Extreme Grocery Budgets Come With Benefits

 

The most obvious benefit of having an extremely low budget for groceries is that I don’t spend a lot of money at the grocery stores.  That allows me to put more into savings and to budget in other areas such as the high heating bills in winter.  It allows me to let my children participate in school activities and buy them the supplies they need for those activities.  It allows us the luxury of having pets in our home which we absolutely love and cannot imagine living without.  It allows me the luxury of being able to have two vehicles to drive.

 

Less obvious, but the fact that I purchase much healthier food options to prepare our meals is one of the best benefits.  In fact I prefer to look at it as purchasing ingredients to make food rather than purchasing food itself.  It is much less expensive to purchase ingredients to make my food than to buy it already made.  And because I get a lot more food doing it that way I need to purchase less ingredients in the long run.  I also have the added benefit of knowing what is in our food rather than having unknown items like additives, fillers and preservatives.  Suffice it to say, we don’t purchase much in the way of any junk.

 

Because our food is more wholesome and healthy we eat a lot less.  That requires less cooking, which means less time in the kitchen and fewer dishes and pots and pans to wash.  Our kitchen stays a lot cleaner too which makes it much easier to manage.  Another great benefit to eating better food is that we are easily able to maintain our weight and we are much more active and healthy as a result.  That means we don’t have to go to the doctor as often and none of us are on any prescription medications.

 

We require less food storage because we require less food to fuel ourselves.  We have a small chest freezer in our garage, a standard size side by side refrigerator/freezer in our kitchen and a small well stocked pantry (which used to be our coat closet near our front door).  Along with food it stores my larger cooking pans, extra baking pans, BBQ utensils and picnic/party ware, trash bags, extra egg cartons, extra food storage containers, lunch boxes and even some of our prepper pantry items.  It is a very busy and well utilized little pantry.

 

The extra benefit that comes with an extreme budget is that we’ve developed habits that carry us through no matter what is going on in the world around us.  Having a minimal grocery budget teaches us to set limits and learn to live within those limits.  It forces us to really think about what we are purchasing and why.  It makes us develop skills so we can cook from scratch and shop well within our budget.  It also teaches us the value of our money and our food so we aren’t wasteful.  Mostly, I find it challenging and that is a lot of fun for me.  Having fun is the best benefit of all!