Frugal Fridays: Kicking off the Food Stamp Challenge

Ok, so wasn’t going to technically start the Food Stamp Challenge (eating all whole, organic, healthy seasonal food on $275 or less) until the 15th, but I was excited to get going, and also remembered that we’re going on vacation Oct. 8th, so in order to make the month a full-month (without cheating!), I’d better start now, on the 9th.

I feel like in just one week I’ve discovered so much I almost feel like the whole challenge thing could be summed up right now.  Bottom line? It’s totally possible to eat local, health, whole, organic food on a budget.  The key?  A couple things:

::  Wait, jump on a deal, stock up, and eat what you score.   I’m realizing that I’m going to have to be a lot more flexible with my meal-planning habit if we want to eat fresh, local, organic food.  Why? Because we’re just going to eat what we find while hunting and gathering.

• Hunting: Ok, call me crazy but I’m starting to think of grocery shopping more like hunting and gathering (I told you, you’re calling me crazy!).  In other words, if there’s no beef on sale–then you don’t eat beef. If chicken’s on sale, buy it up! I think I mentioned I found whole organic chickens at Safeway, and with a 30% discount and a coupon they ended up being $1.69/lb!  So I bought 3 and froze them.  That amazing sale at Whole Foods has local, organic, grass-fed beef for $3.99/lb so I bought 10 lbs and froze them.  Then I found fresh-caught wild Alaskan salmon, which is basically edible gold, for only $5.99/lb. at Fred Meyer so I bought 9 lbs.  To make it easy and convenient I cut up the salmon into approx 4 oz. portions and put two portions into sandwich bags (we just share with the kids, the don’t eat whole salmon portions).  So we now have 15 salmon dinners all ready to go in the freezer!  I also got fresh-caught wild cod for only $3.99 lb. and did the same thing. So, after I buy more chickens that will be enough meat for us for the year.  Yes, the year.  That’ll give us lots of chicken, beef once a month (which is all we eat it now), and fish twice a month.  All for about $20/month for meat for a family of four. Not bad!  Especially considering ONE steak at a restaurant (not even organic) can cost $20.
• Gathering: The same goes for produce.  When gathering, you only eat what you can find in your own climate.  So I’m really going to make an effort to eat seasonally and locally.  And, only what’s on sale.  So, I found organic grapes for $1.49/lb at Fred Meyer–we’ve eaten loads of them all week. I had no idea a grape could be so amazing.  They are SOO good.  They also have organic, NW grown peaches and nectarines on sale for $.98/lb.  I buy them in bunches and then ripen them in big paper bags with overripe bananas in them.  Throughout the week I’ve probably bought about 25 lbs.  They ripen really gradually so they’ll probably feed us for the whole month. Whatever we don’t eat I’ll freeze.  We have fresh carrots, zucchini, and cucumber from the garden. So other than that organic fruit I haven’t bought produce.  Total spent? About $35.

::Freeze!

• Right before Dutch was born we bought at $40 freezer off Craigslist so that I could cook ahead and be prepared.  That thing is the oldest, ugliest freezer I’ve ever seen but it works!  And I’ve got it stuffed.  Freezers are the KEY to buying local, fresh, seasonal food.  Right now mine is packed with that Alaskan salmon, cod, chicken, beef, about 125 lbs. of cored and sliced apples, a ton of way overripe organic bananas that our church’s food ministry sent home with us (I used them for banana bread today–yum!), several gallon ziplock bags of blackberries that we picked (for free!) last weekend, dozens and dozens of sandwich baggies each filled with 1 cup of shredded zucchini to mix-in with everything I cook (zucchini is the easiest vegetable to sneak in ever), and… well, and two containers of Breyer’s ice cream, because even all-natural eating has to have some tasty treats.   All that to say, don’t underestimate the power of the freezer!

:: Simplify.

• Ok, here is the thing I keep finding over and over and over. What costs us so much in our food budgets is our love for choices. We love to have ten breakfast cereals and ten kinds of snacks and we just love love love our choices, but choices are very expensive!  Eating oatmeal every morning, even organic oatmeal, is very cheap.  Eating homemade whole-wheat bread, even with organic flour, with fresh organic peaches and two organic scrambled eggs (that’s what the kids and I have been eating for lunches) is very cheap.  Even eating a fresh, wild-caught Alaskan salmon dinner ($1.50/serving) with yams ($.50/serving) and organic brown rice ($.25/serving) is very cheap.  That’s a dinner of edible gold for $2.25/serving.  You could even sneak in some organic dark chocolate from Trader Joe’s like I did tonight ($.50/serving) and still be under $3!  That’s cheaper, in fact that’s half the price of a combo meal at McDonald’s.  So all that to say that the fewer ingredients and choices and fancy snacks we need the cheaper things will be. I’m finding my grocery list getting shorter and shorter, because I’m just buying more of few items. Tons of oats, tons of whole-wheat flour, tons of brown rice.  Plenty of organic milk, eggs, real butter, cheese.  Toss in loads of whatever local produce is on sale, and there’s the month!  Real food, real health, really good deals.

I’ll share what else I find.  More than anything I’m so excited to share with you some golden nuggets from the book of James!  Stay tuned. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to snack on some fresh organic grapes.