) and a clementine($.25 each) and costs $3.42. We now have $2.41 left over for dinner.

But don't fear! We're having Venison Spanish Rice, in which the only thing we've had to buy were the onions, garlic, and rice. I used 1/2 lb rice($1.35/lb), one onion( $.20 each), and one garlic bulb($1.00/each). Our dinner costs $1.88 in total. Total for the day? $13.47!! Maybe if we keep saving that $.50 and maybe we can afford a "40oz" at the end of the month :P

I also didn't figure in the costs of things like salt, oil, or coffee-- so we are really close to going over. Now, to complicate matters, some of that cost is offset by my work with Wholeshare, but I'm not going to calculate that because I'd like to leave it as a "cushion." So I'm just going to keep aiming at $14 dollars per day, keeping in mind that it's a loose approximation, because I value my sanity over weighing out pinches of salt.

So where do I go from there? I feel like I am feeding my family well with locally/regionally sourced food, and we are staying inside of our price point. I would like to feel more solid about my shopping choices and so I will spend some effort comparing costs more thoroughly, gathering a list to use as a reference for the prices that I should look for with our typically used foodstuffs. I'll put some effort into combining ingredients so that our more expensive items are not used together (like avocados with walnuts.) I also will be looking into ways to reduce our sweetener consumption. Spending $3/day on syrup is a bit much even for an over-estimate!

If you see anything on my list that you think that I could be saving money on-- feel free to share! Where do you get your apples/onions/potatoes/garlic?

In a future post I would like to dive into why we are eating this low gluten/low dairy menu, in which I will probably stand on a soap box to shout the merits of eating local.

Life is!