organic foods on a tight budget

[inky leeuhhh]

sorry, i haven't logged on here for a while and i know this question has probably been asked millions of times, but i can't find the search feature (ok wait, now i think i may be looking at it- im going to post this anyway :oP ). um, alright- moving on. lol. for the last eight or so months ive been going back and forth about quitting work to stay home, which would put us on a really tight budget. we'd have probably about 100$ per week. dh works at a restaraunt, and is able to bring home lots of food, which is great. i like the girls to eat organic food as often as possible though. which foods are most important to buy organic (guessing meat, diary, fruits and veggies). who out there is eating organically on a tight budget? before we started eating organic we were actually able to live rather comfortably on 100$ in grocery money, even having leftover money a lot of the time, so i think we can do it. i'd just love to have some outside opinions. thank you!

[akmeg]

I just want to share that last week I noticed that our Costco started carrying organic while chicken!  It was only $2.29 a pound, that's even cheaper than the conventional hamburger that was $2.79 a pound.  They came in a pack of two for about $20 total.  If you ate one of those a week or even twice a month, that would give you lots of shredded chicken for other meals plus stock if you simmered the bones.  I haven't been buying organic meat because of the cost, but this seemed doable to me!

[inky leeuhhh]

thanks for the tip. im afraid of costco generally because we go in there and its hard for us to not spend $$, but if i made a list first and went by myself it may be doable. we would def be cutting our meat consumption way down though. ive had a hard time getting dd1 to eat stuff like beans and lentils, but we're working on it.

[blumooned]

For organic, I focus on the "dirty dozen" for fruits/veggies.  Essentially, the ones with thinner skins are the ones most likely to be contaminated by chemicals, so they make more sense to buy as organic.  But - sometimes I even buy these as conventional if the price difference is too great.  I do buy organic milk - we don't go through a lot, so the cost is spread out over a long time for us.  We get local, cage-free eggs - I feel this is a good compromise b/w conventional & organic.  For meat, we usually get local, antibiotic-free, hormone-free, etc. instead of organic.  Sometimes though, we just have to get the regular stuff if the other is too much.

For other foods, I usually get the organic brand if the cost difference is low and/or the organic one has better ingredients.  Sometimes we have to get the organic one just to get a clean ingredient list!

When DS was first starting solids through about 15mos, I made sure almost everything he ate was organic.  Now, he eats a mix, just like us!

[Naturopath Mom]

We are on a tight budget and use co-ops to save money. Frontier or United Buying Clubs both have organic/natural foods you can buy at wholesale price. I use United and they have co-ops all over. There is no fee to join the club that I am in.

You can also look for produce co-ops. I run one of these in IL and it is awesome for buying organic produce that can be much more affordable. Hopefully you can find one in your area.

I also agree on focusing on the foods that are most dangerous. Meat and dairy are big ones. For fruits and veggies, just off the top of my head, these are some of the most sprayed:

Strawberries (any berry)

Peaches/Nectarines

Apples

Pears

Cherries

Leafy greens

Celery

Carrots

Cucumbers

Tomatoes

And I would only buy potatoes, corn and soy when it is organic. When it isn't organic, it is more likely to be GMO.

If you can find anything locally, that would probably help save money. I know people that buy cows together and chickens are pretty easy to buy individually.

You can also check out Amazon.com one of my friends buys all her organic foods on there, and if she does it monthly with a scheduled delivery she says she saves all sorts of money.

Hope that helps some :thumb

[inky leeuhhh]

cool guys, thanks! i think i knew a lot of this, i just needed reminding.

[jillkleinpeter]

you might try looking into csa in your area