{"id":1671,"date":"2017-09-14T02:55:08","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T02:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/blog\/?p=1671"},"modified":"2017-10-29T02:34:36","modified_gmt":"2017-10-29T02:34:36","slug":"grocery-budget-tips-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/blog\/?p=1671","title":{"rendered":"Grocery Budget Tips: Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk about grocery budgets.<\/p>\n

MANY factors play into what a family spends on groceries.\u00a0 Your location is a big factor, because some areas are very expensive to live in and buy food in.\u00a0 The amount of people you are feeding, and their ages, the types of foods you buy, your style of cooking, current season (store sale cycles, in season produce, etc.), if you opt for all organic or follow special diets, and how much time you have available for meal prep_\u2026 All play into your grocery budget.<\/p>\n

I live in Michigan, and am feeding a family of 9 \u2013 2 adults and 7 farm kids.\u00a0 This includes 5 boys and a teen girl \u2013 but to be fair, most are under the age of 10, so they only eat about half an elephant each at a time (they are extremely active, so they do eat quite a bit\u2026 They are always running, biking, climbing, building, or helping around the farm).\u00a0 There is also a baby, who isn\u2019t eating very many solids for the moment – he just gets unseasoned bits of this and that from my plate at the moment. \u00a0\u00a0I am fully aware that as the kids get older, they will eat more and more.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason we purchased a farm \u2013 so we could continue to feed the kids a healthy diet without having to sacrifice in other areas.\u00a0 We outgrew our backyards ability to feed us in the city, and decided it was time to take the plunge that we had talked about for over 10 years. \u00a0\u00a0While I do enjoy cooking, I don\u2019t have unlimited time to be able to do it.\u00a0 We homeschool and run the farm and that takes up a huge chunk of time so I have learned how to make the best use of our time without caving to convenience.<\/p>\n

Some disclosures: We have no food restrictions, but healthy is always my goal with some splurging on homemade goodies.\u00a0 I don\u2019t do fully organic when we have to purchase from the store, but my garden is.\u00a0\u00a0 Right now, 90% of our fresh, canned and frozen produce is organic from our garden.\u00a0 I am not a fan of convenience foods, even though they are cheap, so we rarely buy them (plus, to feed a family my size it becomes cheaper just to cook a meal vs. feed them from canned goods because you end up having to buy so many to fill all these tummies).\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t coupon.\u00a0 I used to, but after doing it for a while I realized it took up a lot of time but even more important we would have to buy name brand, or items that we don\u2019t typically buy to get the savings.\u00a0 I rarely, if ever, found coupons for the basic, raw ingredients that we typically purchase.\u00a0 No, we don\u2019t live on cheap ramen.\u00a0 We eat real, healthy, filling food.<\/p>\n

Our budget tends to shock people, but I am hoping to write up a little about what we do\/did to keep it low (I really didn\u2019t think it was considered \u201clow,\u201d but after seeing what some people do spend \u2013 double and triple what we do for smaller families, I suppose it is low).\u00a0 We usually got by between $400-$500 per month on the high end \u2013 and that shrinks quite a bit through the late summer, fall and winter.\u00a0 Right now that is a modest amount for our family of 9 and includes stocking up on items as well as buying in bulk because at the moment, our farm is feeding us quite a bit! \u00a0\u00a0This is food only and does not take into account animal feed, toiletries, or anything outside of that. \u00a0There have been months that we have only had $200 or so to get by on for food, and we made it happen.<\/p>\n

We currently live on a farm, and have our own eggs, milk, vegetables, duck, rabbit, turkey and chicken.\u00a0 We make maple syrup in the spring, forage all year for wild edibles, grow a large garden, hunt in the fall and have fruit trees.\u00a0 We put a couple pigs in the freezer this past January and plan to do pigs again.\u00a0 While all of this does make a very large dent in our grocery budget now, it hasn\u2019t always been like this. The things that we have done to keep the grocery \u00a0budget affordable will not focus on farming because I know not everyone can, or wants, to live this lifestyle. Maybe those things will be in a future blog post about the many ways you can grow your own food.<\/p>\n

Please feel free to share your own ideas as they relate to the tip posted.\u00a0 I would love to learn from you and would hope that my tips might help you as well.<\/p>\n