Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Grocery Budget Challenge Update

Sooo, I thought I'd write and give y'all an update on my grocery challenge. This is part of a longer term project to see what it would be like to live within a food stamp budget, which for my state averages out to around $137/month.

First of all, I found the film Food Stamped at my library and enjoyed watching it.


It basically chronicles the adventures of a young couple as they attempt to eat healthy food on a food stamp budget for one week. I'm not sure where they are, but they settled on a food budget of $50 for the two of them for one week.


All in all I found the film to be enjoyable, though I've gotta say, as a lifelong frugalista, part of me thought that a better title might have been "Richie Rich Goes Ghetto." Seriously, I sorta had the impression that neither of these kids had ever experienced a budget before, and it made them a bit hard for me to relate to.


Also, part of their goal was to "eat healthy" on a food stamp budget, and to them this meant buying almost exclusively organic foods. While that is a laudable goal, some part of me has a hard time swallowing the notion that one must eat all organic in order to be healthy. Jennifer over at It's Not Easy To Be Green did an excellent and well researched post on this topic a while back.


I'm not knocking organic food, to tell the truth I'm thrilled that the idea has caught on. It's just that the more popular it becomes, the more the word "organic" has become a marketing term that isn't really as meaningful as we'd all like to believe it is.


I guess for me at least, the whole "nothing non-organic shall pass these lips" attitude of the film's protagonists made them come across as a tad bit... what's the word... arrogant? naive? spoiled? elitist? Well, let's just say that it doesn't seem very realistic to me. I think most middle class families would have a hard time being able to afford an all organic diet, let alone someone trying to survive on a food stamp budget.


Nevertheless, the film does do a good job exploring the topic of hunger in America, and organic snobbery or not, I totally support the SNAP program and agree that it should be better funded.


Anyhow, that's my take on the film.

As for my own progress, well, it's the 20th of the month and I've spent $134.42. On first blush this sounds like I'm gonna blow the budget big time, but I wasn't really trying to stay within a budget this first month, I just mostly wanted to get a good idea of what I was spending regularly on food.


I'm not sure how accurate it will end up being though, because once I got the whole shopping for deals bug, I started finding myself unable to pass up a good deal, no matter how much food I'd already purchased! Seriously, I did some major stocking up, and I must say, my fridge is totally PACKED!


I don't really need anything else, and could easily make it to the end of the month without spending another dime - but this weeks circulars had grapes on sale for $.99/pound, and I think that's gonna be hard to pass up. Plus - eggs are on sale for $.99/dozen. So we'll see how it turns out at the end of the month.


One thing I really have noticed though is that I'm much more cognizant of what is and isn't a good deal. And several times I ended up buying something, only to discover that it went on sale for less than half the regular price a week later!


Anyhow, I think it's gonna take some time to really get into the swing of this shopping method, but I'm having a total blast and there's no way I'm gonna experience anything remotely similar to hunger if the current trend keeps up!


So, I'll provide a full tally at the end of the month, but I just wanted to give you a progress report and say that the whole experience is quite encouraging. I think with a bit of work, I could very easily get my monthly food budget down to around $100/month especially during gardening season. Whether or not I want to work that hard remains to be seen.


So how about you? Anybody else out there trying to trim down their grocery budget? I'd love to hear about your tactics and progress!

42 comments :

  1. I go in and out of shop smart to shop super smart phases of what we spend on food. Luckily, we've never had a tight budget like a food stamp one (except maybe in grad school), so we've always had some wiggle room. There is a ton of information out there on how to save money on groceries that I don't think I have much new to add. However, for me the biggest help in the long run has been having a plan which includes a list when I'm shopping and not shopping hungry. It's just too easy to do impulse buying then.

    I've thought about doing an experiment like you're doing, but haven't done it yet. However, we have done a spending diary including food, and that made a big difference on what we spent. Just the fact that we were going to have to write down every penny that we spent curtailed our spending.

    Good luck. I will be interested to see how you do.

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    1. Oh, the dreaded impulse purchases. Many are the times I've made a "quick run to the store" just to pick up some eggs or something, and come home with 5 sacks of groceries! I'm getting better at making lists - now if I could just remember to bring the damned thing with me to the store!

      But I have noticed that the simple act of keeping track of my spending has definitely influenced my behavior. Oh, the psychology of writing things down!

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  2. I find that paying cash at Aldi (you can't pay with credit cards there) is a great way to make me more cognizant of what I am spending. I DO get "fun" foods from time to time but the overall experience of cash-based shopping makes me think more about whether I am purchasing a "want" or a "need". A few years ago I decided to set aside $10/month out of my grocery budget to purchase food for our church's food pantry. I wasn't too proud of my reaction--I noticed I felt resentful about this--but ... again, it made me more aware of my needs vs. my wants. Our family's nutritional needs never suffered but I wasn't able to get all the "wants" I, um, wanted.

    I had totally forgotten about Richy Rich! Fun!

    I haven't watched the video but your description makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. The families I have known who are on food stamps are just desperate to put something on the table for their families and organic concerns aren't part of the equation. You are right, we are a middle-class family and our budget would be hit hard if we only ate organic. Gardening helps, but are we 100% there? Uh uh. No way.

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    1. We don't have Aldi here in Denver, although we do have a few other "discount" chains (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks in the case of one of them.) I love your idea of setting aside a certain amount for the food pantry each month - I don't belong to a religious community that sponsors anything like that, but I might consider a monthly contribution to Denver Urban Gardens since they are doing incredible work bringing fresh food and gardening opportunities to our less affluent communities.

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    2. Our local garden club works with farmer's market vendors to transport surplus produce to local food pantries after the market each Saturday. Volunteers are always needed for this task and it's a great way for people who have more time than money to help out a bit.

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    3. That's a great idea. I belong to the DUG (Denver Urban Gardens) email group, but I've never actually attended any of their events. Mostly this is because I'd have to drive across town and I hate driving. But they did have some information on donating surplus garden produce in one of their newsletters. I'll have to check it out!

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  3. Way to go with that awesome budget! My friend Stephanie at http://thecheapskatecook.com/ feeds her family of four whole foods on a very impressive and frugal budget. If you want to check her posts out, she is often inspiring!

    P.S. I laughed at your Richie Rich Goes Ghetto comparison. I haven't seen the show you refer to, but the imagine is now stuck in my head. I'm still grinning!

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    1. Thanks for the link! I'll have to check out her blog. If I just lived on a steady diet of popcorn, I think I could stick to the budget without any problems! :-)

      Glad you appreciated my sarcasm - I was afraid I would offend.

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  4. I've seen excerpts of Food Stamped, and do agree that their attitude was a bit elitist rather than just helpful.

    For the organic vs. non-organic debate, most in the medical community say that it's better to eat more non-organic produce, than to eat less produce that is organic. And I sort of feel that perhaps the emphasis should be on whole grains, and a plant based diet (not necessarily organic), and less processed foods, rather than hunting down the processed, "but it's organic", boxed foods.

    Where organic produce is the most important, I believe, is for the growers. They are the ones who inhale the herbicides, pesticides, fungicides that are sprayed on our foods. We can wash our foods off, but they can not wash their lungs out.

    And I, too, am looking at reducing my grocery budget (and other areas of spending), for the next 4 years (so we can pay for university for 2 kids without coming out with loans). I think it's doable. I'm getting my garden started a teensy bit earlier, and am looking at ways to grow more this summer.

    If you buy the deal on eggs, just know that eggs are "safe" to eat several weeks past the sell-by date. I read a USDA article on the safety of eggs, and it's an astounding amount of time. But I don't recall exactly how long, right now. And you can freeze beaten eggs for using in baking later. Joy of Cooking recommends adding a pinch of salt OR sugar to the beaten egg. I have bought as many as 13 dozen eggs at one time (that's how many eggs come in a wholesale box), and frozen most for use later. It works well. Good luck!

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    1. Wow! Thanks for the tip on freezing eggs! At the moment I'm taking this as an opportunity to do some long overdue baking of pumpkin bread, and hopefully work through my (ahem) stockpile of both fresh pumpkins and frozen puree. I made 2 batches yesterday - each batch uses 3 eggs and half a gallon or puree - so I have a long way to go!

      I also plan to make some mini lasagnas and freeze them. CatMan doesn't eat meat, but loves lasagna and tries to squeeze in as much protein as possible. So I've taken to making lasagna with scrambled eggs instead of ground beef. Works great and should use up a dozen or so.

      I'll be curious to see how you do cutting down your grocery budget - seems like it would be hard to improve upon perfection!

      BTW - I totally agree with your thoughts about organic foods. I'm really hoping for a better & more productive year in the garden because it makes the whole question about what to buy moot.

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  5. I got my grocery budget from $167/month to $100 for one small person. I can't claim I eat healthy (don't like much produce), but I do get whole grains (which supposedly aren't healthy either), milk without growth hormones, organic meat, and shade-grown (organic or fair-trade) cocoa.

    My main strategies have been to make a price book, buy from bulk bins, do more of my own processing (such as grating my own cheese--especially parmesan and making my own cookies), and try cheaper subs in case they work. I will also look at the flyers and coupons that come through the mail--these result in very minor savings over the long term.

    I don't shop at multiple stores a week. My price book shows me that store A is generally the cheapest, so I usually go there. Store A doesn't have everything I want, though, so I occasionally go to stores B and C. While I'm at those stores, I stock up on the things that are cheaper there. Occasionally when I just need to pick up one or two things, I'll go to one of the places in walking distance, even though they are more expensive, because when you add gas and wear and tear, they aren't.

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    1. Wow! That's an impressive budget. I think the price book is gonna be my next step. Several times this month I found what I thought was a great deal and stocked up, only to find a better deal the next week (like, umm... eggs.)

      BTW - where do you find bulk Parmesan? The only place I've found it in chunks was at Whole Foods, and it was most definitely NOT cheaper to buy it that way! Just curious.

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    2. Huh. Just regular grocery stores. This was possible when I did a price comparison assignment in home-ec four decades ago, too. So, I'm sorry your store doesn't have it.

      Actually, the store I get it at has three places (I know of) with bulk cheese--the deli, the part with all the sandwich fixings, and the part with the fancy cheeses--it's in the fancy cheese section. Maybe you could ask around at your store.

      And eggs--it's Easter time! Maybe you did have a good price, and then the Easter prices came. My favorite seasonal stock-up time: November and December for sugar, flour, sometimes other baking supplies, and pumpkin (and turkey).

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    3. Curious. Maybe I'm not looking in the right section. Like maybe it's in the deli section instead of dairy? I never look there since it's mostly pre-made stuff that I can't eat. Guess I'll have to do some investigating!

      And you're totally right about Easter. Guess it caught me off guard since it's so early this year. Hard to get in the Easter mood with a foot of snow on the ground! :)

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    4. Re. bulk parmesan -- I just approached the meat/cheese counter manager at my local grocery chain and they were able to order me a quarter wheel when I needed it to make pesto last year. Saved me some bucks and I ran it through my food processor right away.

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    5. Hmmm... "meat/cheese counter" I'm assuming you mean the deli counter? I think I'm gonna have to check out that section - I generally just head to the general dairy section where the cheap cheese is! :-)

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  6. Well I will admit that we don't really have a grocery budget.We basically buy on sale and stock up.We don't buy processed/prepared foods and cook simple meals.
    I have stared making soap,lotions,laundry powder etc.so we don't buy any of the drugstore stuff.

    I think it's more important to buy local than buy organic and I shop farmers markets in the summer and I pay whatever price they're asking,supporting our local farmers is important,so they can stay in business and give me a choice to NOT buy from the large food companies.
    I am reading this book just now called "Sugar,Salt,Fat" it's really an eye opener about what passes for food nowadays and how chemically polluted most of our foodstuff is.
    Maybe that's why I don't go in for foodstamp challenges...I can afford good food and I believe it's important to support the manufacture of good food even if it costs more.

    Marie

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    1. Hi Marie,

      I generally shop just like you described - so this whole keeping track/budget thing is a new experiment for me. I have never made it to the farmer's market here in town because it's a long drive and generally only open during the summer when I'm overflowing with garden produce anyhow. But I agree that buying local is at least as important as buying organic if not more so.

      I know what you mean about the processed food. Since my food allergies generally prevent me from consuming the stuff, it's sort of a moot point, but it really frightens me when I peer into the carts of the folks around me in the grocery check out lines!

      I'll have to check out that book. Another great one along those lines is "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. A really informative read as well as being laugh out loud funny.

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    2. This is how I shop, too - I try to buy whatever produce happens to be on sale and stock up on dry goods (oatmeal, flour, rice, etc.) when the price is low. We can afford the amount I spend ($200 - $250ish in an average month), so I don't fret about it or follow a grocery budget.

      I don't put a huge emphasis on getting everything local/fair trade/organic/zero waste etc. Most of my shopping is done at a local farmer's market, which I feel good about, even if some of the produce is from across the country or sold wrapped in plastic. I just do the best I can :)

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    3. Well, at least you've got a budget and know how much you spend - which puts you way ahead of me. It will be interesting to see how this first month turns out. I'll keep you posted!

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    4. I read Michael Pollan's "Food Rules" and really liked them. (He spoke locally.) I thought that he was really pragmatic, but not elitist.

      One of my favorites: "Don't fuel your body and your car at the same place."

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    5. Ha! I love it! I'm gonna have to check that one out. :-)

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  7. I had to laugh at your alternate title :) I guess what sells is when people make an extreme change to their lifestyles. It's like blogs where people talk about how they've become frugal to get out of debt, when they would be out of debt already if they'd been frugal in the first place.

    I agree about the organic thing - it's just not possible on my budget at the moment, but I do try to get organic meat and potatoes and grow my own greens (because they're so expensive to buy).

    My tactic at the moment has been not to go shopping and eating the huge amount of food I already have in the house. It's worked well and I've only spent around $125 so far this month.

    My other tactic (and this isn't for everyone) is to eat liver and other organ meats. I am slowly trying them all and seeing what I like, but I can get four portions for around $2, much cheaper than muscle meats.

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    1. OK, first of all, you are much braver than I am with the organ meats. I just remember being forced to eat liver as a child and thinking it was the worst torture imaginable! They're supposed to be very healthy though.

      I too am trying to eat through some of my backlog of stockpiled food. I fear I've got enough dry pinto beans to last until the next millennium though. And I haven't been able to make myself eat any for quite some time. Soon... Soon....

      Anyhow, I totally agree with your entire first paragraph. I get somewhat annoyed by the uber-popular "simplicity" blogs where someone who's been earning a 6 figure salary for most of their life decides it's time to sell the second Lexus and downsize to a 2500 square foot home instead of one twice that size. Perhaps the popularity of that approach just speaks to the wastefulness of our society in general, but it does annoy me.

      BTW - I tried making the salmon patties with the bones and skin. Just mushed it all up and couldn't even tell the difference in the finished product. It was about a bazillion times easier too! So thanks for the tip!

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  8. I grew up eating the "Variety Meats" as we called them, and still enjoy many things that are not usually described accurately in restaurant menus.

    If you'd like to expand your meat horizons, I would recommend heart as an entry-level organ meat to try. Stewing chunks of beef heart in a crock pot (or on the stovetop) gives you a very tasty beef stew that's very very similar to one made with muscle meat. Depending on the butchering, you may need to trim some "strings", lumps of fat and such from the outside, but then you just hack it into chunks and cook away.

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    1. Actually, that sorta makes sense, the heart being a muscle and all. I dunno though... I have a hard enough time with beef in general because I just can't get those sweet big brown cow eyes out of my mind. I'm not sure I could make myself cut up a heart. Sorta reminds me of the time my mother decided to get creative and served us rabbit for dinner. I sat at the table and cried through the entire meal picturing Peter cottontail on my dinner plate!

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  9. I haven't experimented with the food stamp challenge, but then again I had needed a couple years help and accepted food stamps when my boys were very small. We received just over $60 a month and I was able to feed the three of us on pretty much that amount each month, let's just say potatoes, pasta and frozen veggies were very cheap then and I was dealing with anorexia at the time. I can't say I buy for one person because I often have the grand children here who need a meal or snack but my grocery budget hasn't gone over $100 - $125 in months. This month so far I've spent $78 something on groceries.

    I have never seen anyone on food stamps who would only eat organic. They would need to supplement quite heavily out of their own pocket I would think to do that. Most people are simply trying as best as they can to put food on the table.

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    1. Lois, you totally crack me up. "I've never done a food stamp challenge - except for when I was actually living on food stamps!" I think that counts!

      I'm impressed with your low grocery tally for the month. I think I'd be spending much less if I didn't have a fridge & freezer and wasn't stocking up when I saw a sale!

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  10. I've got to go back and read any related posts that you have on this challenge, as I'm really excited to read about what you're doing. I find feeding my family is very expensive, and I struggle with this. I buy organic where I believe it matters most (dairy and meat, certain fruits) and conventional in other areas; we simply can't afford to do 100% organic.

    I'm in the middle of tracking my food spending quite closely. We're feeding a family of four, including two growing school age boys, and currently I have a budget of about $200 Canadian per week. I'm really interested to read more of your progress on this.

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    1. Well, I'm not sure what the exchange rate is, but it sounds like you're already WAY ahead of me! This is only my second post on this topic... I'm looking at this as a long term sort of thing.

      Anyhow, I took much of my inspiration from Lili over at Creative Savv.
      This post
      describes her shopping method, and it's the thing that set a fire under me.

      It will be interesting to see how I do. I can tell you that the budget is officially blown for March, but I wasn't really trying to stick to it this month... it was more of an exploratory mission. Progress report soon...

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  11. Sadly I fall under the "rich girl goes ghetto" category. I have never had a grocery budget, not even when I lived on $100/week after rent in grad school. Food has, naturally always been the most important thing. Maybe I'll be able to relax a little more now that I'm making more progress with the eating disorder. My grocery bill seems to expand proportionally to my paycheck. Not good.

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    1. Well... to be honest, I think you have more important things on your plate (har har) right now than grocery budgets. Your health is infinitely more important than any frugal aspirations you might have.

      Although, I do have to say that several factors converged at once when I was recovering from my eating disorder.

      1) I graduated from college and suddenly had to deal with all of my food choices/preparation by myself.
      2) I had several anaphylactic reactions and was diagnosed with multiple severe food allergies.
      3) I decided to rebel against society in general and took a job for $200/week at a folk music school - so I had to figure out how to feed myself on a tiny budget - as in, so tiny that I wouldn't have survived without Catholic charities and their Share program!

      Somehow, I think the convergence of all that stuff helped me along in my recovery process. I was sort of forced to learn about nutrition in a way I never had before. I could no longer take food for granted, and it suddenly became more than just an enemy that was trying to make me fat.

      It's not like I was instantly cured or anything like that, but when the penalty for eating the wrong thing was swelling up like a sweet potato and being hauled to the ER with my throat closing, rather than just some nebulous fear that I might get fat some day, it did alter my perspective a bit.

      Anyhow, don't fret. I think you have earned the right to spend as much as you want on food - especially right now.

      xoxoxo

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  12. This was an excellent post, and I enjoyed reading the balanced post you linked to on organic versus non-organic food.

    The entire "food politics" movement kind of drives me crazy, because there are multiple angles to consider when thinking about what is nutritious and economical, and so many people have special dietary needs. Sure, something can be "organic" but loaded with sugar, for instance.

    I am not a huge organic foods advocate (primarily for financial reasons) and because I feel that "organic" has been misused and oversold. I try to buy "the dirty dozen" locally, from suppliers I know. I go out of my way to buy fresh eggs from a local farmer... and so forth. But I do so because they also keep their prices low and I'm not paying 5.99 a pound for asparagus, for instance. I buy my milk from a local corporate chain, but do so because it's RGBH free... but still cheaper than most brands. I'd never pay twice as much for a gallon of organic milk.

    Food politics has become elitist in some realms. And frankly, the sanctimony that surrounds people telling me what to put on my plate really turns me off. I wanted to fire off a retort when a friend at church recently told me, "And the cookies I made were with organic ingredients!"

    I could go on forever.... but usually I just get fed up and eat Kraft Mac and Cheese and get over it:-)

    As for saving money -- I follow the usual tricks -- shopping at Aldi, Costco, and stocking up (especially on meat and fish) when things are on sale. I use my freezer and try not to waste. Really simple stuff, actually.

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    1. I totally share your fatigue with food politics. The thing that gets me is that people are so fixated on vilifying other people, instead of focusing on the actual political policies that are 90% of the problem! It's just sooooo much easier to deride someone for choosing to eat meat than it is to do the very hard (and often thankless) work of educating yourself about the realities, lobbying our politicians to "do the right thing" (like fixing our broken system that subsidizes corn, soy and sugar beets while charging extra fees to certify that foods like organic spinach are "safe") and working to elect officials who will put our interests above those of the mega corporations.

      I guess that's one of my pet peeves with the "green movement" in general (I put that in quotes because "green movement" always sounds like a description of someone's poop when they're doing some crazy green veggie juice cleanse or something like that.)

      I'm not saying that people don't have some individual responsibilities here, but what so many people don't realize is that putting the onus on the individual is a corporate strategy used to divert our attention and prevent any responsibility from landing on them. When we start playing that little "greener than thou" or "more organic than thou" game we play right into their hands.

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    2. My husband works at a college that is very much into all things green and "sustainable." Several years ago they received a large wellness grant which they have used to build a state-of-the-art fitness facility, fund wellness/nutrition classes, and invest in preventative health care (lab screenings). I support all of this -- not only for the common good, but as a way to keep health care costs down. As a supplier of health insurance I think the organization has a vested interest, and it is consistent with the college's mission to develop whole persons.

      One of their initiatives is to help subsidize CSA shares for employees who want to participate in a formal program of educational events. This means participating in book discussion groups or even mini-seminars. I have no qualms if the classes are nutrition and wellness focused, but get apoplectic when they have book discussion groups about food politics. It's a smokescreen and a misuse of funds if it's really not about wellness, in my view. On top of that, like many small private colleges the non-academic staff are not very highly compensated. To be sure, they get great bennies and I think for most the work setting is nice, but in terms of having bucks to put food on the table, most would be challenged to feed their families according to really strict food rules. The non-academic staff don't have summers off (like their academic colleagues) to cultivate nice little veggie gardens. The intellectual bias and economic elitism inherent in food politics turns me off. And, quite honestly, I have issues with an institution trying to dictate how I politically view these issues. (I view issues of health and wellness differently; they have a vested interest in that.)

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    3. Agreed. I once read a quote, which I totally loved and have now forgotten - can't remember who said it either. But the gist was that the "privilege gap" in our society is so vast that people standing on the privileged side of it literally cannot fathom the experiences of those on the other. I've totally butchered the quote, but you get the idea.

      Anyhow, I see it pretty much everywhere I go these days. "Let them eat organic!" cried Marie Antionette!

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  13. Can you post more about how you grocery shopped before the challenge?

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    1. Ask and ye shall receive!

      http://ecocatlady.blogspot.com/2013/03/consistently-inconsistent.html

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  14. I’m in Australia and food is more expensive here but the methods to trim down budget are the same. I am not a naturally organised person and have to work really hard at be organised and sometimes I pull it off and sometimes I don’t! Lol! However I will get to the point : ) planning seems to be a key way to reduce what I spend. If I menu plan and buy for that for example. I vaguely menu plan as in think protein x how many days and fruit and veg x how many days and then buy what’s a good price and clean and green as possible. I am on a buy from local growers at the moment which could blow out the budget if I let it. I am seriously thinking of buying a chest freezer and bulk buying local organic meat. I try hard not to let food overwhelm me (no I don’t have an eating disorder as far as I am aware! But I do worry about animal welfare, GM and food politics in general) however it is our biggest financial outgoing above all else. Preserving gluts is another way. You’re doing a great job. I think we all try and do what we can at the time and what makes sense to the context of our lived lives so to speak.

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    1. Hi Rue,

      Thanks for your support. It will be interesting to see how long I last on this little challenge and if any of the new habits stick for the long term.

      I bought a chest freezer a few years ago, and I have to say it's a bit of a mixed bag. It's really great to be able to freeze surplus food, but it can also become a sort of dumping ground where good intentions go to die. :-)

      At the moment I'm trying to use up several years worth of garden pumpkins - some still good from last fall's harvest, and a bunch of frozen puree from the year before. Once that's done I really, REALLY need to defrost the chest freezer. So I'm really trying to use up everything that's down there. I'm afraid it's a bit like an archaeological dig down near the bottom!

      Anyhow, I think that one of my long term goals is going to be to come up with a better system for keeping track of what's down there, as well as rotating it better so things don't get lost at the bottom. So far the one thing that is working well is to keep an old pair of gloves by the freezer to make freezer diving easier!

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  15. thanks for the tip with the gloves! My freezer wishes are on hold again. Both my adult children are getting maaried in the next 18 months. Im not sure what has pushed them this way- I have never married. One child has 2 children and been with her beloved for about 8 years. The other has been with his beloved for 12 years. Both have mysteriously decided to get married! The link with this thread is my budget is being seriously challenged and my dear longed for freezer is on hold again after I honoured paying for a photographer for one of them! Maybe its not a bad thing and a false economy anyway

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    1. How bizarre that both have suddenly decided to get married after years of living together. Hmmmmm... must be something in the air.

      Good luck with the photographer thing. I heard somewhere that the most common type of case in small claims court is wedding photographers! Not sure if that's because there are lots of shady ones out there, or because people have unreasonable expectations about the level of perfection of their wedding pictures!

      Do you have FreeCycle in Australia? I often see freezers given away here because people just want someone to come haul it away.

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