Tip Tuesday #1

It is Tip Tuesday!

Tips for today are:

1. Cut back as much as possible on items that are expensive to buy organic.

In our house we have reduced our bread consumption by half. Most of us have our eggs without toast these days and have switched to yogurt & fruit salad or vegetable salad for lunch instead of having the typical sandwich. This has enabled us to cut our bread consumption down from 4-5 loaves per week down to 2. We were previously making our own sourdough bread using rye & unbleached bread flour but have now switched to purchasing organic sprouted breads which run $3-4 per loaf at our local store. We were spending $6-8 per week to make our own using less than optimal flours so even though we are spending more $ we are eating better quality bread and it is already making a difference in some of the health issues our family has been dealing with.

2. Cut back on the sugar.

Sweetners also fall into this high end area. In order to curb costs on this front we have purchased Rapadura in bulk as well as local raw honey and use both as little as possible. We also purchase organic cane juice crystals for use in tea & for baking occasionaly but because of the negative effects this sugar has on our health we use it even more sparingly.

3. Make it yourself.

For example. In our home we eat a lot of yogurt. If I were to purchase the amount of yogurt we consume prepackaged it would cost us upwards of $15 per week. To make it myself I purchase raw milk at $6 per gallon and use yogurt starter which costs about $1 (or less if I am using starter from a previous batch). So I am getting a gallon of yogurt for $7 or less each week and I can use it plain to soak flours, beans or rice & also make yogurt cheese or sweeten it with honey or fruit in smoothies.

We also make our own ice cream, cream cheese (yogurt cheese) and sour cream using the organic raw milk. The savings on the ice cream alone is substantial and more than worth the effort.

That's it for Tip Tuesday! Have a blessed day!

The Best Laid Plans

This blog will follow our family's journey as we begin (again) to follow the principles of the Weston A Price foundation as laid out by Sally Fallon in the book Nourishing Traditions. We will not only be applying those principles but doing it on a budget of $400 per month.

I will do my best to lay out our plan so that anyone who wishes to join us in this journey can see how and what we are doing and what we started out with.

First of all a little background on our family situation. We are a family of five living on a small farm in the south. We are a single income family and our annual income runs around 36K per year. Some years we have made as much as 42K but not for quite a while. Our family includes 3 children (14, 12, 9), 5 goats, 5 cats, 1 dog, 1 duck and 14 chickens. So this will be quite a stretch to accomplish.

So, now you have an idea of where we are coming from. Now, I will tell you what we plan to do.

• 5 days a week we will eat only Nourishing Traditions inspired meals
• Spend no more than $400 per week on food after an initial pantry building where we will have a budget of $700 for the month

In order to accomplish this we will be reducing our intake of grains and sweetners (even healthy ones like raw honey, rapadura & maple syrup) which are quite costly. We will also be eating less and hopefully losing weight in the process although that is not our main goal. As we have a farm we will also be cutting costs by providing as much as we can ourselves. In the spring we will have our own supply of milk as well as eggs and we will hopefully also be able to raise out a steer. However, at this point we will purchasing those items.

To begin I will post a pantry building list and will provide references to where you can find the items for the best savings. Every Friday I will post a meal plan along with a shopping list. During the remainder of the week I will post recipes and cost saving tips.

Blessings to all and let the savings begin!