I am newly convinced that the more 'ingredients' you have in your shopping cart compared to the number of 'prepared items', two things will be true: you'll spend less money and probably be healthier. During a recent grocery trip I was examining the contents of my cart. It was half full of fruits and vegetables, including several canned veggies, among whole wheat flour, Splenda, reduced-fat cheese and, well, the requisite Lean Cuisine type meals. I'm pretty sure people who buy lots of cookies, crackers, frozen-meal-in-a-bag, premium frozen pizzas, ready-made-sauces, chips, soda, deli salads and the like probably have much higher grocery bills than mine! I would think that the more aware you are of what you are eating {buying mostly 'ingredients'} the better you will eat. I'm wondering if the budget theory is true, how far can you take it? If you grind your own flour, for example, or buy a side of beef and have it butchered, will you 'save' money?
Whadda ya think? Is there any correlation between what's in the cart and how much is on your body (or in your wallet)?
2 comments:
I wholeheardtly think there is, because....
The past 3 months I have been spending only $50 a week sometimes less in groceries. This is not an exageration. I make my own bread, pancakes/waffles, even chips and granola bars! Then...
The last two weeks became MAJOR stress eating time. I bought ALL prepacked stuff and I spent over $75 both times. YUCK. But WOW I love that you asked about it because now that I'm writing it down Im realizing it and I liked it way better before!
Not only do I believe its healthier to make your own stuff because well lets face it No Preservatives. But also when I'm hungry I'm more likely to go for a piece of fruit or a granola bar that has a bunch of healthy ingredients instead of a handful or well a bag of chips ;0)
now getting from lips to doing ;0)
It all depends. Eating well is not cheap. It's less expensive to buy a burger at McD's than to buy a bag of broccoli, and while wheat berries are cheap, the grinder is not! But yes, it is almost always cheaper to make the pizza than to buy it, and definitly better for you! Pre-packaged stuff will always cost more and contain more chemicals and less nutrients.
We bought a side of beef this year because we wanted grass fed with no hormones. It was far less expensive than buying the same type of meat at the store but probably twice the cost per pound of buying "regular" meat at the market on sale. Yet when I bought my 22 chickens from a poulty farm and cut them up myself, I got them for $1 per pound. That was a great price!
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