How do you afford organic?

[Gentle Journey]

Organic food is soooo expensive! There's no way I could convince DH to buy all our food organic. I tried a sample of organic tomato juice and it was soooo yummy, so I bought some. DH sees it and he was like "Woha, how much you pay for that?". It seems like our bills would be at least 40%higher. How do you afford it?

[RealLifeMama]

Well, for one, I don't buy stuff like tomato juice, LOL. JK
We don't buy all organic stuff, but we buy a fair amount.
What helps us a lot is that we joined a CSA farm and so we get organic veggies for the same price as we would pay for conventional.
Now that is just what is in season and what is growing but right now there is such amazing variety because we are able to get both summer and spring crops right now.
I also just try to buy organic stuff that really matters, like spinach and strawberries, peanut butter, raisens, etc.
I dont' buy organic everything.
And we try to not buy lots of extras.

[Gentle Journey]

It just seems so daunting. It seems like everything I buy could be bought organic. On the bright side, I'd have to give up the bad stuff. Although they do have organic chocolate, I would have to watch my budget. The main thing would be to buy organic fruits and vegetables and products which contain them right?

[Punkie]

We do a CSA too. The veggies are the best I've ever tasted, and for ours its $485 for the entire growing season, which works out to about $25 a week...

[Gentle Journey]

I don't know how we do it, but we only spend $200/month on groceries. $100/month on vegetables would be a lot for us. I guess we spend so little cause DH doesn't eat breakfast or lunch here and and we are often visiting family for lunch and gone on the weekends.

What do you do if a vegetable you need isn't available in organic?

[GrowingInGrace]

I don't buy all organic.

I can't afford to, even if I literally COULD find all my foods organically locally. :shrug

I buy organic when I can and where it matters (certain fruits, veggies, oils, etc). When I can't afford it, it's not available, etc I buy as fresh, local, etc as I can.

And I garden. :mrgreen

[Soliloquy]

watching the sales REALLY helps. For instance, I shop at Wild Oats and they'll occasionally have buy one, get one free sales on things we use regularly. When that happens, I stock up. For produce, I buy what's on sale that week. For example, organic organges were on sale this week for $0.99 a pound. They were so delicious that we ate them for snacks and dessert. Often, one variety of apple will be on sale for $0.99 or $1.29 a pound, which is cheaper than the regular supermarket. At least once a month baby carrotts are buy one get one free. I make my menu & shopping list after checking out the sales flier.

We have had to cut corners elsewhere, and it's hard at first, but it's been worth it for our family. Not only does everything taste better, but we have peace of mind. Also, we've cut WAY back on processed foods and sugary foods as one way to balance the budget and we feel better because of it.

[Iarwain]

Organic doesn't need to be all or nothing. For me it's all about reducing pesticide exposure, even though I can't afford to do 100% organic and it's not possible to eliminate it completely. Some things have a larger price difference between organic and conventional. Where the price difference is small I buy organic, where it is very large I do not. Some foods are grown with more pesticides than others, so for those things I am more willing to buy organic or try growing my own.

[Gentle Journey]

What are the main things to avoid? Is there food from certain countries that are worse than others? What about PB? I really loves Kraft's.

[*snowflake*]

Cutting meat out of our diet helps us afford more organic. I do buy some "regular" food. LOL But I buy organic for foods with higher pesticide residues, etc like potatoes, any ground grown foods, kwim? I think there's a list somewhere, I"ll see if I can find it and post. :)

[Gentle Journey]

I'd appreciate that.

[JenniC4JC4Evr]

I shop at Whole Foods Market every couple of weeks; am in a co-op, and we have a garden as well. Next year we will be increasing our garden size to accommodate for more canning and freezing. We are looking into meat prices that are very inexpensive at two local ranches...where the meat is natural, and cheaper than Whole foods. Even though buying organic is tight for our budget, it is VERY important to me and dh. We want our children to be as healthy as possible. We are big on avoiding as much money sucking big corporation as we can, and we want to be a part of supporting a healthy global environment and economy.
If there is a HUGE price discrepancy between organic and conventional, I'll buy the conventional at Whole Foods Market...at least their store brand of natural products are GMO-free.
I try to make my own of everything as much as possible. The ready-made foods available organically *are* expensive.

Jenn
MOMM! to a girl and three boys
Human mama to Lucy

[Gentle Journey]

I think we COULD afford to spend more, but DH says no. We are saving to move to the UD for Jan. so he can go to school and we'll have no income for the next 3 years except for summer work.

[findingjoy]

Here's a list of the top 10 high pesticide foods:
http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/guides/242
(http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/guides/242)

[Zoesmama]

I guess we spend so little cause DH doesn't eat breakfast or lunch here and and we are often visiting family for lunch and gone on the weekends.


What is he eating? If he's eating out you can find A LOT more than you'd think by just having him bring lunch(left overs or soups and stuff like that) My brother recently sat and figured how much he was paying to eat out lunch daily with the "boys" and he was like NO WAY!!! I'm bringing lunch most days.

[Gentle Journey]

I spend $200/ month on food and he spends the same on the lunch truck. We've tried having him bring lunch, he always forgets it or doesn't make it or whatever. Things will change in NY I'm sure when all we have is less than $300Can. to live off and we need to pay car and medical insurance, gas, food and whatever emergencies pop up. This is going to be such a leap of faith for us. We look at it now and it seems impossible. $60 a month per person isn't much. Good thing the baby is practically free. Thank you God for breastmilk and cloth diapers!

[Myrtle]

We buy our fruits and veggies organic. Now that I know about the pesticides, fungicides, poor farming habits, and depletion of nutrients involved with conventional foods, I just can't stomach the thought of bringing that stuff into the house. We also only buy organic meat and chicken, but ONLY when it's on sale. Our local Wild Oats also has coupons from Mambo Sprouts, and they help out. If you can stock up on the sale items, it's helpful. On our budget, we're usually just doing well to get the basics, so stocking up isn't much of an option right now.

I just think about the steroids and antibiotics in the meats, and if we can't afford the organic, we just do without until we can. I can't always get everything organic, but we try the best we can and then when we really can't do it, we make the best conventional choices we can. Maybe if dh knew more of the facts about organic vs. conventional, he'd be more supportive. :)

[milkmommy]

Unfortunally the only organic food you can find here consistantly is soy milk (even regular can be tricky to find) carrots and cabbage, apples and bannanas are kinda regular finds and their are a few cereal choices. They are all also about 3x's the cost of the "regular" for some stuff I gladly pay the diffrence, but we cannot eat all organic it just not possible here.

ETA their is a fair amount of pre packaged organic stuff but if I fed my family that way our bill would go from around $200-$300 a month to like $900 just not a possibility.
Deanna

[Zoesmama]

Yikes only $300 canadian total?? How scary. I will :pray for you. :) Maybe NY can get you on food program. If people can come from Mexico to Arizona and get it you should be able to as well. :grin

[Gentle Journey]

I'm not sure what help we can get. That $300 is my Canadian child tax benefit. Since we will be residences of Canada for income tax purposes, I get to keep recieving it.