“Why do you need to keep your food bill under $100.00? There is no harm in spending a little more when the budget will bear it “. So said a friend to another friend today. I feel a need to respond!
Your food budget is one of the few areas that is crunchible if you are not a spendthrift in other areas, Heather. I have always treated grocery shopping like a game. It is Margot against the system LOL. I aim for the feeding of my family in the healthiest way with the least expenditure. I have aimed to shake off the “name brand”, everybody buys it, but it’s easier to buy it already made, “I deserve it” syndromes.
I like the fact that I have control over the grocery budget and
consumption. It gives me a feeling of empowerment and I have managed to pass it on to both my DH and DD. Those two are “wicked” shoppers. We read every label. If there are ingredients that we don’t recognise or can’t pronounce or if there is more than one that ends in “ose” (sugar) or sodium (salt), we try to avoid buying it.
We do our best to avoid the centre aisles of the store so as to stick to “real” food. We do go through the aisles but try not to make many purchases there. I try to buy as little as possible out of season and as much as I can locally. One exception is organic bananas, though I am thinking of giving them up because of the petrol used to get them here. The big problem is that one cat has a banana addiction but that is another story.
We are not poor but budgeting does not make us deprived. Why do I want to keep my grocery budget as low as possible when I don’t “have” to? I preach living a small footprint life and respect for the planet and the ecosystem. I try (and I am not perfect) to practise what I preach and to prove I can do it with no sense of deprival.
Many of the things we feel are justified are things that did not exist when I was a kid (at 58, I am older than most of you by a good bit) and, while my Mom worked and “protested” when she wasn’t working (VOW) and my Dad worked as well, we still managed without paper towels, papayas, packaged snacks, pop, luncheon meats, hamburger helper, and many other items.
Sometimes is not about “Why do you need to keep your food
bill under $100.00? There is no harm in spending a little more when the budget will bear it “. Sometimes it is about being proud and happy that you can do it!
Margot now getting off the soap box and taking her migraine
prophylactic ’cause she is talking tooooo much
