The “saving money while being healthy” post…

I’ve posted about this before, but I was asked to consolidate it all into one place… and so I will.  Because everyone is always stressed about the amount of money it costs them to eat whole foods.

My family has been on this journey for over a decade.  It wasn’t an overnight process, but over time–we’ve come to the point where I feel like we’re doing it as inexpensively as possible to live as clean as we do.  There’s no question that we are probably more persnickety about things than many–but that works in your favor because you can pick and choose as you go through the post.  🙂

The first thing I want to tell you is that I have a child who–as an infant–was diagnosed with a WORLD of problems.  Mild immune deficiency (discovered as a result of severe vaccine reactions), atypical general epilepsy, Reactive Airway Disorder (that was predicted to “absolutely grow into asthma”) and global developmental delays that they initially thought were a combination of cerebral palsy and profound deafness (neither was accurate).  He was expected to be hospitalized “at least 4 times/year” when diagnosed before the age of 1, and at current day 11-1/2 years old, he’s been hospitalized once (at 15mo old).

This stuff matters.

In the last decade, we have managed to be so healthy despite an exorbitant and abnormal amount of stress that we have moved to a much less expensive healthcare plan.  We don’t pay for medications and outside of a chiropractor and mental health therapists (mostly for very old trauma issues) we see a doctor only for an annual check-up with rare exceptions.  So there are almost no healthcare costs anymore and that happened within the first 3-ish years.

I think there are two cheap if not free things you can do immediately that might produce fast results in the pocketbook.  The first is meal planning.  I can hear the groan, but I would never advise anyone to make an effort that wasn’t really worth it.  Meal planning is HUUUUUUGE. Huge, mamas. Huge, huge, huge. Including snacks.  Snacks are like the abyss of meal planning.  It’s important.  The second is keeping a price book.  I did this for 12 years faithfully.  I follow a format similar to this one from Organized Home but I use two lines per entry–one for the regular price and one for the sale price.  Dates are critical.  Just start with the stuff you buy most often and build from there.

If you have a tax return, STRONGLY consider buying into a CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) farm share.  You effectively buy a share of the farm harvest.  Seriously. If you need some help figuring out how to choose one and prepare for it so that you don’t waste food, I have a tip sheet for that. Some let you make payments. I generally save little bits all year (I take the cost of my shares from this year, multiply by 5% and split it up to put that aside each week until next year). Using your refund check for this allows you to start setting aside the money for next year right away so you’re not double-paying. My family (2 adults, 11yo, 6yo) can eat 2 farm shares for the season and we are NOT vegetarians.  You can find local CSA farms through LocalHarvest.org although sometimes there is a better, more local resource for finding CSA farms.

Next, find other people near you and open up a Frontier wholesale shopping account. Frontier sells all the non-perishables you would buy at Whole Foods or the like. Personal care products, teas & spices, etc. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY IN BULK!!! It’s an option, but by no means required. The person who opens the account pays something like $25 to do it. Effectively, you pool your orders so that you can get free shipping. I coordinate an order every month and we now have 46 people on the list and roughly 8-10 put in an order each month. We NEVER NOT make the minimum and some months the order is $1,000. The nice thing is that when you have a group that big, someone can throw a $2 item into the order and it doesn’t matter–the order is big enough for that. If you’re going to do this, comment below and I will give you tips on how to organize it so that it’s not a nightmare.

There are other things that Frontier doesn’t carry and I get through through Thrive Market, Tierra Farm, Wilderness Family Naturals, Country Life Natural Foods, or even Target or Amazon.  You still have to price check.  If you have a big enough group, I know some that do Azure Standard (which also carries perishable foods) but I haven’t found that to be a good option for our needs and our group–plus locally, I don’t hear great things about the delivery schedule/timeliness.  I also belong to a local group that works to coordinate wholesale orders from companies we love.  Sometimes, they will allow us to purchase at wholesale prices if we get a certain amount (sometimes in a specific color/style) and they will just charge us the tax because we’re not wholesale–but we buy in wholesale quantities.  Judicious and fluent use of Google Sheets for coordinating.  Because if they don’t charge you tax, you need to keep track so you can pay it at tax time.

The last big thing we were able to change was the quality of our meat. I’m sorry, vegetarians/vegans, but my body requires red meat and hamburger meat isn’t going to do it. That being said, we DID reduce the AMOUNT of meat we ate. For a period of about 6mo I tracked our meat spending separately (I was a black belt $1.99/lb-or-less meat person) and then I ordered half a steer fully grassfed and finished. It lasted us a year (this depends on the weight of the original animal and it can be a broad range–600lbs. to 1200lbs.)  You can find a great, grass-fed, grass-finished farmer locally through EatWild.com.

In the off-season, I have done two things: 1) I have ordered 2 extra farm shares during growing season and preserved 2 of them; and 2) I have used Door to Door organics (if you want $15 off your first order, pm me an e-mail address and I’ll send you a referral link–which also gets me a discount on my next order). That way, the food comes to my door and I have no reason to go to the store.

Amazon Prime and Target do discounts for regularly recurring orders. I’m also an affiliate for Thrive Market–I need to check to see what kind of initial discount code I have for that if you need/want one.

At this point, I go to the store for olives and peanut butter; or when I’m having company and need extra stuff that I didn’t plan for. There is almost zero impulse buying and I have to use what comes to the door. It’s been a great thing

Oh–and case discounts. Whole Foods gives 10% off when you buys a “case” of something. If I buy 24 cans of coconut milk, that’s a case. If I buy FOUR bottles of my daughter’s specialty hair product, THAT’s a case. They don’t always do it for sale items, but they did last month when I bought two 30lb cases of Coho salmon that was already on sale for $9.99/lb, WOOT!!!

Where to start? 

This is going to differ for each person.  I generally tell people to start with the stuff that will make the biggest impact to their most pressing health concern (if that exists).  So, if you have a rather serious thyroid condition, you might start out with eating organic foods.  If money is really tight, you’d start by using the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list and make sure that anywhere those items exist in your diet–they are organic.  They estimate that doing so will reduce your pesticide load nearly 80% and pesticides (and other toxins) really do a number on your thyroid.

But if you don’t have a pressing health issue–just take the one thing that’s costing you the most and start there.  Just one thing.  That might require some record-keeping to determine or it might not.  But start there.

And by all means–share any tips and tricks YOU have in the comments below!  HELP ONE ANOTHER (and hey–I always love finding a new, great resource!)