Our first “100 Days of Real Food” pledge brought lots of unexpected experiences and also lessons learned. What was originally created to draw attention to how dependent people have become on highly processed food actually ended up being a life-changing event for us. I didn’t expect our pledge to have such a big impact on me personally, but in the end I am glad it did. And that’s actually the reason why I am still here blogging about real food…long after the original 100 days!
Now while most agreed that real, unprocessed, organic, local, whole foods sounded great, quite a lot of readers also implied that it couldn’t be done without breaking the bank. So we of course had to prove all those skeptics wrong, which is why in October 2011 we began our “100 Days of Real Food on a Budget” pledge. We let the blog readers vote to determine our weekly budget of $125 for our family of four. (Note that on FULL food stamp benefits we would have received $167/week.) This real food on a budget pledge proved to be even more difficult than the first pledge at times, but we successfully completed the challenge in January 2011…whew!
Index of posts I wrote during our 2010 – 11 budget pledge:
- Budget Day 1: Getting Organized
- Budget Day 3: Sacrifices
- Budget Day 6: Five Bucks Left
- Budget Day 8: An Unfortunate Visit to Wal-Mart
- Budget Day 9: A Change in Plans and Earth Fare
- Budget Day 12: A Real Happy Meal
- Budget Day 15: Hillbilly Produce and Harris Teeter
- Budget Day 17: Yet Another Change in Plans
- Budget Day 19: Slim Pickings
- Budget Day 21: Week 3 and Halloween
- Budget Day 23: Trader Joe’s
- Budget Day 25: Food Stamps, Earth Fare, and Halloween
- Budget Day 27: Take-out
- Budget Day 29: Halloween Partaaay!
- Budget Day 31: House Guests and a Dinner Outing
- Budget Day 33: Almost Broke
- Budget Day 36: Scrounging
- Budget Day 38: Parfaits to the Rescue
- Budget Day 40: Almost Halfway and Tortilla Fail
- Budget Day 43: Under Budget!!
- Budget Day 46: Pancakes for Dinner and Record Time
- Budget Day 49: A Short Hiatus
- Budget Day 52: Back to the Grind
- Budget Day 57: Baby, It’s Cold Outside
- Budget Day 59: Complete Waste of Time
- Budget Day 63: Call Me Scrooge
- Budget Day 72: Hosting the Holidays
- Budget Day 77: Ringing in the New Year
- Budget Day 79: Trying New Recipes
- Budget Day 85: Scrounging for Dollars
- Budget Day 87: Almost Done!
- Budget Day 94: An Empty Refrigerator
- Budget Day 97: Some Mistakes
- Budget Day 100: Victory!
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Post Budget Pledge 1: Some Relief and Revelations
Related Post:
- Real Food Tips: 12 Ways to Keep it Cheap
Also, check out:
- Our original “100 Days of Real Food” pledge
- Our series of “100 Days of Real Food Mini-Pledges” that details 14 weekly steps to cutting out processed food
- Our list of “Real Food Tips” that covers everything from food shopping to picky kids
- Our “10 Days of Real Food” pledge sign-up page where we challenge readers to follow our same real food rules for a shorter period of time
- My list of real food “Kitchen Essentials“
I like a lot of the ideas you all have here. However, it’s not that easy in certain parts of the country. I live in Chicago where I spend $500-600 per month on FOOD alone for me, my husband and our 6 year old child. That is with double stacked coupons (store and manufacturer coupons used together). We are not large people either, we’re the average build, height and weight. We eat as organic as possible because my husband has significant food allergies. I make large batch foods on Sundays for dinners during the week. We prepare breakfast and lunch at home, and rarely eat out (maybe once per month). I am a pastry chef, so I make all of our desserts at home; no store bought sweets, candies, chocolates or desserts, and we RARELY have junk food (no potato chips, pop, or grab and go munchies).
In the summer I spend more money at farmer’s markets than we do at the store! An ear of corn at the grocery store is 10-25 cents each…at the farmer’s market it’s a minimum of $4.50 per dozen! Green Peppers are $1-1.50 EACH at the farmer’s market, when I can get store bought ones for 2/$1. Clean eating is NOT cheap. We even went vegetarian for 17 months because we couldn’t afford meat (we were spending about $400 per month without meat). I certainly don’t know how families with 3 or 4 or 5 kids are able to do it when we are barely getting by with the 3 of us!
We considered making our own garden, but we live in a development where our builder went bankrupt – we have vacant properties surrounding ours, and they are overrun and infested with voles, grubs and other pests (we had over 600 voles in our yard 4 years ago, the pest control company wouldn’t even take the job to remove them). So in order for me to grow my own items, I’d have to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on traps and pesticides (which I don’t want to do, I couldn’t harm a flea let alone a poor vole who’s just trying to live it’s life…I carry spiders outside for crying out loud LOL). So growing at home is out – even if I were to use raised containers, they will get in and destroy (voles and mice can climb up, they cannot climb down, so they would be breeding in there!)
In response to Melissa – in Illinois, food stamps/link card maximum is $330 per month – how on earth can a family live on that? The only way to qualify is if you make less than $30,000/year. If you live in Chicago, you have no choice but to make more than that because of the cost of living, so you basically have to be unemployed to get it.
It just seems like a never ending battle to eat healthy, cleanly and cheaply…it’s the FDA and the government that we need to go after. That’s a whole other topic, website, etc. We need Jamie Oliver for President!
Thank you, Chocovino, for your thoughtful comments. I’d vote for Jamie Oliver, too…or Lisa.
When you make a raised bed you can put fencing with small enough holes that nothing can dig up through it, on the bottom before you place the wood on top and the soil inside the box. That stops burrowers from coming up inside. Then you can place bent plastic piping over it, bent in an arch like a covered wagon, with the ends over wood or metal stakes attached to the raised bed box. Make your boxes long and skinny so that you can reach the other side, and be sure you have room to walk down between boxes. Attach green house plastic to one side of the long box/bed by screwing it under a strip of wood, this way nothing can squeeze up under the plastic and get in. I say use green house plastic because it can withstand winds, harsh sun, and a lot of different kinds of pests because it is thicker. Stretch plastic over the pipe arches. There are many ways of finishing the growers box. One way is to make a pocket in the end of the plastic and threading a round wooden pole through it (like a curtain rod). This way when you are harvesting or watering your plants you can roll it up and use small bungi cords to attach it at the top while you work on your plants. Likewise you can pull the rod and plastic over the edge of the wood box planter and attach it with bungi cords so that it is much harder for anything to climb up under the plastic on the opening side as well. On the small ends of the box you can put a fan on each end or just some small holed fencing with plastic arched “window” inserts that can fit into the end and plug it when the weather gets cold.
Method number 2. Get some small hole fencing and make a LONG “cube” with no top. Make a wooden “picture frame” for the top and either use small U nails or heavy staples to attach it to the top of the fencing. This is what I call a Plant Coffin, LOL. Now dig a pit that the plant coffin can fit into snugly and set it down into it. Fill the Plant Coffin with high quality dirt making sure it has nothing in it but earthworms. (you can make a sifter out of the small holed fencing if you wish or just buy planting soil, up to you). You can put pebbles in the bottom of the plant coffin first if you have a heavy soil and need better drainage. Now that your plant coffin is ready and filled with soil, make a LID. You can use old cast off windows or glass doors. You can use thick plastic stretched into a wooden frame too, or if you live in a warm area, just use the small holed fencing stapled (staple side down) on a wooden frame. This is also great for winter growing. you can make your coffin tall enough to stick out of the ground in warm areas so that you can fill the dirt up to level with the ground arround it, or you can make it flush with the earth so that only the wood of the lid is above ground for all year around growing and simply not fill the dirt up all of the way to the top (got to have room for the plants to get higher as they grow). Works for almost any plant just by controlling the level of the soil! The pests can’t get in on top because of the lid, and can’t dig under because of the fence made plant coffin. Spray paint the wood of the lid and framing a bright obvious color tho, you don’t want to fall in! Also you can put a low fence around the construction like a pen so that kids can’t step through it by accident as well.
These methods can save you money and help you grow all year around if you like and live in the right area (probably not arctic areas lol) and are relatively cheap if you know where to get your materials.
I have a surplus of Gophers in my area and they work for me!
Enjoy!
P.s. If you want back savers the box planter is the best, if you don’t mind knee pads, the plant coffin is cheaper and works really well.
I agree with chocovino . Its hard to eat healthy, and not be stuck having to eat the bad foods. It hard to even be able to eat, and we are also a family of three. Living in fay nc. Social services doesn’t help us much, even though we pay in, you basically have to have no job, to get any help in this world. So you are not alone, and thank you for putting into words, in a way for others to understand, that life is a struggle, and it shouldn’t be a struggle to get 3 meals a day!
And yes we do need jamie oliver for president!!
I respect you so much more for doing this!
My family of 4 is living on a grocery budget of $50/week, and that includes our non-food items, so unfortunately, I still can’t afford this type of a diet. I wish I could afford to eat more closely to the way you do on that budget, but I just haven’t found it to be possible. However, I LOVE that you have been so transparent and honest about the entire process, and I look forward to reading any and all tips and tricks you have! I am excited to continue reading more from you.
Do you have a place where you could grow your own produce? Seeds can be started in the house and they are super cheat if you have space.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!
…Just read an old, but great lil book by the depression cook herself, Clara Cannucciari. She’s (at the time of writing it) 92 years old, recounting many stories and RECIPES of that horrendous time in history.
Her’s was a large family who did very well getting through it. Her’s is such a refreshing, as well as informative little read, that everyone can pull something from…Highly reccomend! It’s called Clara’s kitchen. Most libraries should have it.
I’m looking forward to reading about this. For a long time our family of four had about 75-90 dollars per week to eat on. I find it interesting that full food stamp benefits for a family our size is 167. I think most families would breathe a sigh of relief to have that kind of budget for food. Wondering how you did on 125! Some of us need to let go of other items to up the food budget I think. This isn’t true for everyone, I know a lot of people don’t have an ounce of “extra”
We are a family of four in Texas on food stamps. My kids are older teens and we only get 200$ a month in stamps. I really want to eat this diet and my whole family loves the idea of this challenge but I see no way of doing this for 200$ a month when I’m essentially feeding four adults. It is ridiculous that I have to try and feed my family on that amount but that is the way it is.
Hi Melissa. Tight budgets absolutely present a challenge but there are ways to get a lot of nutritious bang out of your buck. Some of these include buying as much as possible in season, buying in bulk, seeking out high nutrient and low cost food such as brown rice, beans, lentils, whole grain pastas and breads…etc. Be sure to read through all of Lisa’s budget posts as there is a great deal of good information within. Then, take time to go through the reader comments that follow as you will find many with the same struggles and lots of creative suggestions. In addition here are some links with good advice that you will find helpful: http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/cheap-healthy-15-nutritious-foods-about-2-dollars and http://www.livestrong.com/article/555855-the-best-healthy-foods-on-a-budget/. Hope this is helpful. ~Amy
Your website is very informative… I plan to start atleast trying to do much better with mine and my families eating habits… I did look at the meal plans and see that they are based on a 167 a week budget… But my question is… with the 100 days of real food on a budget I see what was for dinner everyday, but what about breakfast lunch and snacks? Is there an actual meal plan that shows this?
Hi Jennifer. Lisa’s budget covered all meals and snacks for $125/week. While we don’t have full menus specific to that time, we do have full meal plans available that are accessible through Facebook. The fifth meal plan is available once you have subscribed to the blog. Here is a post that will help: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/our-free-meal-plans/. ~Amy
I love the ideas and I am so excited to move forward with whole foods. Just want to point out some observations. Many searching for food on a budget online (based on the comments) find your (Lisa’s) numbers off so I would like to point people to maybe a more realistic site that helped and continues to help me (it is a religious site but we ALL eat). http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2012/01/what-i-would-feed-my-family-on-a-monthly-budget-of-250.html These numbers seem a lot closer to those who have extreme tight budgets, myself included. Plus these are Canadian prices so those of us living in the USA could benefit from this (some of us would have money to spare). Plus it is pretty much all whole foods- at least we are encouraging everyone in that direction.
Also use less meat and fill with beans and lentils- can’t stress that enough!! It also helps if you are part of a co-op or call the food bank (one time someone gave our local food bank 5 huge boxes of bananas that were going bad before they could find people to give them to- talk about a lot of smoothies and banana bread!).
Lastly right now I have decided to start the whole foods route because I would rather use my families’ money in keeping us well than shelling it out to doctors and pharmaceutical companies. If you think of the extra cost of whole, fresh, healthy foods in this way it might change your mind if you are on the fence about (healthy vs. cheap) as I have been.
I read through “Budget Day 15″ and had to stop. What irritated me so much? $4.89 for a squeeze jar of mayo. The author could have made that same amount at home for about $1. The mayonnaise recipe is very simple and tastes so much better than the store stuff – it actually has a flavor!
On Day 9 she spent $1.49 on a bunch of Italian parsley. Why? It is absolutely non-essential to any recipe. Instead, maybe spend the $1.49 on some bulk cocoa powder and make a dessert treat for the whole family.
What I’m getting at is that the author doesn’t seem to find ways to ways to make the money go farther. She just looks for bargains and gives up foods she and her family enjoy.
I dunno. I think budgeting is great. I just think her version of budgeting is nothing to blog about.