Cheap Tricks

I know that eating organically and living naturally can be expensive.  But, trust me, it can be done cheaply.  For the past 2 years, my family has totally avoided fast and convenience foods, cooked almost totally from scratch, and done so on a shoestring budget.  Not every grocery item in my house is totally organic, but - with careful planning and lots of thought - the chemical damages are mitigated to the extent that our finances allow.
I'd love to share some of the tips and tricks for cutting the grocery bill AND the processed/artificial foods at the same time!

• Buy frozen produce.  Outside of the limited items that are in season, frozen produce is fresher (it's usually frozen right after harvest, so it retains more nutrients than the produce that has been sitting in storage for weeks), cheaper, and it won't spoil before you use it.  There is nothing worse than opening the fridge and seeing a $4 head of organic broccoli wilted and molding, because you didn't get around to using it...

• Know which conventional (non-organic) items are on the "really bad" list and which are "not so bad."  If you know which items are considered safer in their conventional form, when pennies get tight you know where to compromise.  Here's the full list of produce ranked by the EWG - I've all but memorized the list by now, but they also have a smart phone app that you can download to reference on the go!
• Compromise on items you usually use less of and items that are just crazy expensive in organic form.  Things I don't normally buy organic:  cheese, butter, steaks, pork, and avocados.
• Do not compromise on items that you use in larger quantities or that have been found to be more dangerous.  Things I always buy organic:  MILK (so important - think about how much you little ones drink!  I have a friend in the dairy business who told me to NEVER buy conventional milk because it's just plain gross), chicken (think about it:  absent serious genetic modifications and hormones, chicken breasts should not be a size DD), juice (conventional apple juice, for example, often contains levels of ARSENIC up to 3 times the level legally allowed in drinking water), and "Dirty Dozen" produce.
• Shop the bulk section at a natural grocery store.  I buy all of my beans, rice, flours and other grains this way.  The bags are a super big pain, so empty them into glass (Mason-type) jars when you get home.  You can label them with a sharpie and add any cooking instructions from the bulk bins (often the bin will say, for example. "2 parts water to 1 part quinoa").

• Buy cheaper cuts of meat.  A whole organic chicken usually runs around $10, but can easily be stretched to 2 or 3 meals.  Stick it in the crockpot during the day, and you'll have yummy organic chicken for almost any recipe by dinner time.
• Use cheap fillers like organic whole-grain rice, pasta and beans to stretch an otherwise expensive meal.  Also, when I make chicken pot pie, shepherd's pie, and many other meat-based meals, I frequently double the (frozen) vegetables and cut the meat back significantly. 
• Learn how to substitute or forego ingredients that you don't have on hand.  If a recipe calls for a fancy ingredient that you don't normally buy, substituting something you do have can really save money.  Why purchase and keep a bottle of cardamom in the pantry if you only use it once every couple of months?
• Shop the sales and stock up.  I currently have about 10 pounds of grass-fed ground beef in my freezer, because my local market ran it on sale for $3.99/pound a few weeks ago.  It does take extra time and planning to do this, but it's so worth it!
• Avoid foods that are convenience-packaged.  The single serving of coffee in a K-cup or instant oatmeal packets are generally way more expensive than if you buy them in larger quantities.  If you need the convenience for on-the-go, consider pre-packaging your own single-serving packets on the weekends in reusable containers/pouches.

If you'll entertain my ramblings for just a few more minutes, I'd like to have a quick soapbox moment :)


If you still think that feeding your family unprocessed, organic foods is too expensive, think about other areas that maybe you can cut costs to make-up for it.  If you can afford a $15 bottle of shampoo, then why is a $6 gallon of milk too expensive?  Cutting one night of dining out at a mid-priced restaurant can save around $30 just for dinner for 2.  With that $30, you could easily make 3-4 organic dinners for the whole family. Often the price of "convenience foods" (individual snack packs, premade frozen dinners, etc.) is equivalent to the price of its unprocessed counterpart - you just have to be willing to put in the extra few minutes of prep time.  I know time is also a scarce commodity, but, again, it comes back to priorities.


If your priorities are not on eating real foods and using fewer household chemicals, that's totally your decision.  I'm truly not judging anyone for making this decision - I just want to make people think.  With the growing body of research and just plain ole common sense pointing away from chemically-laden and super-processed foods, shouldn't good nutrition and good health take precedence?