Over-speaking on under-spending

I was asked to speak to my local women's group, Candlestick Ward Relief Society, for fifteen minutes about how to spend less money on groceries...

Maybe I was asked because I have let everyone know about the free fruit I salvage from Ream's BEFORE they throw it away. It's what they consider "non-sellable" and normally would just end up in the dumpster... I can't STAND to see that waste, so I grab it from them three times a week, sort through what's still USABLE (though I can tell why it's non-sellable -- bruises, wrinkles, etc...)

Anyways, below is a summary of the notes that I spoke from -- and boy, did I speak! I went on for thirty-five minutes -- more than double the time they had allotted me. I heard quite a few giggles, didn't hear any snoring, and the nodding heads had open eyes, so I feel sure they were nodding in agreement rather than sleep! I still felt bad for going WAY overboard.

Read on and see if you think the tips would have made it worth listening to me for more than half an hour!

As a mom, I like to think that budgeting is one way in which I make use of my college degree, having to figure all that math... I also like the feeling of always being on a treasure hunt! Whether it's scouring the ads or stopping in at a second-hand store -- whenever I score a great deal, I think: "This is a little reward for paying tithing!" Really, I sincerely believe that the great God of the universe orchestrates things in such a way...

Okay, while you're reading over this, keep in mind that everything is a process. We are all on our own path, which has different twists and turns. We might not even be headed toward the same place! Different experiences and people we’re exposed to will affect us all in our own way.

So as you read things over, don’t get discouraged if you never use beans (because I’ll talk about beans). Don’t throw away my ideas altogether. Instead, consider it as something you might explore now that the idea has been proposed. Mull over it. Allow yourself to change to at least possibly considering beans at some point in your future! While you may not go home tonight and sort and soak your first pound of dry beans, you will at least feel a little more empowered knowing that real people really do eat beans.

Food has been the hardest thing for me to learn to budget… because usually when I'm thinking in terms of "budget" I can work on a need versus want basis. But when it comes to food, my response tended to be: It's Food!Of course I need it!!!!

Another issue I have had to deal with regarding budgeting food in relation to the rest of my budget, is that my MAIN stay-on-budget “tip” for myself is to not go to stores. So I had to ask, How can I feed my family without going to a store?!

I am not prepared to, nor do I live in a neighborhood that would allow me to, own my own chickens and a cow....

Actually, this question, and my long-term *process* in answering it for myself, has helped me reach my nutrition goals.

As I determined to be better about budgeting in this area, I had to really ask myself about some of the food I was purchasing -- was it really a NEED if it had stuff in it that my body didn't need?
God has given us the Word of Wisdom and it is SO MUCH MORE than just not smoking and drinking!

When I realized this, and really read it, it would make me ask myself: “When was the last time I had fruits?

Honestly, it seemed like I was eating those things sparingly, while pre-packaged, unidentifiable-from-its-origin, processed stuff was my “staff” of life…

President Holland told a great story about starving deer back in 1998 and its message has stayed with me: During a severe winter several years ago, ... a goodly number of deer had died of starvation while their stomachs were full of hay. In an honest effort to assist, agencies had supplied the superficial when the substantial was what had been needed. Regrettably they had fed the deer but they had not nourished them.

Watch out for tricky words on the labels: “Fortified!” “Made with real fruit juice!” "Enriched!" These words sound impressive, but if you consider that they are trying to convince you to buy something that had to be fortified in the first place, it may help steer you to something that doesn't NEED to be enriched because it has the "good stuff" in it naturally... Fresh produce doesn't come with those labels!

So can you eat healthfully AND stay on budget? Actually, I have found that the two goals can go hand-in-hand as long as we don’t get caught up in commercialism (thinking we have to shop at places like Wild Oats).

One answer is to start a new hobby: Gardening! Seeds are extremely cheap, and even if you purchase seedlings, you'll save money in the long run. Soil was definitely "foreign land" to me and I've had to be patient with myself over the past few years as I've determined to make my lawn feed my family something more than dandelion greens. I still very much consider myself on the learning curve and probably will for the next twenty years or so! But with each home-grown tomato, I savor the flavor and the money saved...

If you're not into gardening or you simply want to supplement what you grow, consider joining a CSA group. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is basically like buying into a local farmer's "shares" of his farm. He does all the work, and you just pick it up once a week for about fifteen weeks through the harvest season.

Salt City Pantry is a dot com buying co-op that allows you to purchase the same sorts of things you would buy at places like Wild Oats, but the markup is considerably lower.

Of course, the church encourages food storage and rotation, and I've found that as I try to keep this commandment, it helps me eat more whole foods. First of all, it helps me to purchase foods in bulk (since we're supposed to have a year's worth of storage!). Also, it helps me learn to prepare more of my family's meals from scratch, which is automatically going to be healthier and cheaper than purchasing prepared foods that have to have certain unhealthy preservative-type elements.

*Some of the cookbooks I like are: "Dining on a Dime" by Tawra Kellam which covers so many of the basics that so many of my generation are unfamiliar with... There's also a reader-friendly one called "Savvy Eating for the Whole Family." It's written by a medical doctor/mother who recognizes how important nutrition now is in saving money on medical bills in the future.

At some point, I was introduced to a letter written by the First Presidency that covered the topic of food storage, and it helped me get out of my "lazy" mode concerning making meals from scratch. Again, this has all been a process for me...

One of the hardest tips I had to learn to swallow was to KEEP MY KITCHEN CLEAN… “dirty dishes cause debt” because no one feels like preparing a meal or eating a meal in a dirty kitchen -- it's just "easier" to go out to eat...

*Know how much things cost so you know what a *real* sale is (just because it’s in the ad doesn’t mean it’s a good deal). When I first started on my "path" I kept a "price book" -- I alphabetized the pages and wrote down whatever I bought and how much I paid for it and after a while it was much easier to recognize what was a "good price" and what was a real deal...

As part of the word of wisdom, we're advised to "eat meat sparingly..." and this will definitely make a difference in the budget! I am not a vegetarian, but to help me get more on the sparingly side, I use meat as a side dish, or for flavoring as opposed to as the main dish. You can also make the meat stretch using beans or cracked wheat. (So far, I haven't used cracked wheat, I've just read about it).

Opportunity Costs… when grapes are $1.89 a pound and you’re thinking, “I’m not going to pay that much for grapes!!!” So you go down the aisle and you purchase a package of fruit snacks because they’re on sale for $2.50… Figure your TRUE costs!!! Yes, $1.89 is NOT a sale price for grapes, however, it is LESS than the fruit snacks, it is MUCH better for you than fruit snacks, and you can recognize where it comes from.

*Matching Ads at Wal-mart (currently I have philosophical issues with Wal-mart, so I don't do this anymore, but I got some darn good deals when I did!)

*Coupons (I don’t know much about those because it’s not the kind of food that I eat but there are people who make their entire living from explaining the coupon game)

*Pantry-Shop according to ads, rather than make a list for just that week’s meals, have a WIDE variety of foods on your shelves at any given time, built up over time by having purchased a lot of it JUST when it is on sale. Have a list of meals you can make based on these pantry-ingredients. This is my "main" method right now...

*USE WHAT YOU HAVE!!! We truly live in a land of abundance and we often look at our fairly full cupboards and think “There’s nothing to eat” because it’s EASIER to run to the $5 pizza shop (guilty!) than to use our ingenuity and some elbow grease to concoct something out of what’s already on our shelves. Make dinner based on what needs to be used up! We have leftover rice? We make ham-fried-rice. We have LOTS of zucchini? We slice up some of it and steam it for the side dish, plus we chop it up real tiny and put it in the spaghetti sauce!

Some of the issues we run into as moms:

PROBLEM ONE: Kids seem to prefer pre-packaged stuff that has pretty pictures on it and too much sweet sugar in it. How can we fight this battle? Don’t offer it… don’t purchase it… when it is offered by someone else, let your children have it as a treat (I personally don’t believe in requiring my children NOT to eat it, but to label it as a treat so they know they won’t get it very often). Some of that stuff seriously has as much sugar as cotton candy but you wouldn’t think that it’s okay to offer cotton candy to your children very often!

TEACH your children, by word and by example. Help them learn to read labels. Help them know what kinds of things we WANT to be eating (we call it “good food”) and what kinds of things might be tasty treats for AFTER we have the good stuff in our tummies. Help them know what we need to limit (like high fructose corn syrup, red meat, artificial ingredients, etc) and what it has been shown to do to our bodies.

PROBLEM TWO: Pre-packaged stuff is so much faster… and my life as a mom is too crazy-busy to put much time into home-made, from-scratch etc. etc… I don’t really enjoy cooking and therefore I don't WANT to spend hours a day in the kitchen!!!

*Once-a-month Cooking – freezer meals

*Planned-overs vs. leftovers (PURPOSELY make enough dinner to feed you lunch the next day) – this also helps with the problem with your children because they are more likely to eat what they see in front of them more often!!!

*Beans (believe it or not). These really are a way to reduce your time in the kitchen. The book Country Beans by Rita Bingham has so many tips and tricks -- your conversion to beans will be faster than you ever imagined.

*Boil macaroni for breakfast – it’s as easy and nearly as quick as cereal but has PROTEIN and virtually no sugar so you won't start your children's day with a sugar high (which all too quickly drops to the plunge).

*Home-made or even store-bought mixes make life faster. Consider having breakfast for dinner – French toast, pancakes, etc -- as a fun alternative once in a while.

Humbly consider if there’s anything in your crazy-busy life that you can eliminate SO THAT you can take this aspect of your life seriously. One of the great rules of life is that you will gain the greatest satisfaction from what you put your greatest efforts into. This is true even if it wasn't originally a hobby in your life.

Study after study comes out and tells us what our prophets have already been telling us. As we align ourselves with the prophets, we will feel better. This is true regarding ANY commandment!

“Keep the commandments and ye shall prosper in the land.”

Are there any FULL guarantees? Will we never experience bodily problems like fatigue, cancer, or other issues if we live the word of wisdom? Not necessarily. However, there will come a time when the Lord will ask how we treated this body, and he might choose to explain how he chose what trials to give us.

On a final note, please remember that as you SAVE money on food, you will have more money to give. Choosing to be on a budget does not mean choosing to be stingy. There are so many ways to talk about good karma, what goes around comes around, the philosophy of generosity and why it pays. I really like the following little poem I learned in Reed Benson's class at BYU:

"Give to the needy sweet charity bread,
For giving is living," the angel said.
"Oh, must I be giving again and again?"
My peevish and willful answer ran.
"Oh no" said the angel, piercing me through,
"Just give 'til the Lord stops giving to you."