Boutenko Article--How Much My Family Spends

[Raene]

OMG, that's sooo much money. I'm shocked.

http://www.vegetarianbaby.com/articles/rawhowmyfamilyeats.shtml

[Dimond]

It's well worth it because you're saving time & money not going to doctors, not taking meds, not having surgery, and usually not being sick.

$338 per month ($84.50/wk) per person is cheap. Practically every SAD person pays way more, especially because they're eating out, picking up food, getting delivery, buying movie snacks, drinking alcohol at bars or clubs, etc. Many of us raw are paying more than that per month, so that's pretty good. I like how Victoria is creative in finding ways to make it as affordable as possible, even when she didn't have much money.

[rawnpawgirl]

Geez, i must be doing something wrong! I spend up and over $100 per week just for me!! Without leftovers at the end of the week!

[Vivafree2]

When i do not plan and shop for what i need i overspend too- when i buy with plan - i am much better off - have stacked almonds, seeds, nuts and dates, frozen berries, nutritional east, seeds for sprouting, cacao powde, shreded coconut, coconut oil ...- this is the biggest chunk of money for me - when i have enough of that for the month than i go every few days ( on the good week i can buy once a week ) to buy fruits, avos, greens , muxhrooms - but most of the time i do not shop counciously and spend more money. Thank i can shop when i see best price for seeds and nuts and in bulk. I spend between 40-80 per week and getting better.

[oai]

Our family spends about $100/wk, & we're only 3 people. :o My insurance used to be $141/month. I've since dropped the insurance.

Why is the whole article in link format?

[RawHeaven]

I agree with Raene that's a huge chunk of cash. I understand the hidden costs of medical insurance and eating SAD, but still....that's a lot of cash to spend on groceries. I have one raw mouth to feed, Me, and I spend about $75-100 a week and this equates to a huge amount of fresh produce, nuts, seeds, flax crackers etc. I think I'd have too much food with $45 per day even in high cost of living California. They must be buying gourmet ingredient stuff also???? I didn't read the entire article...my attention deficit disorder kicked in, LOL.

[Raene]

Yeah, I'm 100% raw and my daughter's maybe 75% and we spend $350 per month. I guess it helps that I work at a HFS and we get a 17.5% discount. But I have free insurance so I don't really see that it makes a diff with that...
Oh, and it's 99% organic foods.

[SandraDee]

I'm pretty sure my hubby would be asking for a divorce if I spent that much :p Right now I'm just buying regular produce... not organic b/c it really doesn't exist "bountifully" around here... and because I refuse to pay those prices. It also sucks when local farmers tell their friends that they just label their produce organic and then sell it for more... even tho it's totally just regular produce. For now this will have to do for me.

[FloridaPatty]

when one retires for health insurance and medical things. $12,000 a year. That's with Medicare! 20 years of retirement with cost the average person 1/2 of a million dollars! I refuse to work my entire life so I can support the medical system when I retire.

[theresaann]

Yeah, eating organic produce in the amounts needed for raw definitely is expensive.

I'm a single mom with two kids, who won't eat raw with me (yet ;), so I have two menus to buy for :(

I think between all of us I spend about $900 a month on food. it's a lot. I don't have health insurance, and I agree with Victoria-I would much rather buy good food than spend money on other stuff. I feel really rich to get to eat this way, even if I buy clothes at salvation army.

This summer I am planting a huge vegetable garden (a first for me) so hopefully we wont' have many produce costs!

Another thing-nuts are SO expensive here. I just paid THIRTEEN DOLLARS for about 2 cups of organic almonds. When she rang them up I was too embarrassed to put them back, but I am not going to buy organic ones for awhile...thats just ridiculous....

[FloridaPatty]

Isn't it illegally to deliberately mislabel food?

I eat pretty well and spend roughly £25/week. Keep in mind that £1 here buys about what $1 buys in the US.

Our dollar is tanking. £1 is now equal to 50 cents.

[Aleesha Sattva]

Why is the whole article in link format?

because there's a coding error on the page.

[raven]

i'm single and feel fortunate to be able to afford the very best food. i do have to make other sacrifices though. if i had a family, i don't know how i'd afford it. people can waste a lot of money on a SAD diet but there are also many more options for spending very little. i shop every day and when i buy organic i spend 5-10x as much for produce. i consume a ton of produce weekly in smoothies, juices and salads. the best quality oils and nut butters, while i don't use these products in excess, are more expensive than whatever adulerated, rancid oils and peanut butters are sold in supermarkets. raw organic nuts are expensive, whole food supplements - maca, camu, mesquite are expensive. b12, which we should supplement with, and good quality enzymes are expenisve. sea veggies - expensive too. if i don't prepare my own juice, it costs $8 for an organic veggie juice in NYC. a meal at Jubb's or Quintessence is $20-30. if you want to eat a varied and balanced diet over the long run, there's no way raw is going to be cheap.

SAD foods are available in bulk and that brings the cost down. SAD people can also go to a warehouse store and stock up at reduced prices. i go occasionally to BJ's or Costco but there's not much i can buy, although they may have some organic lettuce and i don't care if my avocaodes aren't organic.

suzy

[shashibala]

i am struggling with the cost of quality food. I have very little money, and what i have i spend mostly on food. We buy nothing new, no clothes, no furniture, etc.. I used to eat a whole foods veg diet of vegies, fruits, grains, and beans mostly and that was very affordable. Now i am spending double even with all the money saving tips i come up with and learned here. My first two months i put much of our food on a credit card and it was worth it to me. I am losing weight and healing asthma and fibromyalgia. I would never go back, but it is a big stretch. I hope that as I go along I will eat less and less. I can't ask my 21 year old daughter to eat less. She is into raw, but needs food! It is my biggest priority right now. I don't have access to health insurance, so I am in a hurry to heal my body! I live in an inner city neighborhood and It makes me very sad for the many poor people, my neighbors, who are living on all processed foods because they are cheap.
I would also add that having no health insurance feels precarious to me. I would have it if I could. We can control many degeneritive
diseases and life style related illnesses, but if I was in an accident or broke something I would like to have medical care without going bankrupt and losing my house. I think doctors know little about nutrition and general good health, but they are wizards at putting broken parts back together.

[oai]

yep. that's the only thing I'd need medical insurance for as well -- broken parts. :D

[RawSinger]

It's really not that much for a family of four. At first the number is a little shocking but when she divides it among four people, it seems pretty normal. We spend about $100 per week for me and my boyfriend, but mostly for me. And most of the food we buy isn't organic! There's no question that the raw diet isn't the cheapest way to go but there's also no question that it's worth it! You could eat the cheapest diet possible: boxes of processed pasta w/ canned sauce, pancakes, and canned vegetables, but we all know that you'd be starving for the proper nutrition. In order to stay raw, I go without brand new clothes every season, the newest cell phone, and I only go to a movie on occasion. It's worth it. Your health is so much more important.

[islesgirl]

When you speak of spending so much a week or a month on groceries, are you including soaps, toilet paper, etc. or just raw food?

[Betsy]

Yeah, I'm 100% raw and my daughter's maybe 75% and we spend $350 per month. I guess it helps that I work at a HFS and we get a 17.5% discount. But I have free insurance so I don't really see that it makes a diff with that...
Oh, and it's 99% organic foods.

Raene, How do you feed two people 100 percent raw on $350.00 per month? Please tell us what you eat!

We spend twice that much,and I would like to have some tips to cut that bill in half!

Its really difficult with the high prices where we live,not many farmers markets, just pricey places like Whole Foods, ect. We buy 100 percent organic, which doesn't help.

[Raene]

Here's a typical menu for me:
Breakfast-- 1 or 2 fruits with almond butter
Mid-Morning Snack-- Green smoothie consisting of 1/4 c hemp seeds, 2-3 bananas, chard/kale/spinach/collards/parsley (whatever I have on hand), apple or pear, and about a cup of frozen berries (makes 1 quart)
Snack--handful of nuts, soaked
Lunch--Green salad with nutritional yeast and olive oil
Snack-- 2 oranges
Later Snack-- carrot sticks or red pepper sticks
Dinner-- Green salad with avocado or sunflower seeds
Dessert-- fruit w/ almond butter or pudding

My daughter (4 yrs):
B'fast-- banana "oatmeal" w/ cinnamon, small glass of green smoothie
Snack-- fruit at school
Lunch-- raw almond butter on a cooked whole wheat tortilla, 1 fruit, 1 dried papaya or 3 figs, small kale salad, handful of soaked nuts
Snack-- nuts or fruit
Dinner-- usually all cooked-- beans, whole-grain, and vegetable with a small raw salad and avocado slices
Dessert-- raw pudding or a smoothie

I keep it simple, I think. Usually the hemp seeds in my morning smoothie fill me up and I am often not hungry for snacks until mid-afternoon. I don't buy exotic foods very often, and I buy frozen fruit by the case to save 5%. I do supplement with Vitamineral Green occasionally, but other than that, nothing fancy.
The only thing I buy that's not organic is avocados. They are expensive enough as it is...in my opinion...but everything else is organic. I don't like sprouts, unfortunately, but if I sprouted I would save a lot more $.

[eachpeachpearplum]

I applaud & envy those who can spend less however. . . .

I take out $350 four times a month so that's $1400. That includes all food and household items like loo roll, toothpaste, laundry soap etc.

I prepare food for two adults (1 x cooked, 1 x 100% raw) and two young mostly raw children.

As I have been doing this awhile I now have a nice full raw pantry and only need to top up. I shop online (www.alissacohen.com) for items like cocoa powder, nibs & butter; irish moss etc. The shops I go to are Costco, one major supermarket and a HFS like healthfood store. In the summer I do as much farmers markets as possible and source local honey in bulk. I also get superfood raw cocoa bars shipped from the UK (www.rawliving.co.uk). These bars are barely sweetened and my kids love them - Kate packs them with superfoods.

We spend the most of everyone we know by a long way. However I have a friend with the same family makeup as mine and she spend almost the exact same - I was so releaved when we compared our budgets.

My husband initially asked why our food is so much more expensive. I explained that most SAD eaters go to Costco and load up on empty convinience foods such as bread, chips, juice boxes, cookies, cracker, pizz,a cheese, deli meat, frozen meals, candy like granola bars, cake like muffins, bagels, hot dogs, buns. . . you get the idea. Ahuge amount of lightweight goods with no nutritional value to speak of and generally fairly cheap. When I go to Costo I hit the fruit & veg area then the frozen section for bags of berries. Also T.P and paper towels every other month. Then I leave. On average I spend between $120 - $160 at week at Costco depending on time of year.

Added note: We would love to move back to the UK but I think the cost of food would literally kill us finacncially :eek: given the exchange rate.

[Betsy]

Raene-Wow, you don't eat much, I probably eat easily over twice that. Think me needs 'ta cut down me portions! That would save money. Out of all the household members, I eat the most.

It's so expensive to live.

[Aleesha Sattva]

I applaud & envy those who can spend less however. . . .

I take out $350 four times a month so that's $1400. That includes all food and household items like loo roll, toothpaste, laundry soap etc.

how about changing to FBWs? *flannel bum wipes* you take some flannel... cut it into 4" wide strips and 5-7" long. make it 4-ply as that is the thickness which makes them last longer and are better absorbancy.

i'm still using a couple of my very first wipes (i know cause they were made out of cloth diapers) 14 years ago!!! i wash them in warm water with soap. dry like normal.

[Betsy]

The thought....
Think I'm gonna throw up..

[Raene]

Lol. Yeah, I'm into that, but my partner always gets grossed out when I mention trying it for a while.

[iamacranberry]

Our dollar is tanking. £1 is now equal to 50 cents.

I know that. But the way things are priced, £1 here buys about what $1 buys in the States. That's why it's so cheap to order stuff from America right now...lol

And it's the other way around...50p = $1.

[faith4u]

We are pretty similar to eachpeachpearplum.

We spend $1600 per month for a family of 6. I am the only raw one in the bunch but my family eats a lot of the raw foods that I buy.

I think the cost of foods has risen dramatically in the last 8 or 9 years. I believe that is a huge part of it.

[iamacranberry]

Everything is too expensive these days...especially here. At least it isn't like prices in Norway or something...