Eating paleo, gluten and grain free

[MrsBone]

I am the only one that needs to eat paleo and grain free, but my kids are gluten free. DH can eat whatever. I eat mostly organic and try to stay away from processed foods. There are a couple processed items we buy for convenience but I try to ration it! I run a natural foods co-op with my family and do most if the work so I get a big discount on my local organic produce. I pay 25.00 for a 20 gal bin of produce every 2 weeks. What we pay for meat through the co-op is higher but I'm going to start buying it differently. Going in on a half a pig or half a cow. Things like that. I really am having a hard time grasping sacrificing spending less money on meat since my diet is so limited. I eat mainly meat, veg, nuts, a little dairy, fruit, eggs, honey, healthy fats and grain free flours. My question is, does 600.00/month sound high for eatig mostly organic, little processed foods, including toiletries and non food grocery items? The great thing about my co-op is that I can pretty much order in bulk and get the biggest discount whenever I need to, including my almond flour at 5.00/lb. ill try and do better at rationing it than I have. DH just got a new job. Pays a lot less but we're going to be fine.. Plus we have a huge buffer in savings. I am trying to trim where I can but I just don't want to sacrifice the quality of my food! does this sound reasonable? We live I a rural town in North Texas. Also I'm going tin start making gluten free bread from scratch rather than buying the 5.00-6.00 loaves from the store for my kids

[MrsBone]

Family of 4 by the way! One preschooler and one toddler!

[dziejen]

We pay about $600 a month for 2 adults, 2 big kids, and a 5 yr old. We eat mostly unprocessed whole foods. This doesn't include all of our toiletries but we live in the Northeast (MA) so I think our food prices may be different.

[LoveOurBabies]

No way, definitely not too much! That sounds really good actually. My costs come in at around $1300 a month on a really good month. Family of 6 here. :)
 

[LoveOurBabies]

I should add that this doesn't include organic meats or vegetables, I buy our vegetables only from the farmers markets and I don't buy anything canned/packaged (e.g. tuna) until it is half price.

[vanni]

We have switched to a grain-free, paleo-based diet and I'm trying to get a sense of the cost and how to make it work! We live in a rural area and it takes some planning to access organic veg and grass-fed meats. Not impossible, but you can't just walk into the store and grab'n'go. The co-op is a 30 minute drive. Today I'll be picking up an order of grassfed beef direct from a farmer. Nothing makes me happier than a stocked freezer! I'm considering signing up for a spring CSA for $29 per week for 8-10 kinds of vegetables. What do you all think?

I've actually had a blast trying the grain-free/paleo approach - lots of new recipes and experimentation! I just hope I can get a good base of easy recipes together before I burn out on all this cooking!
 

[root*children]

We are grain-free, kind of like paleo, but also do dairy... I think that's called lacto-paleo if you wanted to label it.  The raw milk is an added expense to all the things you already have listed.  I spend about $600/month, family of 5 - two older kids, but 1 toddler who doesn't eat a lot.  We do meat from local farmer, have our own chickens and ducks and in the warmer months have a ridiculous amount of veggies and fruits from our own yard, so hopefully we can get below $600 in the Summer!  I have started using a lot of offal (liver, heart) either subbed for meat or as a percentage of the meat (added into ground beef usually), which cuts down on the cost and is so much more nutritious!

We already do make our own flour (coconut and almond), but even though I love baked goods, I just don't find the time to make them more than once a week, so we really just don't eat many bread products.  I haven't even found any at the store that are actually grain free (only gluten free ones), so that's not a temptation :)

We also do have a great scratch-and-dent food store here with lots of organic foods that fit our diet!
 

[Momsteader]

I think it sounds pretty good! Making your own breads sounds like that could be a good place to save some money too.  We are GF and moving towards lacto-paleo (hey thanks root!) as we just can't give up our dairy! NOM NOM! 

[crunchy_mommy]

$600 sounds good, we have similar diets in our house and spend a little less (usually under $450) but only have 1 kid, plus we don't really eat much meat. I think grain-free flours & substitutes do tend to be more expensive, so we limit those & focus a lot on veggies. We also started using some corn flour because it's cheap, though obviously not grain-free, but we needed a cheap filler food in there somewhere, that & potatoes...

[dishandspoon]

I'm so glad that I found this forum! We're also a Primal-eating family of three with one on the way. I keep crossing my fingers to be able to save up for a freezer and to get in on a cow share or pig share one of these days. Right now, we simply make due with food from the grocery store as best we can, but we avoid all grains (I have Celiac). Hubs and the little one have pizza on Friday nights as their special treat, but I obviously skip that. I'd say we spend around $400 a month on food, give or take. We save a lot of money buying frozen veggies and drinking water instead of soda or other things. Our state isn't raw milk friendly, though I would definitely spring for that if I could. 

Wow, I'm running off on a tangent, sorry!

[jazzybaby9]

Family of 2 and with our new diet I'm spending an average of $600/m.

What am I doing wrong?!

[MrsBone]

So I made bread for the kids and it turned out really good but the kids didn't eat it. My son would just as soon eat a lettuce wrap than bread. They are both stuck on eggs for breakfast.", they don't really like oatmeal or anything, so I guess I can't complain since the prefer unprocessed food. Gonna have to just stick to what works!!