Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Stretching Your Produce Budget Further

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Anyone who has made a simple budget has struggled with making their food budget fit with the rest of the budget.  If you attempt to eat healthy, one of the biggest components to a food budget is the produce.  Stretching your produce budget can be somewhat difficult.  Growing seasons are short, and the cost of produce keeps going up.  But, there are a few things we can do to stretch that produce budget, and make it a bit easier on your overall budget.

  1. Stretching your produce budgetStock Up on Sale: buying your produce on sale allows for you to stock up when the item is cheaper, then store it until you need it.   Canned produce is really easy to store.  Frozen only requires a freezer.  And if it’s the fresh stuff, there’s a few things you can do to store a surplus when you do pick it up in season and on sale.
  2. Canning for stockpiling: When you’ve got a surplus of produce, one of the best things you can do is can it to preserve it for another day’s use.  Canning only requires a few pieces of equipment, and a little time learning the process, then you can be off to the races filling your pantry shelves with preserved fresh produce to use later in the year when produce is much more expensive.
  3. Freeze it: Every year, around the end of summer, corn pops up in the backs of pickup trucks and in the farmers markets.  Compared to the rest of the year, it’s really cheap, and it tastes so good!  Unless we want to eat nothing but fresh corn, though, the season is fleeting, and we’re left with no other corn but the commercially canned or frozen corn you can get at the supermarket.  It’s just not the same.  Last year, we bought a whole bunch of corn (4-5 dozen), shucked them all, then cut the kernels off and combined them in a huge stockpot with some butter, a little bit of salt, and a little bit of water, and then cooked it for a little while.  Once it was done, we let it cool off, and then filled quart size freezer bags with the corn and froze it.  Now, if we want a little taste of that sweet summer corn, we just grab a bag, heat it backup and eat.  We did similar things with pumpkin, squash, zucchini, and a whole bunch of other summer fruits and veggies.  All it takes is a little bit of prep time and the freezer room to enjoy the flavor of fresh produce all year round.
  4. Grow it: If you already grow a garden every year, this might seem like a no-brainer of a tip.  But, growing your own garden can be an excellent way to stretch your produce budget out.  Last year, we enjoyed an abundance of tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions, jalepenos, cucumbers, and even an eggplant or two from our tiny container garden.  This year, we’re planning on consolidating down to a smaller selection in hopes that we’ll have some extras that we can can as well.
  5. Find a Farmer’s Market: Buying your produce from a local farmer can often be just as cheap as buying at the supermarket.  In some cases, if you order ahead, you can get a deal on bulk orders of produce which is great if you are planning on canning any of it.  It’s also fresher since it only had to make the trip from the farm down the road instead of the farm across the country.  It’s not always a great way to stretch the produce budget, but if you want high-quality produce that will last longer before spoiling, it’s a good place to check out.
  6. Pick it Yourself: A reader on twitter commented that I’d forgotten to add the u-pick farms.  I hadn’t really forgotten them, as they just don’t exist in my neck of the woods and the cost to drive to the nearest one would negate the savings.  But, if you have a u-pick farm nearby, it’s an excellent way to get out of the house, pick a ton of fresh produce (fruits usually) and save a pretty big chunk of change.  Many of the farms only charge about 1/3 of the cost at the grocery store!

Extending your produce budget is important, not just when there are droughts, but as a way to provide healthy options for you and your family to eat year round.

What do you do to stretch your produce budget?

World Diets: A Week’s Worth of Groceries

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Ok, so I saw this post over at FStoppers about What a Week of Groceries Looks Like Around the World, and I couldn’t help but mark it for a second look, and eventually an article here.  Click on that link and go take a look.  Look at what each picture contains and then come back and see if you come to the same conclusion that I do.  I’ll wait.

Done?  Ok, first, let’s talk about some “givens” that I found to be somewhat ironic, simply because they also could be considered stereotypes.  I’ll start at the top.

  • Mexico: OMG, you guys like Coke!  
  • Germany: First thing I noticed was all the beer and wine right up front.
  • Italy: Lots of the expected breads and pastas
  • Japan: Fish, noodles, and rice.
  • Mali and Chad: That’s it?

Obviously, there are some things that we expect.  Countries like Mali and Chad that we’re hearing about starvation or near starvation like conditions in sometimes have an obviously lesser pile of food.  Japan is notorious for it’s high-fish diet.  And Germany.  Germany!  I suppose I can’t expect much else from the country of Octoberfest.

A couple of surprises.  I’m a little bit surprised by the lack of sausages in the Poland picture.  For the number of Polish sausages we eat here in the states that is.  (Ok, that’s kind of tongue in cheek.)

Now, let’s see if you noticed the same thing I noticed.  Every single country on that list eats way more fresh food than the American family.  Seriously. Look at that picture.  There’s a little section of it that’s got some produce (a couple of tomatoes, some onions, and some grapes), and another small section of fresh meat.  That’s it.  The rest looks to be processed and packaged foods.  The only other countries that appear to even be close are Canada, Great Britain, and Australia.  Which is funny.  In an ironic sad way.

All four of those countries are usually lumped together as “first-world” countries.  We’re rich!  We have everything we could ever want!  And somehow, every other country on that list eats better than we do…  Heck, let’s look at Mexico.  Most Americans tend to think of Mexico as a drug addled, gang run, hovel.  But, look at that food!  Fresh herbs right off the plant!  A whole table of fresh fruits and vegetables!  Same story for India, Bhutan, Guatemala, and Equador!

Why is it that we all think that produce is so expensive, but we’ll gladly pay $10 for a large pizza?  Or $10 for a burger and fries?  It also makes me wonder just how much of that food those people grow themselves.  It’s not that expensive to start a garden.  Heck, even a container garden will do.  We’re just getting ready to plant out our second season (see season one’s results) of container gardening.  So far, I’ve spent about $2 on seeds.  Buy a few pots, get some soil, and plant some plants.  Fresh produce!

I’ve gotten a bit ranty, but it amazes me how poorly we eat in our “rich” country.  You’d think we’d be smarter than that…

 

Start Your Summer Right—Go Straight to the Farm for the Best Produce

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Ah, summertime.  If you are a foodie, summertime brings so many food joys—fresh, ripe strawberries, juicy blueberries, crunchy asparagus.  There are many food delights that are available in summer that aren’t available for most of the country for most of the year.

Sure, you can buy strawberries shipped in from a foreign country in January, but they are often devoid of taste and don’t taste nearly as good as those you can buy in June near your home.

019_edited-1 © by Michael Bentley

Since there are likely farmers in your area who grow the seasonal produce you crave, why not take a trip out to the farm to pick some of the produce on your own?  Taking such a trip is a great way to spend time together as a family, plus you benefit both nutritionally and financially.    Not only will you get to enjoy produce at the peak of ripeness, but you will also likely save substantially by buying at the farm.  An added bonus is that your kids will more likely enjoy eating the produce and learning how it grows.

We recently went as a family to an organic strawberry farm near our home.  None of us had ever picked strawberries before, and we didn’t know that strawberries got there name from the straw surrounding the berries so they don’t sit on the ground but the straw instead.  We picked 7.5 pounds, bought 10 pounds and bought another 27 pounds of seconds (berries not pretty enough to sell for the full asking price).  We spent approximately $91 for our haul (about $2.00 a pound which is a great price for organic strawberries), and froze 4 large bags of strawberries and made 21 pints of jam.  The kids still talk about the experience, and now they are more educated about how strawberries grow (as are we).

If you would like to look for a farm in your area, try localharvest.org for organic farmers or farmvisit.com.  If you use farmvisit.com, you can choose between organic and conventional farmers.

If you do not regularly visit farms to pick your fruits and veggies, here are some tips:

  1. Call the farm ahead of time.  The farmer can let you know picking conditions as well as when the busiest times are and the quietest times.  We always try to plan our visits around the quiet times because it is easier with small kids.
  2. Bring your own containers.  Farmers may have large containers for you to take your produce home in, but you will usually have to pay for them.  Bring your own containers instead and save the money.  Use cardboard boxes or even large pots and pans.
  3. Bring plenty of water and sunscreen.  Picking produce makes you hot, so bring plenty of water as well as sunscreen to prevent a burn.
  4. Bring a lunch.  If you will be picking for awhile or will have a drive a distance to get out to the farm, bring your lunch with you so you can have a picnic or eat while traveling.
  5. Wear appropriate shoes and clothes.  Tennis shoes are usually best, and wear sloppy clothes because you will probably get dirty.
  6. Have a plan for what to do with your produce.  Decide ahead of time if you will only pick enough to eat right away or if you plan to preserve some of it by freezing or canning it.  If you are canning it, going to the farm is just the first step to a long (but worthwhile) day of picking and preserving.

A trip to the farm can be a great experience for your kids and save you money on fresh produce picked at the peak of ripeness.  If you go a step further and freeze or can some of the produce you pick, you can enjoy local fruit at a great price all year long, straight from your stockpile.