Confessions and Accountability

Count us in as one of those families who love to cook, try new foods and places, and hit up farmer’s markets. It’s true; we totally buy into the organic, local, sustainably-sourced, eco-friendly, fair trade, know where your food comes from movement.  And even better if you can grow it on your own and barter!

But it is nary cheap nor easy.

While working on our home budget last night, we were at a loss as to why our expenses were high in the month of November. And I mean out of the ordinary high in a raise your eyebrow and say, “Hmmmmmm”. Did we add wrong? No. Was a dishonest charlatan parading around with our identity and check book? Uh-uh.  What it came down to was food. In an attempt to strategize and work the system, we had failed! We tried something new where we shopped the best deals and used coupons. Which sounds foolproof.  Get these items at Costco. Buy all our protein at Whole Foods. Produce from the indoor farmers market. Good frozen meals from Trader Joes. Cheap staples from Raleys. And all the while we were using every coupon and rewards system possible.  So what happened?

I’ll tell you what happened in just a minute. I’d like to digress to this awesome article from NPR. Y’all know we love some NPR.  In the article, researchers looked at the cost of food in other countries and the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods. They determined the difference came down to about $1.50 a day. Then they applied the same metrics to the US of A and guess what the difference was? I’ll tell you, $1.50 a day. Don’t believe me? Read it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/05/249072685/what-separates-a-healthy-and-unhealthy-diet-just-1-50-per-day?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook

That equates to $42 a month to eat healthier. Which for some budgets, is a serious stretch! I think the researchers were trying to say that using the excuse of healthy food costing more as a reason for not purchasing it, is not an excuse at all. Well, maybe not alone. You have to take into consideration other factors.  What does it take to prepare a healthy meal? Time, Money, Tools, Space, Accessibility, Know-how, Motivation. Feel free to add to that list. So, let’s break that down.

Time: How much time do families have? Between school, work, activities, homework, prep work for the next day and more, time goes by quickly! If you work multiple jobs, it might be challenging getting from one job to the next and ensuring the family is ok. If you travel a lot for work, you might not have the time to spend on preparing and cooking a full meal.  Have you ever chopped vegetables? I don’t know about y’all, but I am not on the Food network for a reason! And I like cooking. But it takes times to wash, prep, pick the right knife, chop, and rinse again.

Money: Well that’s pretty self-explanatory.  

Tools: If you live in a hotel, or an efficiency (small and/or crappy apt) you might not have a full range oven and stove, sink, or basic appliances. There are some recipes I just would not do if I did not have my handy dandy hand held mixer or toaster or food processor. And I have lived in that place where all we had was a microwave and a hot plate to make dinner. It’s challenging. And not everything fits in a microwave.   

Space: Counter space is important. If not a counter, the dining room table. If not a table, the coffee table. I do not encourage trying to use a hot plate on the floor, but really, what should you do if that’s what you have?  In our apt in Chicago, we had almost no counter space. In our current place, I am happily surrounded by space. It really saves times being able to prepare multiple items at once!

Accessibility: We talk all the time about how blessed we are to have access to just about any kind of food we’d like. But there are cities and communities who do not have access to fresh food or grocery stores. Or the transportation to get to grocery stores and fresh foods.

Know-How:  If someone handed you a whole chicken and told you to go make dinner, could you do it? Would you know how to cut it up, clean it up and prepare it? And if you didn’t, would you you-tube it or ask someone who did know? It’s cheaper to buy a whole chicken, then pre-cut, but that does you no good if you don’t know what to do with it! To this day I still can’t make gravy. It NEVER comes out right. It seems the most basic of recipes, but I totally buy pre-packaged and pray I drink enough water during the meal to combat the sodium! True story.

Motivation: Maybe eating better isn’t a priority for you. That’s cool.

Eating healthy should be easy. But it is not.  I think we put pressure on each other to eat and shop and cook a certain way.  When I tell people I used to make my own baby food, they want to sing songs about what a good Earth mother I was and how my babies were getting the very best of the best and good for me for breast feeding. Yada Blah Blah. Ummm…hello, breastfeeding was free! That was truly my first thought. For the first 6 months I didn’t have to buy any food, I could literally make it. Talk about convenient- anywhere, anytime the baby could eat. Nursing lasted 11 months with Cass and 12 with Savvy. Once we introduced food around 5 months old, it was way cheaper to buy some sweet potatoes and puree those bad boys than buy jars! Yes, I’m glad the girls were getting good nutrition, but honey, that was not my initial motivation! I had real maternity leave and the time and support to do it.  Savvy is 14 months old and I haven’t made real food for her since I started grad school. 

So let’s get back to our failure in the month of November.  We are some privileged people. I’m not talking figuratively as that’s a whole other conversation. I’m talking literally. Going back to my list: Time, Money, Tools, Space, Accessibility, Know-how, Motivation. We have the time. I work part time and get to create my schedule. We don’t commute far- praise Jesus! Money. We both work and know how to count and add and multiply. Plus we get some extra income from selling items to kids re-sale shops, the occasional photo job, and taking advantage of awesome hand me downs (thank you Teri Galvin!). We aren’t extravagant and do not lead a willy-nilly lifestyle. We have the tools. Some pretty fun ones actually. Next time you are over you have got to see these cute, white ceramic jars I got in the clearance section of Cost Plus World market! You can write on the label with chalk and they have green and turquoise lids. Cute! Accessibility-check.  Know-how- check. Motivation….mmmhmmm. Boom. There it is.

We got lazy.

I said it. I will say it again. I confess, we got lazy. We stopped tracking. At the end of the day we were tired and would rather sit and talk about nothing, or watch a movie while the girls were sleeping, or have quite journaling, meditation, prayer, reading time. And in those moments our spending got out of control because we had created a false sense of security.  “Look at how much we saved with these coupons! Let’s throw in some other stuff we saw on the end-cap of that aisle! Let’s try this new recipe that calls for super expensive spices! I have a groupon, let’s eat out!”

Thankfully, we caught ourselves and are back on the road to savvy shopper meets diligent accountant. We have these fantastic goals and dreams of one day having a huge garden, trading and bartering with our friends who have chickens, and canning our own foods. That is a lot of work. If we can’t manage our little operation now, we won’t be able to manage those larger things in the future.   So there you have it folks. Please learn from our mistakes this holiday season and remain vigilant J