The catch of that is that it doesn't mean I'm willing to feed my kids white bread and frozen pizza or anything like that. There'll be no "budget gourmet" frozen dinners or Chef Boyardee or anything along those lines. I just will not go that far. I will buy non-organic produce and I will buy non-organic dairy, but I'm still not going to buy "juice" made with high fructose corn syrup. Matter of fact, I won't buy juice at all because that's just entirely unnecessary spending. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, in the blogs to come for a while, there will be an absence of organics, so forgive me. It's not a misplaced priority, it's just the blasted economy.
So, to the point of the entry..... making good choices. Cooking from scratch, good choice. Avoiding convenience foods, good choice. Buying great products at good prices? Best choice! So it's a bit of knowing what is generally fairly priced, and it's a bit of ad watching and taking advantage of sales. When there's a great price on something, I take advantage of it, which is what I did today.
My regular grocery store is Kroger, which is very convenient to my house so I am able to get there often if needs be. This week they were advertising canned organic beans for $.89 a can. Um, yes! One can is the equivalent of a pound of meat when I convert meals, so that is a steal right there. I definitely did not just get these three cans(I got fifteen). And the tofu.... That one still has me flummoxed. It wasn't on sale, but we didn't have any tofu and I like to have at least one package on hand at any given time. So, I went to the far corner of the store where they have the 'natural' foods and grabbed a package. It was $1.50. It's organic. Again, this is basically the equivalent of a pound of meat, and it's organic and inexpensive. I'll take it!
I also visited my local 'natural foods' store today, Earth Fare. I don't get there much because most of the stuff is out of my budget. Not all, but I'm not buying fancy cheeses or organic everything, so there's not a whole lot I need to get there. But the chain sends out periodic coupons via e-mail. It's basically just a loss leader the store puts out there to get you in to buy more things. But I just go get the coupon item(s) and consider it a victory. This time, it was these awesome four pound bags of organic Valencia oranges for $2(!) a bag, limit four. Um, what?! Yes! I actually debated a fourth bag, but I know it would have ended up wasted. I'm already not sure how we're going to consume twelve pounds of oranges. We're going to have to put some work into it. They also had organic Hass avocados for $1 each. So, four avocados, done! Grand total of this all organic purchase? $10.30, increased tax included!
Did you know the fresh market sells hickory hill milk for $4.30 last time I compared?
ReplyDeleteAlso have you heard of bountiful baskets, I'm so sad to be leaving it (though I've been trained and can start a new one when we move). For $16.50 a week, and you just purchase by the week, you get a basket of fruit and a basket of veggies. You first time there is an additional $3 charge. You can go early to volunteer and that gets you some extra produce too.
I never venture that far toward 'downtown' to go in there. And every time I've been in there, I've been pretty underwhelmed by the products and the selection. So in short, no, I didn't know that was the price of the milk. But I appreciate you letting me know because that's something to consider. Are they usually pretty well stocked on it? In years past, Earth Fare used to be running out a lot. They've gotten better I think, but sometimes they're still low on it. It would be annoying to make a special trip out there and then not be able to get what I went for.
DeleteBountiful Baskets.... I tried it for a week, and I was pretty unimpressed. I saved, maybe, $2 the week I did it, and for the time involved with getting up early in the morning and all that, it just really wasn't worth it to me. I guess that might have just been an off week, but people on the FB and such were posting their baskets and it looked like they had made out pretty well, and here I was just... not pleased.
Oh and the bountiful basket site here will be adding the extra bread nd stuff in January and it's supposed o be real good and healthy!
ReplyDeleteBread and something else? I'd heard about the bread, but I can never seem to figure out if it serves me better, financially, to bake bread or to buy it. At this point, I'd say to bake it because I have tons of flour that I've bought, so it costs me essentially nothing out of pocket to bake bread at this point.
DeleteDid you know oranges and apples will keep for a few months in the fridge? Yep we buy them by the case and just keep them in there. Longest we've had oranges I think is 2.5 months.
ReplyDeleteYes, you are totally right that they will. We used to store apples in the fridge, but now we go through so many that there is no way they would fit. These oranges would also take up a LOT of space in the fridge, and right now I don't have tons of room to spare after a trip to Costco last week. We'll see. Right now I'm just leaning towards giving each boy two oranges cut into wedges with breakfast every day, plus whatever ones we eat later in the day, and seeing how fast we get through them. Worst case, I guess I can juice them.
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