{"id":660,"date":"2015-01-21T04:51:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T04:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/blog\/?p=660"},"modified":"2016-12-23T04:39:25","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T04:39:25","slug":"grocery-budget-busters-from-my-family-to-yours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/blog\/?p=660","title":{"rendered":"Grocery Budget Busters From My Family to Yours"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m on Facebook quite a bit. \u00a0And I am a part of many groups that span interests including cooking, farming, homesteading, homemaking, Christian living and more. \u00a0And one common question that pops up everywhere<\/em>\u00a0involves grocery budget and cutting costs. \u00a0I notice that families half the size of mine are spending twice as much as we do or more each month. \u00a0I know location, ability to cook (basic cooking skills), time available to cook, preferences and availability of certain foods play a huge part in what one shops for and pays for groceries. \u00a0Further details sometimes reveal that they rely on freezer meals for those busy weeknights, quick breakfast cereal or pastries for the early and quick breakfasts before shuttling everyone off to school, lunches are purchased away from home, and on the weekends everyone is so tired that they order food or eat out. \u00a0Hardly any food is cooked from scratch. \u00a0There is so much one could do to reduce the grocery bill with shopping tendencies like this, without adding a tremendous amount of effort or time needed (that’s perhaps the best part, right?). \u00a0If this sounds familiar, there is plenty of hope to reduce your budget. \u00a0As far as cooking ability goes, anyone can learn to cook. \u00a0I love helping others discover joy in cooking (That’s one reason I have this blog!). \u00a0Food availability plays a part in grocery prices. \u00a0Some people have good luck ordering their groceries online when they don’t have a local selection of stores. \u00a0Farmers markets, when in season, can be a great place to find cheap and nutritious food. \u00a0Sometimes a longer drive less frequently can be a solution if you can budget for once or twice a month shopping to a grocery store with good prices. \u00a0Maybe you can barter services for food from a local farmer.<\/p>\n

I understand lack of time, trust me. \u00a0I have to juggle homemade meals between my husbands midnight work schedule (so I often cook a dinner type meal in the morning for him when he gets home, in addition to our normal breakfast food for the rest of us. \u00a0We later reheat the dinner I made for lunch), homeschooling six kids, running a small farm, and normal housework. Granted, I am home <\/em>through the day, but\u00a0I don’t have time to be in the kitchen for long. \u00a0Our grocery budget, depending on the month, fluctuates between $200-$400 for our basic month-to-month items for a family of 8. \u00a0We prefer to stock up on items each month, focusing on different items as the budget allows and as better deals are available for in-season items, so some months we spend more. \u00a0And it fluctuates for many reasons – a lot of it has to do with how much we have to spend, how our supply of food is, and how much our farm or hunting season has provided. \u00a0We have moved from an urban farm to 15 acres last July, so I have yet to put a big garden in and really spread our wings. \u00a0We tried to eat as much food we had stored as we could before our move so we didn’t have to move so much and I didn’t put in a big garden because of our move at our old house (so our stock is quite low and we are in the process of rebuilding). I am hoping to drop our monthly budget even more once we get the garden producing and gradually begin producing more and more non-garden items ourselves. We look forward to hunting our property in the years to come after a successful first season here.<\/p>\n\n\t\t