One Way to Cut Food Costs

August 18th, 2008 by AmyL · 5 Comments

I like to think of parenting as a multi-disciplinary job. Some things I do involve direct interaction with the boys, while other things are more indirect. How I manage the house, for example. That is an important facet of my parenting, yet it’s something that goes on behind the scenes, as it were. Well. It’s behind the scenes when I get it right, which isn’t all the time.

The older the boys get, the busier we seem to be as a family. I’ve been learning that whatever I can do to keep meals organized and food costs down helps everything run more smoothly and reduce stress. We talked about picking fruits and vegetables and preserving them (still working on that – went peach-picking this morning) earlier this summer. That can be a lot of work, but it’s worth it to have food at the ready over the winter and I like being able to shop in my pantry instead of having to go to the store all the time.

There are other things you can do to ease meal-time stress. I’ll be writing about some of the tricks I’ve learned for the next couple of weeks. The first one I’d like to mention is participation in the Angel Food Ministries program. Angel Food Ministries (AFM) is not in every state in the US, but it is available to many states and the program is growing quickly. (My apologies to readers who cannot participate due to geographic location. Next week’s article doesn’t rely on location of a program to help you in the kitchen.)

AFM is a food purchasing program. Once a month I can order a basic box of food that is filled with fresh and frozen items which is generally enough to feed a family of 4 for a week. I spend $30, but the value of the food if purchased in a grocery store is about $65. The food is all first quality, no “day old” or “seconds” are sold. Anyone can participate as there are no income requirements. People receiving food stamps can use them to pay for the food which is a great feature of the program. Everyone else just pays directly for the food. There’s no limit on the number of boxes you can buy, and there are additional specials available each month that are often quite popular.

AFM distribution sites are usually churches, and my church has been one for almost a year. At first I wasn’t sure about ordering a box of food sight unseen, but a month or two of helping with distribution day convinced me to join. The food is great, and it’s an easy way to stock my freezer.

Angel Food MInistries publishes a new menu every month, and you can check for a site that’s close on their site.

by AmyL

Logo graciously provided through the Fair Use doctrine, some rights reserved

Share This Post:

Recent Posts By AmyL

5 responses so far ↓

Chris // Aug 19, 2008 at 9:17 am

Oh, I love chatting about saving money on food! We’ve been on a lengthy journey to eat food that is healthier for us personally, for the people who produce it, and for the planet–without spending more than we would buying “regular” food at the supermarket.

A year ago, I began baking all our bread, bagels, rolls, etc. That first step away from the grocery store was a revelation. I realized that except for dairy products and produce, there wasn’t much I needed to buy on a weekly basis at the grocery store–everything else could be frozen or stored in the pantry. Last spring, I started buying two gallons of raw milk every other week through a grassroots network that distributes certified raw milk here in Portland. With that, I make enough yogurt and Neufchatel (like cream cheese) to last us two weeks, plus we have milk leftover for drinking and cooking.

We also now purchase all our meat in bulk from local farms that raise their animals on pasture. We split a steer and a hog with friends, get whole chickens from another farm, and will be butchering our own lamb in the coming weeks at a homesteading friend’s place. All that goes in the freezer and should last a year. I’m still looking for a source for seafood, but did just learn about a local seafood buyers co-op.

Most recently, I started buying our groceries from Azure Standard, a bulk natural food company located here in Oregon, that delivers to several states in the West. You don’t have to buy everything in bulk, but you can save a lot of money that way of course. Orders are placed online and they are set up for buying clubs that want to share the costs of bulk orders. For a minimum order of $550, Azure delivers to a drop point–any place where a semi-truck can maneuver. We have a drop point at our house and a few friends that join our monthly order.

So now, the only weekly shopping I do is for produce. I could join a CSA, but I enjoy going to the farmers markets and the local year-round produce stand. I get eggs from a friend who has backyard chickens, but we’re getting chickens ourselves in the next week and by spring we’ll be getting eggs from our own backyard.

I’ve learned to make mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup. With a little whey from all my cheesemaking, I can make mayonnaise that’s good for a month (not a few days like typical homemake mayo). I’ve also been making kraut and pickles the old-fashioned way, just brining in salt. I’ve never liked sauerkraut much before–I found it too vinegary–but this stuff I make I actually *crave* and eat as a snack everyday (in fact, just writing about it has me thinking about getting up and making a little bowl right as soon as I finish typing). It’s full of probiotics that help keep the gut healthy.

Later this summer, I’ll can peaches, tomato sauce, and tomato juice. I’ll add green beans and corn to the gallons of blueberries already in the freezer. In the fall, I’ll can apple and pear sauce. When I was a kid, home canned fruit was our everyday dessert and that’s a tradition I want to share with my own children.

Between all that and occasional stops at a co-op for local organic cream (I can’t get cream from our milk network, unfortunately, but I need it to make Neufchatel cheese), I no longer shop at the grocery store at all. Our food is almost all organic (some produce I buy is conventionally grown, but local) and our food bill is about $400/month for a family of four. We actually spend less now on food that we did a year ago (we were closer to $600/month). I have had to rearrange our lives a bit, but the time I spent making bread, dairy products, kraut/pickles, and condiments is offset by the time I don’t spend in the grocery store and its time spent close to my family, learning valuable skills and passing them along to the kids, doing things I enjoy far more than driving, wheeling around a grocery cart, or standing in a check out line. I’m developing relationships with the people who produce my food and with people in my community who share my love of healthy eating. And I love the taste of the food I prepare with my own hands–it’s better than anything I can buy in a store. There’s a bit of a learning curve with any new skill and the results aren’t always uniform and perfect, but with a bit of practice, the results always begin to meet and rise above my expectations.

Some books that have taught me a lot include Nourishing Traditions, Wild Fermentation, Home Cheese Making, Feeding the Whole Family, Joy of Cooking, and The Way to Cook. To find locally raised meat, visit eatwild.com and to find raw milk, visit realmilk.com. To find local produce, check out localharvest.org or pickyourown.org. To learn more about buying clubs, see http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5568223. Companies that serve buying clubs include unitedbuyingclubs.com, assocbuyers.com, and azurestandard.com.

There’s a whole world outside the supermarket. Explore it and enjoy better food, better health, and stronger communities!
AmyL // Aug 19, 2008 at 9:56 am

Chris…wow! You’re doing a lot of things I hope to accomplish. I’m working my way up to making things on my own, just doing it a step at a time. Between the strategy I’m going to mention next week and the Angel Food, I find that I’m in the grocery store less already too. I often just circle the perimeter for dairy and produce. I do like the convenience of some ready-made items, so I’ll probably still be in the stores some of the time. I’ve been pondering breadmaking for a while now. Maybe I’ll try doing that sometime.

Can I have your recipe for pear sauce? I’ve been wanting to can pears for years but haven’t pulled it off.
September Stress Reducers - Earnest Parenting // Sep 2, 2008 at 9:11 pm

[...] at GNMParents about some stress reducers in the kitchen. Specifically, we’ve talked about cutting food costs, food choices, and bulk [...]
I’m Not a Food Blogger - Earnest Parenting // Oct 1, 2008 at 8:06 pm

[...] I wrote about a way to cut food costs with a food distribution ministry that anyone can participate in. The following week we talked [...]
Doris // Oct 2, 2008 at 5:40 am

There is a great website that goes well with Angel Food Ministry or just plain saving money on food. A friend of mine told me about it:

hillbillyhousewife.com

It has actual recipes to use also some are even specifically to go with the Angel Food menu for the month.