What's included?
7 tips to successfully feeing our family on a budget of $300-350 a month
A few of our favorite meals
Some keys to avoiding preservatives from The Pantry Principle by Mira Dessy
As for our food budget, I am the one responsible for feeding our family, so I have had had to get really creative and learn ways to make healthy, yummy meals with a small budget. I feed a family of 5 plus my grandmother most nights on a grocery budget of $300-350 a month. There are some months that I may spend an extra $25-$50; however, I have learned to “work the system” and still stay in budget. When I know I need to go over my budget, I use our credit card reward points to buy a gift card to Wal-Mart or Whole Foods to cover that cost so our budget is not affected. Our grocery budget just includes food. It does not include personal care, household supplies, etc. I tell you these numbers only to say that you can eat WELL on a really small budget! I pray each time I shop that the Lord would help me find deals. I shop mainly with the kids, and it is neat to hear them pray as well asking for God to help us find deals. As our oldest is learning to read and understand numbers and money more, he will say, "Mama, I think I spotted a deal." Sometimes he is right, and sometimes way off. Nonetheless, it makes me smile and cracks me up at the same time! I mainly shop at Aldi, watch sales so that I can cater my menu to the sales, buy in bulk, shop at Deal Mart and Trador Joes. I also shop at Costco for some things as well as Whole Foods, and I am starting to order some things from Azure Standard.
We decided to make a choice to thrive and choose thankfulness on whatever means we have. Do we do this perfectly? Absolutely not, but our hearts' desire truly is to be thankful always! As a result, we now have a better set of eyes to observe what the Lord is doing. In a nutshell, what I have learned is that whatever means we have, whether that is plentiful or not so much, it truly is the Lord providing. The Lord is not providing any more now than he did a few years ago, it just looks different, and we have different lenses to look through. We truly have always had all we needed, both then and now. A wise man named Ray once said to my husband, “all I need is Jesus and what He has chosen to give me right now.” We have so many stories of ways the Lord has provided that I could fill a book! One story, I will share briefly. When we made the change to avoid preservatives and eat whole foods 70-80% of the time, I cried my way through the first month. I had no idea how to eat “well” and stay within budget. God provided a friend who was a step ahead of me, who was a huge coach and her name is Mary. She has been a coach in many areas whether it be herbs or how to eat well on little. She feeds her family of five soon to be 6 on $80 a week, which comes to about $320 a month. She has been an inspiration to our family!
7 Tips to Successfully Feeding our Family on a Budget of $300-350 a Month
1) Plan meals in two week increments. This makes it is easy to stay in budget. Yep, that means all meals- breakfast, lunch,
and dinner.
2) Make meals from
scratch. This not only cuts out a lot of
preservatives, but also cuts down cost and adds nutrition. I have the kids help me. It makes a huge mess, but we have fun.
3) Choose one thing at a
time, master that, and then move on. It
really does get easier as you go. It
starts out overwhelming, but truly, it has become like the back of my hand for
the most part.
4) Eat some meatless
meals. We do this often. This helps cut cost. I put beans in a lot of things, and it is
actually quite tasty and satisfying when you season it. I use to HATE beans until I learned how to
season them. Ask my family! My kids have
seconds on many things.
5) Resource others. There is a great group on Facebook that my
friend Mary started that I encourage you to join called Dinner, Outside the
Box. The group posts great ideas of
yummy meals made with little to no preservatives. I utilize this site all the time.
6) Shop little! The more I go to the store, the more I
spend. I shop twice a month. I buy food for two weeks at a time. We eat the fresh veggies first and then
toward the end we are eating frozen.
7) Know your prices. When there is a good price, buy more for
later. When the price is high on an
item, don’t buy it. We have a deep
freezer as well as a special pantry for when I stock up on good deals.
A Few of our Favorite
Meals
Ingredients:
I use organic when I can afford it. I
also try to use local produce. I look at
labels and make sure I understand each word….I want the simplest
ingredients.
1) Jamie Oliver's Chicken Drumsticks with oven roasted broccoli (3 dinners)
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/food-allergy-mums-chicken-drumsticks/#BjD70j34whVtMkva.97
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/food-allergy-mums-chicken-drumsticks/#BjD70j34whVtMkva.97
2)
Chicken and marinade
The Inside Tract- Your Good Gut Guide to Great
Digestive Health by
Gerard Mullen
slice
chicken length wise- so that is skinny
marinate
in freezer bag and place in freezer
Ingredients: 1/4
cup lime juice or lemon juice (whatever you have), 1/2 cup extra virgin olive
oil, 2 tbsp. fresh cilantro or two tbsp. dried cilantro, 1/4 tsp cumin, sea
salt and pepper to taste (make sure well mixed before placing chicken in
mixture)
When
you are ready to eat it, thaw, and grill!
3)
Vegetable soup with
ground beef
brown
1 lb ground beef with 2 cloves garlic and set aside
in
large pot (can use crock pot) combine: 28 oz chopped tomatoes, 28 oz homemade
chicken stock or turkey stock, chicken or beef boullion (whatever 28 oz calls
for- make my own, but have found I don’t normally use it….tastes great
without it....see below) and vegetables of your choice. I use potatoes,
carrots, zucchini, corn. The amount of veggies I use depends on how thick
I want the soup to be. I sprinkle herb such as garlic powder, onion
powder and celery powder, parsley, and basil (whatever I have). I also
add two more minced cloves of garlic and salt and pepper. I then add
noodles. Cook on low until vegetables and pasta are soft or cook in a
crock pot on low for a few hours. Clearly, the soup always comes out
different be/ I don't measure things, but really hard to mess up!
3) chicken bullion mix
The author of this food blog is a dear friend of mine and I utilize her blog often!
*I do everything here except instead of using water and bullion cubes, I use homemade turkey stock or chicken stock and use the bullion recipe above.
*I do everything here except instead of using water and bullion cubes, I use homemade turkey stock or chicken stock and use the bullion recipe above.
Some Tips to Avoiding
Preservatives and/or Eating Healthy
from The Pantry Principle by Mira
Dessy
All of the principles below
are from a book that I read when I first started making changes. I highly recommend The Pantry Principle by Mira Dessy.
Stick to the perimeter of the
store! If it is in a box, can, or jar
or has a label it is almost always processed.
7 tips to avoid preservatives
a) If you don’t know what it is, don’t eat it (ex.
Butyl formate)
b)
If it has a number, don’t eat it
c)
If it has four or more syllables, don’t eat it
d)
If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it
e)
If an ingredient ends in a-t-e, don’t eat it.
f)
If it says enriched, don’t eat it.
g)
If an ingredient has all capital letters don’t eat it (ex. BHT)
The further up an ingredient
is on the nutrition label, the more of that specific component is present in
the package.
Avoid too much added sugar
(added sugar is sugar not found in nature…natural sugar would be in fruit)
a)
The average
American eats 21 ts of added sugar a day.
The recommended amount is 6 ts for women and 9 ts for men!
b)
Some better
sugars: maple syrup, raw honey, coconut sugar
c)
Sugar suppresses
the immune system.
Thanks for this! It really does help to have other people who eat healthy give advice, and I can't wait to try out some of these recipes!
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