No job~grocery decisions..............

[luvr2girls]

My husband just lost his job and I am needing some advice regarding groceries. We try to eat in a whole foods/traditional foods sort of way and I would love to continue this practice. I will be shopping soon and am debating on what to buy. We love our local pastured milk that out Whole Foods store offers at $6 a gal, and was going to stock up on free range whole chickens and some grass fed beef. I cannot stand the thought of my kids eating conventional meat and drinking milk that is not organic/pastured. Should I just do as I was planning and just ration it very frugally, or should I just go against everything I feel is right and go conventional for now? Even now, to make this lifestyle more affordable, we eat veggie dinners at least 3 nights a week, and thankfully we belong to a CSA and have paid through May, so we will have local produce for a few weeks. I also have an awesome inexpensive cage-free egg source. So, what would you do? I would love some advice/ideas!!
Thank you!!

[maddymama]

How easy will it be for your DH to get a job? If it looks like it will be quick, then I'd say go ahead and continue to serve traditional foods, good milk, etc. If it looks like it might take him awhile to get a job, then I'd say save as much money as fast as you can. I'd rather eat for a month than only have food for a week, IYKWIM. I'd also buy a ton of dried (organic) beans and rice and stock up on that, and have those be the staples of our diet for a long time, filled out with limited meat and fruit/veggie, but that's just me.
~maddymama

[wife&mommy]

I agree with what maddymama said, I would do the same thing. Good luck to you!

[Sol_y_Paz]

Originally Posted by luvr2girls

My husband just lost his job and I am needing some advice regarding groceries. We try to eat in a whole foods/traditional foods sort of way and I would love to continue this practice. I will be shopping soon and am debating on what to buy. We love our local pastured milk that out Whole Foods store offers at $6 a gal, and was going to stock up on free range whole chickens and some grass fed beef. I cannot stand the thought of my kids eating conventional meat and drinking milk that is not organic/pastured. Should I just do as I was planning and just ration it very frugally, or should I just go against everything I feel is right and go conventional for now? Even now, to make this lifestyle more affordable, we eat veggie dinners at least 3 nights a week, and thankfully we belong to a CSA and have paid through May, so we will have local produce for a few weeks. I also have an awesome inexpensive cage-free egg source. So, what would you do? I would love some advice/ideas!!
Thank you!!

This happened to us personally. Hope things look up for you soon.
Start to get very creative, home make more things if you don't already. Eat way less meat. Cut out expensive pre-packaged snacks, air popped pop corn is a cheap and good snack for instance. Cut out desserts every night. We started a small garden, this has big returns on investment. Keep things much more simple, for instance, instead of 12 veggies in your stir-fry, salads, or homemade pizza, scale down that number. Beans, rice, whole wheat pasta, are economical and healthy and can be used to make many nice portions in dips, stews, etc. Make menus and have a strict grocery list and budget before you visit the grocery store.
Scale down portions for parents. I would rather not drink milk than use the cheapest Wal-mart milk, we tried for a short time to buy cheap stuff, but ended up not wanting it after all. Cheap food isn't really cheap when you consider the real cost of it kwim? And the taste is way different too.
Hope this helps some.

[Magelet]

I'd look at how much money we have, the likelyhood of DH finding a job again soon vs. it taking a long time, and your other resources (can you garden? are there people who bought chickens to lay eggs, and some of them are roosters who they are trying to sell that you can get cheap to eat? now is the season).

I think if you can afford it, I would start limiting the expensive things, AND I would start directing them towards the children. For instance, I would stop drinking milk, so that the children could have the expensive milk. If I had to have milk in coffee, I would drink conventional (hormone free) milk, just a dash for that purpose.) I would make a lot more stock, and organ meat and ground meat dishes, and start eating meat in meat form maybe once or twice a week MAX, the rest would be stock, or veggie with cheese, grain and legume.

If you can, you can keep eating this way. If you can't afford it, you still have to feed your children and yourselves, and that's that. Eating real (conventional) butter is still better than margerine. soaking dried beans is still better than canned. conventional meat is still better than soy protein. conventional eggs are still a healthy food. stock is still nourishing. It won't be permanent, however you may have to give up pastured and grass-fed meats and dairy for a while. If so, at least you are still able to use traditional preparation, which is hugely important.

[hildare]

personally i would do two things
apply for state benefits, whatever you may be eligible for (WIC or Foodstamps)
and since it's a good time of the year, grow whatever you can however you can. you can do amazing things in containers if you have no space, and even more using a square foot method.
sorry about the loss of income hope he ends up getting a job he loves, if that's what you guys are looking for to happen.