Saving Money and Eating Healthy
A lot of the posts on this blog, especially lately, have been about making money, but I try not to forget that one of the reasons I started blogging was because I wanted to talk about saving money as well. Because when you think about it, saving money is the same as making money -- the end result is more money in your wallet.
When I was a kid, my family didn't have a lot of money, so the whole "frugal living" thing was pretty much just normal life for us. When I got older and started making money, it felt good to be able to spend freely, without having to worry about pinching every penny. Unfortunately, I started spending a little too freely, and ended up in debt. But that's another story.
Things changed when my wife and I found out we were going to be parents. Up until then, we'd been focusing a lot on creating the life we wanted as a couple. And since the life we wanted (or thought we wanted) cost a lot of money, we worked a lot to get the money to pay for it. And we were happy. But when we started thinking about what kinds of parents we wanted to be, we decided we wanted a more balanced lifestyle. We did NOT want to be workaholic parents who didn't know their own children. So we started making changes.
And we're still making changes. Over the past nine years, the way we think about money, success, and happiness have changed a lot. And so has the way we live. And one of the biggest changes we've made (and are still continuing to make) is the way we eat. Which is why I enjoyed reading Trent's post at The Simple Dollar called How The Farm Bill Affects Your Wallet And Your Health - And Ten Ways To Eat Healthy and Cheap Anyway.
Nine years ago, we weren't doing any of the things on Trent's list. We ate out a lot, and yet we were also spending a fortune on groceries -- mostly on junk food, instant this and microwave that. But not any more. Now we cook a lot of good, healthy, cheap meals from scratch.
We buy most of our fruits and vegetables from the farmer's market instead of the supermarket.
We're getting better about buying foods in season.
We've been cooking in bulk (including "instameals") and freezing for years, and now we're thinking about getting into canning and preserving as well.
We got a great deal on a crockpot in an after-Xmas sale last year, and we're discovering more great crockpot dishes all the time.
We "repurpose" a lot of our leftovers, and use them in soups, stews, wraps, pies and pastries so that very little food goes to waste.
I agree with Trent that one of the keys to making healthy foods taste good is to learn how to enhance the foods' flavours with the right herbs and spices. We've grown our own herbs in the past, but not for the last few years. That's something we'd like to start doing again. We'd also like to do a bit of microgardening (container gardening) and try producing some tomatoes, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, beans, bell peppers, etc.
I think the "food exchange" idea is a good one, and I'd be interested to find out if anybody is doing anything like that in our area.
It amazes me how many people devote so much time and energy to making money, but don't seem to think much about how they spend that money. I think that's a very dangerous way to live -- especially when it comes to things like health and nutrition.
When I was a kid, my family didn't have a lot of money, so the whole "frugal living" thing was pretty much just normal life for us. When I got older and started making money, it felt good to be able to spend freely, without having to worry about pinching every penny. Unfortunately, I started spending a little too freely, and ended up in debt. But that's another story.
Things changed when my wife and I found out we were going to be parents. Up until then, we'd been focusing a lot on creating the life we wanted as a couple. And since the life we wanted (or thought we wanted) cost a lot of money, we worked a lot to get the money to pay for it. And we were happy. But when we started thinking about what kinds of parents we wanted to be, we decided we wanted a more balanced lifestyle. We did NOT want to be workaholic parents who didn't know their own children. So we started making changes.
And we're still making changes. Over the past nine years, the way we think about money, success, and happiness have changed a lot. And so has the way we live. And one of the biggest changes we've made (and are still continuing to make) is the way we eat. Which is why I enjoyed reading Trent's post at The Simple Dollar called How The Farm Bill Affects Your Wallet And Your Health - And Ten Ways To Eat Healthy and Cheap Anyway.
Nine years ago, we weren't doing any of the things on Trent's list. We ate out a lot, and yet we were also spending a fortune on groceries -- mostly on junk food, instant this and microwave that. But not any more. Now we cook a lot of good, healthy, cheap meals from scratch.
We buy most of our fruits and vegetables from the farmer's market instead of the supermarket.
We're getting better about buying foods in season.
We've been cooking in bulk (including "instameals") and freezing for years, and now we're thinking about getting into canning and preserving as well.
We got a great deal on a crockpot in an after-Xmas sale last year, and we're discovering more great crockpot dishes all the time.
We "repurpose" a lot of our leftovers, and use them in soups, stews, wraps, pies and pastries so that very little food goes to waste.
I agree with Trent that one of the keys to making healthy foods taste good is to learn how to enhance the foods' flavours with the right herbs and spices. We've grown our own herbs in the past, but not for the last few years. That's something we'd like to start doing again. We'd also like to do a bit of microgardening (container gardening) and try producing some tomatoes, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, beans, bell peppers, etc.
I think the "food exchange" idea is a good one, and I'd be interested to find out if anybody is doing anything like that in our area.
It amazes me how many people devote so much time and energy to making money, but don't seem to think much about how they spend that money. I think that's a very dangerous way to live -- especially when it comes to things like health and nutrition.
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