Day 5 by xtina

Hey, it's day 5!
I slept great last night, and wasn't grumpy today.  Thankful for both of those things.


Here's what I have eaten today:

Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs, one large red delicious apple

Lunch: Chicken salad and a big chunk of broccoli, raw

Afternoon snack: Chicken broth w/leftover pieces of roasted chicken in it

Dinner: Haven't eaten it yet, but it will be sirloin steaks and mixed greens or spinach

Whole30 on a budget

Today, I want to talk about how much food to buy and how much it will cost.  All the blogs I see are always using organic everything, and I always wonder what kinds of budgets those folks have.  Mine is terribly small. Our family income is in the "Working Poor" status, so we have to make every penny count!

One thing we do spend a large chunk of money on is our food.  We realize that spending more now is an investment in our family's overall health.  Spending now on quality foods will allow us to make fewer trips to the doctor and to have to pay for fewer prescriptions in the future!  I am excited that we realize that we have control over these factors. It does take some creative budgeting and a true desire to make it work, but it can work, so don't be discouraged.

Before starting the Whole30, we averaged around $140/wk for our family of four: 1Male, 35 years; 3 Females - 30 years, 10years, 10 years.
This first week has been especially hard on our budget because we really had no idea how much food we would "need" to be eating.  And almost all of the food we have consumed so far has been fresh.  So that meant we needed to make a few trips to the store.  We made THREE.  I hate going even once per week, so what I am doing right now will help me consolidate my trips, I believe, and help others with some numbers.

Grocery Details

Based on what I ate this week, I can safely say that I am able to eat three bags of organic, fresh, washed greens per week.  So I know to buy that many now on shopping day (plus whatever I work out for the other members of my family).
As a family, we have gone through three cartons of eggs this week.  We have also eaten two big bunches of bananas, which I know are not the best fruit choice because they are very carb-heavy, but they're something everybody in the house will eat.
We also ate 32 oz. of strawberries, 2 kiwi, several apples and half of a very large bag of frozen blueberries.
As far as our protein goes, I am going to have to take a few minutes to tally that up, but I do know we have had two whole chickens, at least one pound of ground beef, four small sirloin steaks, and almost a whole pack of Applegate Farms beef hot dogs.

I do have a few things of meat in the freezer and still have some bacon and lunch meats in the fridge.  So I won't have to buy hardly any meat this week.
In total, we spent $250 on food this week, so I am going to make a very strong attempt to buy only $50 worth of food during the next week!  I think I can do it - I just need to choose some fruits that are in season, probably, instead of ones that are not.

Anyway, this is just a bit of reality on how this all works.  I don't work outside the home, so if you do, you will need to factor in your time as well.  It might be super hard, but it is ONLY for 30 days!!!  After that, you can add some of your old favorites back into your diet if they still work for you.  But for now - you can do this!

-xtina