My thoughtful, sweet husband bought a yogurt maker for my birthday. He knows me so well. I love this gift for many reasons. First of all, because it’s from B and because he knows what I like. Second, I love making things from scratch…bread, baked goods, everything. Homemade is best in my world. We eat a lot of yogurt in our house. B has one for breakfast every morning & the kids and I love it. But I get annoyed at all the sugar and artificial ingredients – even in organic, “healthy” yogurt. So, now I can make wholesome, organic yogurt without artificial coloring and tons of sugar. I can even make soy yogurt for myself! And no more annoying plastic cartons to recycle, no more landfills to fill. Yes!
Along the same lines I’ve decided to do a major re-haul of our food budget and shopping habits. Our grocery bill is getting bigger and bigger. I started a list of things I can do to change our ginormous food bill.
- Cut way down on packaged snacks. I do buy healthy snacks for the kids, but we are blowing through them at amazing rates right now. I’m going to stop buying Fig Newmans, animal crackers, crackers, Veggie Booty, all that stuff. It’s going to stop. I’m going to make pudding. I’m going to make healthy bars. We can eat dried fruit. I’m going to start making more snacks and I’m going to start getting the kids to eat more fruit, nuts, veggies, etc. for snacks.
- Along with the homemade yogurt theme I’m going to start making bread again. I used to make all my own bread and have fallen out of that habit. Breads & buns can be made by me.
- Bulk buying. B just got a membership at Costco. I’m going to use it.
- Farmers market. I’m going to get in the habit of farmer’s market shopping again.
- B is going to eat lunch at home instead of eating lunch out every other day.
- We usually go out to eat at least once a week. No more. We are going to cut it way, way down. Once a month is fine with me. Or special occasions.
- Leftovers. We waste too many leftovers. Gotta stop.
- Meal planning. On good weeks I have menus planned ahead of time. This cuts back on mental energy and also keeps me from running quick to the store to buy easy, more expensive food items.
- I buy a lot of canned beans, canned soup, canned spaghetti sauce, etc. I want to start making these from scratch as well.
So there ya go. There is my initial list of things to do to cut down on our grocery bill. I am committed to buying organic, fresh, as sustainable as possible food. This I will not, cannot change for saving money. It is more expensive to buy organic produce, but I believe our health cannot be sacrificed in this area. I believe we can cut way back on other expenses to ease our food bill. With three children and probably at least one more coming this has to change.
I’m off to make some yogurt!!
