Week 11 - Oh my!

Okay. February flew by like no one's business. It's now St. Patrick's Day and I'm watching the ground squirrels reak havoc in my soon to be garden. Enjoy it now boys! Your fun loving days of running and digging will soon be over! In fact, Ryan went to work early tonight in order to re-stock our pellet supply. I am a nature lover, don't get me wrong. I love deer, birds, bunnies, and even find the little furry devils running around kind of cute. Cute, as long as they stay out of my garden and plants! I'm not blood thirsty, just territorial. It's a natural dominance in all animals...humans included.

Yes, I'm avoiding sharing how February went. I'll put it out there quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. Our average monthly grocery and food bill for January and February was $970. That's only including what we paid by check or debit card. That doesn't include cash purchases. Our monthly bill in 2009 averaged out to about $750, again not including cash purchases. So, what are we doing differently? In 2009 we spent about $290/month eating out, either fast food or fine dining. In Jan/Feb, we spent about $300/month. No jaw-dropper there. For groceries, in 2009 we spent about $450/month; the past two months we have spent $640. WOW! Makes sense...we've spent more on groceries because we're trying to eat at home more...right?

At this point, I need to make a very important point. Last year, my husband was home most of the year. As I mentioned before, he did a superb job of cooking and making sure we didn't waste food. Now with both of us working, we are having to make a more conscious effort to cook. I don't think we are cooking less and eating out more...the above numbers prove that to some degree (again, we aren't tracking cash purchases). Soooo, why are we spending more on groceries? Two things stick out in my mind. Either we are wasting more, OR, we are buying more expensive groceries. For the most part, I think we are bargain shoppers, or at least we try. We try to buy non-perishable goods at Sam's Club for the discounts on bulk shopping. But, we do splurge on a few things. Let's look at tonights grocery receipt for example from our local grocery store:
*Most expensive food items:
Wine (big bottle) - $10.99
Bolthouse Farms Juice - $6.99
Kashi cereal - $4.99
Nabisco Graham Crackers - $4.29
Tomatoes (3 big ones) - $4.17
Breyers ice cream - $3.99 (on sale)
Florida Orange Juice - $3.79
Strawberries (probably about 10) - $3.49

Okay, we also buy Fancy Feast cat food for our cat who is 13+ years old (she gets one jar once a day to supplement her dry food)...not a "food" item, but probably a luxury item none the less.

Let's look at the other side.
*Least expensive food items:
Broccoli (one crown) - $0.67
Reese's PB cups King Size - $1.00 (on sale)
Bananas (6) - $1.12
Roma Tomatoes (3) - $1.19
Carrots (little bag) - $1.49
Applesauce (6 cups) - $1.67
Yogurt (6 Dora containers) - $2.00
Milk (1 gal) - $2.50
Yogurt (large container) - $2.50
Foster Farm sandwich meat - $2.50 (on sale)
Red Baron pizza - $2.97
Salad mix - $2.99
Sourdough bread - $2.99
Apples (6 red del.) - $3.37

An interesting note...I'm noticing that everything I will be growing in my garden this year will probably fall into the "least expensive" column. Tomatoes and strawberries are about the only expensive items we currently buy that we can grow ourselves. This brings up a big issue: why do we always assume that if we make it ourselves it will be cheaper? I mentioned it earlier, but the whole juice story needs to be talked about. We tried diligently making our own juice last year for about 2 months. We found the only juice that was semi-dollar-saving to make yourself is orange juice on the condition that you find cheap oranges (which don't usually produce the most juice, let alone tastey juice). We surmised that it is more cost-effective to buy our juice...especially if you buy it as frozen concentrate.

This leads to another point. When we have the financial ability, we try to buy USA grown food, ie: Florida's Natural orange juice. Yes, it is more expensive, but we feel we are supporting our own farmers. We also try to buy as natural, GMO-free food as possible when finances aren't tight, ie: Foster Farm sandwich meat and chicken. Let me state right now, I am a strong proponent of production agriculture. My personal grain land is part of a large family-owned farming operation. We have farmed since 1887 and my family grows traditionally produced grains. The world would starve if it weren't for production agriculture. 96% of the world's population lives outside the USA. We cannot be fed by small organic farms alone. I also think there is a place for GMO. I think we can have productivity and sustainability together in agriculture. I don't believe we have to choose. Our American farmers are great stewards of the land and livestock. There are people much smarter than me working on creating a world that can be fed safely and substantially. I recently returned from a business trip to Japan. 12 million people live in Tokyo. I saw apartment buildings that rose higher than our giant Montana wind-energy mills. One third of Montana's wheat goes to feed Japan alone. The world is big. It's population is rising. Feeding that population cannot be accomplished by organics.

Now, back to the problem at hand. Maybe we are spending money on more expensive items. Maybe we aren't eating our leftovers as well as we should. I will admit that I have thrown too many things out that should have been consumed in a timely fashion. All we can do is continue trying to watch what we buy and cut back our waste. I'm still fairly confident we can cut our spending by growing and making our own food. On a side note, I'm also determined to cut our garbage in half too!

On a brighter note, I'm ready to start preparing my little sun room for seed starting! Over the next few weeks I'll have fun photos to share and we will finally get to talk about plants!!! The snow is gone and March is proving to be warmer than normal...but we're still due for a late season arctic blast. If the warm weather holds out, I'm sure we'll be regretting it come August, but for now I'm going to soak up the sunshine and enjoy the warmth. Now, I'm going to throw this damn receipt away and move on to greener pastures!