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| People are worried about buying groceries. Stay safe but eat healthy and save money. |
And then he asked if he should buy food from the local grocery store or if he should buy from an online co-op. That's a good question because co-op food can be inexpensive. But the difference between buying food from a co-op and food from a grocery store is that the co-op makes you order and pay for the food up front. You have to wait for it to come in. If you're cupboard is bare that's not a good decision for your family.
I'm no expert on buying groceries. I help my wife with the groceries but I follow her judgment. She's very smart about these things. If you're not sure how to buy groceries you can look at articles like this cheap grocery list from Coupon Jubilee. But let me explain what I think is important.
You Need to Eat a Healthy Diet
No matter how desperate things are, if you can still buy a balanced diet you should. When I was a kid there was a lady down the street who was kind of poor. We knew she was living on a fixed income and she wasn't in the best of health. My sisters and I used to help her go shopping and she bought a lot of breakfast foods.
She loved cereal and milk. She also bought a lot of snack foods.
When I grew up I met a nutritionist named Marian and we dated for a while. I told her about Miss Cynthia and how we kids helped her shop. Marian explained how Cynthia's health would have improved if she had eaten better. We argued about how expensive groceries are and she explained how you can buy cheap groceries that are still healthy and nutritious.
The secret is to buy as many fresh fruits and vegetables as you can. You'll spend the most money on proteins (meats, basically).
Marian stretched her grocery diet by eating home-made soups. I never saw her buy anything canned. She loved to cook and had bags of lentils and dry beans and stuff in her kitchen. I'll be honest, we stopped dating because I got tired of all the home-cooked meals. They were great but we were just not a good couple.
If You Need to Save Money, Start with Fresh Vegetables
Any big grocery store, or a Target or Walmart, has a big selection of fresh vegetables and fruits. You can save a lot of money by buying the basic stuff on sale. You refrigerate what you don't use, or freeze it.
I don't enjoy shelling peas but you can cook them in the pod. And some veggies like asparagus are acquired tastes. But fresh vegetables can be a great way to save money. The more vegetables you eat the better.
You still want to eat protein. Instead of buying steaks you could settle for lean hamburger or turkey burger. But sometimes you just need to hit the meat department when they mark down their more expensive meats. They do that if sales are not keeping pace with deliveries.
My mom used to buy her meats from a butcher. My wife and I have talked about finding a butcher but there aren't any close by. I guess the day of the dedicated butcher shop is almost over.
Don't Waste Food by Throwing it Out
My wife suggested we try something different when our neighborhood went into lockdown. We bought up a good supply of food. Then she prepared a lot of meals in advance but didn't cook them. Instead she divided them into portions and put them into plastic sealable dishes or zip bags.
Then we froze what we weren't ready to eat. This way we were able to save money by buying some foods in bulk. We agreed to stick to the portions we had set aside for each meal. This was harder for me because I eat more than her, but my meals were the larger ones.
We discovered we throw less food away. We don't even have that many leftovers. We throw out a lot of leftovers because we get tired of eating the same meals over and over again. My wife's family grew up eating the same dinners 3-4 days in a row. That was how her mom saved money and it wored but dinner was pretty boring.
We tried eating that way for a year but grew tired of it. When we know we would have to shelter at home we talked about going back to that way of prepping food. We agreed we didn't want every meal to be leftovers. So that's when we came up with the idea of prepping meals in advance but saving them to be cooked for later.
That's how a lot of restaurant meals are handled now.
If You Buy Food Online, It Needs to Be Safe
Buying food from the local grocery store is easy. You can always return it.
My wife and I agreed if we bought anything that was shipped to us it could not be raw. Everything we buy online is cooked and packaged in a standard food processing plant. It may not be the healthiest food like fresh vegetables, but we know it's safe.
We've bought a lot of canned meats in bulk. It saves money and has a long shelf life. For uncooked proteins like meats and eggs we still visit the grocery store. My wife doesn't want anyone else to pick out these kinds of foods for us.
So that is my advice.
Eat healthy.
Eat safe.
And buy foods that are on sale, cost less when sold in bulk, and as fresh as possible.
