Food!

 

 I at times am amazed at how much food we go through now.  I think I mentioned earlier we now spend about equal on our mortgage as we do our food!!  It may continue to go up for awhile but just for the memories here's a few of the things we are going through every month or 2 week shopping period...

6-7 gallons of milk every two weeks (my kids aren't big milk drinkers or this would be WAY more!)
10 dozen eggs a month- easily
5-8 pounds of cheese a month (pizzas, sandwiches, nachos etc.)
6 pounds of fresh broccoli a month
8 pounds of plain yogurt a month
2 bags of apples, 1 bag of oranges, 2 bunches of bananas, 8 pounds of grapes and 4 pounds of strawberries for this 2 week period
12 loaves of bread and 4-6 24 count whole wheat flat buns a month for sandwiches and burgers etc.
96 oz of "Jacks Fresh Salsa" every two weeks
plenty of Cayenne pepper and Tabasco sauce


Those are some of our main "staples" we always get. Costco is our friend :0) Surprisingly we don't go through a ton of meat because I stretch and limit it as much as possible.  I buy a 20-40 pound bucket of wheat berries and we have a grain mill for those.  That makes me healthy whole wheat flour fresh and much cheaper than buying it at the store.  I make a lot of muffins, breads, desserts and such from scratch.  I don't hardly ever use coupons because we don't really buy anything you can use coupons for!!  I don't buy things like fruit snacks or spaghetti O's anymore because we go through it so fast. An 8 pack of fruit snacks only gives ALL the kids one serving and then enough for 3 to sneak them when no one else is looking!  Spaghetti O's... oy, easily 3-5 cans if that was all I served.  I can make tastier and healthier mac n' cheese from scratch that's just as easy as making 3-4 boxes of the junky kind.  I am not overboard strict with health but I am very aware and try to make the healthiest choices we can on our budget.  I would say we eat 80% whole foods and then the other 20% mixes in the chips or sweet drinks that we allow in.  Some of that 80% includes desserts but they are almost always from scratch and use whole wheat flour.  I think the only store bought  cookie bought all of last year was a splurge on Oreos maybe twice. We do still have "Pop-Tart Saturday" but we buy the organic (yet highly sugared) kind to make mom feel better! I'd love to save money but I think we are at a point that it's just sheer volume.  The only other option would be to bring in a lot of processed stuff which is sometimes cheaper but in the long run for our health... not so much!  This year we are also part of an organic farm co-op which is filling us with lots of extra veggies including things we've never heard of or tried!  In general I love to cook so it's all good!

How about you?  How are you making healthy choices and cutting costs?