Food in the mail!

We're trying to penny pinch a little bit around here.  Our food bill is killing us!  We're on a psuedo-Paleo diet as a family and eating all fresh (mostly organic and natural) produce and meats with virtually no processed/packaged foods is CRAZY expensive.  The few baked items we eat are made from pricey nut and coconut flours.  George is suggesting we scrap the diet for all but me since I am the only one who has to eat that way, but I want to try harder to save first.

So I'm a sale girl now.  And I am maybe a bulk girl; I'm still working on that one.  I've done research on buying a half cow and storing it in a chest freezer.  We are also back to getting all of our fruits and veggies through Door-to-Door Organics.

My theory is, if I can buy online, have things delivered, save on bulk, than George and I won't be impulse-crazy shoppers at the grocery store, or not as often at least.  And I'm hoping, through buying bulk meats and such online, we can get the cost of our food down to at least semi-normal for a 3-person family.  (I read online that the national average for a family of three is around $450.  We're waaaaaaay over that, but then again we buy lots of eco/organic/natural.  I wonder if there is an adjusted average somewhere for people who try to eat responsibly and healthfully.)

Anyway, I've been LOVING receiving my Door-to-Door orders every week.  Thursday is D2D day and Regin and I make and activity out of it.  We unpack the box and he gets to help me sort the fruits and veggies and put them in baskets that go in the pantry and then wash and put away the stuff that goes in the fridge. It's so much fun!  And so cute!  (I'll have to get some photos/video of it)  And it's nice to have the variety D2D supplies.  But even with their largest box it's hard to keep us fed for the week (Paleo is fruit-and-veg HEAVY) so I am experimenting with add-ons so we can still avoid the extra spending we do at the physical grocery store. 

Well that's fine, but that's just our fruit and veg, what about meat?  Oh my goodness, have you any idea how expensive it is to eat grass-fed/pastured/etc.?  And I've been extremely nervous about ordering meats online.  Shipping?  Raw meat??  E coli & salmonella anyone???  But I'm happy to report that we received our first batch of 6 chickens today (via UPS) that were still fully frozen, even after being shipped "ground"! Will this same thing be true in the summer?  I don't know.  But the shipment did originate in Florida, I believe.

 

  

 

I also received 20lbs of coconut flour since I was able to get it on sale for under $5 a lb.  Yay!

I'm still searching for a reasonable price on almond flour.  At the stores here it's generally $11-13/lb! OUCH!

Soon I should be receiving some bulk organic herbs, spices, and teas, as well as some seaweed chips (not organic) that I finally found online.  I have been missing those since we left Penang!

I joked to George that I should start selling organic foods with all this bulk ordering I'm doing!  Well, I don't know about that, but I do hope that this makes a significant and positive impact on our food bill.  Wish us luck!


P.S. I'm NOT thrilled about the extra packaging it means to ship things to me, especially all that plastic and styrofoam, YUCK!  But we're desperate to cut some costs while hopefully maintaining this healthy diet.  I'll go all local, no packaging, when I have more money.