a Few Tips for Making Healthy Eating Affordable

One of the main reasons I hear for people having a hard time jump-starting a healthier lifestyle is affordability.

I get it. It’s hard to go from buying chicken at $1.99/lb to $4.99/lb.

A “good deal” on organic apples is anything under $2/lb.

Berries require their own item line in the family budget.

However there are some great ways to make eating real, whole foods affordable.

Plus, when you factor in the lack of doctor visits and prescriptions (our family had $35 worth last year), and how much money you save by not buying processed foods (they are SO expensive!)…it’s much more affordable than you might think.

So a few nights ago I decided to make a bunch of our food all at one time, after the boys were in bed. I mean, I would honestly rather do that than drag them to the store!

Anyhow, here is what I made with a breakdown of cost, and a comparison to Whole Foods prices (without tax).

I ran out of traditional kombucha bottles, so I used a few glass juice and apple cider vinegar bottles.

MY COST WF COST

12 bottles (2 gal) strawberry kombucha $4.80 $43.20

4 quarts whole, raw yogurt $3.50 $18.60

1 quart raw buttermilk $0.00 $7.99 (this is a free by-product from making butter!)

1 lb raw butter $3.50 $6.99

TOTAL $11.80 $76.78

I saved $65 by making these things at home! Even if you factor in time, I spend about an hour picking up my raw milk products once/week, which is about the same amount of time I would spend at the grocery store. I spent 2 hours making all of this, which could have easily been 1 hour, had I not been over-ambitious and tried to fit way too much cream in my mixer…it took an hour for it to separate, so I actually spent almost an hour just waiting on it!

I also love that I am reusing glass jars and bottles rather than purchasing new or plastic ones!

I used prices for the best quality dairy products that Whole Foods offers, which is low-pasteurized milk and cream from a local dairy. However, these products aren’t 100% grass fed, not as fresh as my dairy, and are pasteurized, so they aren’t even as high quality as my less expensive products! If you opted for plain kombucha rather than using strawberries, your cost would be even lower, about $1.25 for all 12 bottles!

Now, you do have to factor in clean-up…which is usually no big deal. However, I was apaprently tired, and accidentally flipped the mixer switch to “HI” rather than “off” at this very crucial moment in the butter-making process.

Needless to say, I had a bit more clean up than usual.

Thankfully, Linus was more than happy to lick up the drips. He’d been at my feet all evening, fully confident that my clumsiness would provide some sort of treat.