This series has gone by far too fast.
I have more ideas on eating frugally (and after reading yesterday’s post on how our grocery budget has changed during the transition to real food, my husband may think I should use them!), but the Eat Well, Spend Less series has come to a close.
I’m very happy to share my colleagues’ thoughts on making the most of where you live today – tips from California to the East Coast, Texas up to Canada. The real beauty of these posts is less in the local information and more in getting into the heads of some very savvy shopping cooks to find 
inspiration for your own community and resources.
Sometimes I don’t think I eat very seasonally nor locally compared to other big real food bloggers out there, so I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised with how many strategies I ended up with for the local, seasonal scene. Michigan, cold as it is, has a wealth of food resources that I am so grateful for.
If you missed it, click HERE for ideas to capture the seasons and the food gems in your hometown. Not in the Midwest? Want to know more about how people shop? These ladies are ready to help:
How to Save in SoCal
from Jessica of Life as MOM
Jessica, the brilliant leader of our Eat Well, Spend Less team, lives in California, a state with one of the highest costs of living in the country. Her encouragement is second to none! She also shares real numbers, both for her family and national averages, which I found fascinating.
Six kids? Southern California cost of living? And a tight economy? They sound like incompatible circumstances, don’t they? Yet, we’re doing okay.
Earlier in our Eat Well, Spend Less series, I mentioned that grocery expenses are one of the things that we have most control of. We can’t determine what the store charges, but we can decide how to cook and how to eat.
If our family, living in an expensive state, can spend less than the national average, you can, too. Really.
Click right HERE for how to save money on food, especially in Southern California …
Get Big Deals in Texas
from Alyssa of Kingdom First Mom
Moving from California to Texas was a food epiphany for Alyssa, but she’s a fast learner.
Texans definitely have an advantage when it comes to eating well for less. The challenge we face is making wise choices. Here in the DFW Metroplex, we have an overabundance of shopping venues. Everything’s bigger, right?
Knowing all this, it may surprise you to learn that my family was overspending big time on groceries just a few years ago and our debt was creeping up. Once we finally sat down to examine our finances I realized we were spending more money on groceries than ever before.
How does one go from a modest Southern California grocery budget to a Texas-sized disaster?
For the solution on how to save money on food and still feed your family well, including a mostly gluten-free diet, read the rest right HERE…
Grocery Shopping When You Live in the Boonies
from Mandi of Life…Your Way
Since I grew up in a town of 3500 with the closest mall 3 hours away, I empathize with Mandi’s title! As she works to feed her family healthy foods and remain in budget, Mandi’s simple tips can help anyone, although she lives on the East Coast.
Our family shoots for a grocery budget of $100-125 a week, including household items, diapers and other personal care products.
Out of that, we spend between $30-40 a week on produce at the nicer grocery store. I’ll be interested to see how that amount changes when we begin shopping at the farmer’s market and as our garden starts to produce, but we still have a couple months before that happens.
Find her money-saving tips right here…
Staying Conscious While you Shop in Canada
from Aimee of Simple Bites
You have to visit Aimee’s post just for the market photos, which make me yearn for the Farmer’s Market to get in full swing again in our community. I guarantee you’ll learn something about real food shopping and be inspired by Aimee’s in-depth look at how she shops and the choices she makes. Conscientious grocery shopping is the way to go.
Marché is French for ‘market’, and one of the early words my three-year-old picked up, even though we’re an English speaking household. The open markets in and around Montreal are a pretty big part of our food shopping routine, hence Mateo’s early handle of the French word.
Food shopping is as particular and unique to each home as is their cooking style, taste preferences and health goals.
My particular approach may not work for you, but I am confident I can offer a few nuggets of wisdom to help you get the most bang for your buck.
Shopping – conscientious, intentional shopping – is an integral part of eating well while managing to spend less.
Click over to read the rest, including grocery budget numbers, right here…
Smart Shopping…and do you Have Costco?
from Katie of GoodLifeEats
Katie’s basic smart shopping tips apply to anyone, anywhere in the world. She’s changed her food shopping habits as her lifestyle changed:
I used to stop at several different stores: Sunflower Market, Smith’s, Costco, and one or two more if I was in the right area. I’d shop around for the best deals on groceries based on the weekly ads. If organic milk was on a super sale at another store then I would go out of my way to purchase it there.
Now that I am essentially a “working mom,” I’ve realized how precious my time is. I don’t even want to spend an extra minute at the grocery store if I don’t have to.
I like getting those errands done as fast as possible so I can complete my weekly work as fast as possible – that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy my work, but I want to be there (physically, mentally, and emotionally) when my kids are there. And I won’t lie, it’s a struggle!
Read the rest by clicking here…
Northwest Budgeting Basics
from Tammy of Tammy’s Recipes
Along with her beautiful photos, simple and delicious recipes (on which I rely often), and family-friendly everything, Tammy keeps it simple in Seattle with 3 basic tips for eating well on a budget:
1. Eat affordable + nutritious (or "whole") foods.
2. Shop at 1-2 stores.
3. Plan for healthy eating, even during busy or stressful times.
Click here to find out how she breaks it down…
Shop Everywhere to Save
from Carrie of Springs Bargains
An excellent coupon shopper who still understand the value of whole foods, Carrie’s dedication to keeping her grocery budget in check takes her to 10+ stores for food!
Read her story here…
Thanks for joining us for this excellent series! If you have any questions that have gone unanswered about how I save money on real food, be sure to check the post When to Splurge, Settle, and Skip, and then leave your question in the comments if it’s not there. I love talking about food! 
Tonight is the last day for the giveaway for a Plan to Eat membership (three winners!). Click HERE to check it out.
NEW! All entrants get a 25% off code for the software via email next week – you only have until midnight tonight!!
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Don’t miss the farmers’ panel here at KS next week – various farmers who use conventional and traditional farming methods share on their love for their animals and the reasons behind their choices: be sure to sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.
If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here. Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments. See my full disclosure statement here.
I’ve loved this series- what a welcome break from the normal ‘how to eat cheap’ articles out there!
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Thanks! I enjoyed every single article.
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I live in the Bay Area, and Jessica’s right–eating well here is easy, and doesn’t have to be expensive (except for raw milk!–haven’t figured out a way around that one yet), if you do it right. In fact, we probably eat better for less here than we did in St. Louis–except for the milk thing. Produce CSA’s are definitely more available, better, and cheaper. And Azure Standard is available–although, Midwesterners, keep your eyes peeled. Azure has been adding Midwest stops at a fast clip lately!
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Julie Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 11:02 am
Heather, we just moved to the Bay Area from SC, and I’ve been having a pretty hard time getting our grocery budget down. I’d appreciate any tips!
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Heather Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 11:30 am
We’ve recently moved back here for the 2nd time (we’re from the St Louis area, and have been back and forth a little in the past few years).
My hints are mostly going to be relevant to the San Jose area, ’cause that’s where we’ve lived both times.
Hint 1. Stay out of Safeway and Nob Hill/Raley’s (except to shop loss leaders). Pricey!
Hint 2. For produce, the CSA’s locally are probably the best deal going. $23/week gets me all the fresh organic veggies my family of four can eat and then a little.
Hint 3. If you don’t get it from your CSA, and it’s something you would buy non-organic, go to the flea market! If you are in the San Jose area, the Capitol Flea Market, at Capitol and Monterey, is the best produce deal around (plus, of course, other flea market stuff). They are open Thurs-Sunday, and cost to get in is $2 or less, depending on the day. Little kids are free. This flea market is at a drive-in theater, so they are pretty well cleaned up for the day by 3pm, so that movies can be shown that night. But I’ve been buying oranges there for 5pounds/$1 all winter and spring–other produce is also cheap.
Hint 4: If you don’t have a Costco membership, you should. Costco has lots and lots of organic, and no-crappy-ingredients food, at excellent prices. And, if you shop before 5, you basically get free lunch, ’cause they have so many samples. They’ve lately taken to marking all the organic products with green price signs, to make them even easier to find. And, often, Kirkland, which is their house brand, will be some of the best-quality food around, so don’t overlook it. For example, they have organic peanut butter, with nothing in it but peanuts and salt, for about what the regular stores charge for generic, full of icky ingredients, not organic peanut butter.
Hint 5: Azure Standard is your friend. http://www.azurestandard.com
If you want to see prices, make an account. They will help you stay out of Whole Paycheck.
Hint 6. Trader Joe’s is all over the place, and they are also your friend. I don’t buy everything in there, but there are certain things that I always buy there–they have the best price on brown rice pasta ANYWHERE, for example.
For meat, you have to buy in bulk to save money, same here as anywhere. Right now, we’ve mostly been buying regular meat, but organic chicken, mostly from Costco, because I don’t quite have my deep freezer out of storage yet.
Raw milk costs an arm and a leg, and I haven’t found a way around that yet. So do pastured eggs…but almost all the municipalities around here allow people to keep chickens.
Join the WAPF_South Bay yahoo group–excellent place for co-ops on good food and for local sources.
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Agriculture Society » 1 in 4 Meat Packages Tainted with Pathogenic Bacteria // Apr 21, 2011 at 11:07 am
[...] Eat well, spend less: how to spend less money across the U.S. and Canada Kitchen Stewardship [...]
Making large recipes out of a few, fresh ingredients lets me eat well on a small, graduate student’s budget! I survive on leftovers! Thanks for the helpful recipes!
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