Save Money & Eat Healthier

In today's world we have a multitude of distractions that take focus away from our families, our health and our emotional well being. We've been given lots of distractions to focus on besides feeding ourselves good, healthy, fresh food. TV's, stereos, cellphones and computers, film, television, music and sports is where we've been taught to spend cash and we have been lead to believe that we don't have time to cook.

What I'm witnessing is a world where no one has time to spend with each other either. This fast paced society has created a dependence on prepackaged, pre-constructed foods of convenience. But the health risks involved with a processed food diet are well known now. In North America families with huge debt, still insist on eating out in restaurants and fast food joints on a regular basis. Most people buy prepackaged foods because they think it saves time and that it's cheaper.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, it's cheaper to eat fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. Or freeze, can or dry them to use later. You'll start to enjoy eating what you've made from scratch.

We feed a family of 3 on $25 of fresh local, seasonal fruits and vegetables for one week from our local farmers market. We spend $45 on quality local meats and 2 dozen eggs from the local butcher shop, and that is more than enough protein for one week. We don't buy any processed meats anymore, we cook a chicken, turkey or roast and carve our lunch meats fresh. Then use the bones to make stock for soup. I make bread and it costs me approximately $1.20 for a large rustic spelt loaf that costs $5 in the store.

Instead of buying chips for snacks I make popcorn for pennies a bowl and put in my daughter's lunches. Fruit is a much cheaper and healthier dessert than the prepackaged ones. Ice cream in our house is a combination of frozen fruit and water or coconut milk (aka a smoothie) put through a hand cranked ice cream maker. The kids have fun making it and they love it... and it costs less than 25 cents a serving. Homemade cookies and Rice Krispie squares are regulars in the house too; store bought just isn't as good and so much more expensive.

Making simple, easy, fresh, healthy meals can be done quickly, in 20 to 30 minutes if needed. I was skeptical when we started on the path of eating fresh. I thought it would take forever to make meals and it doesn't. It really depends on how elaborate the meal is going to be and how much effort I want to put into it. I didn't think we would have enough variety of food choices, but we do. Once we had systems in place and knew what ingredients were our staples, it became easy.

There was an adjustment period but now we know what we like and can eat, and we shop accordingly. We don't bring food into the house on a whim. We bring minimal prepacked food home. We sale shop for the products that we use to support our staples; cheese, condiments, spices, dried goods etc. Remember when you cook fresh, let the food be tasted and keep it simple: it's tastier and is cost effective.

We are cooking and shopping like they did back in the old days before all the "time saving" "money saving" prepacked meals existed and we feel better for it. As important, if not more important, our food bill has gone down. We have been very surprised to see that making healthy food choices is saving us money on a consistent basis. We've saved enough money in fact, that it's a budget saving tip that should to be shared.

So if you're on a budget consider exploring a fresh food diet and you'll be amazed at the savings you'll see.