There are lots of ways to save money, and most of the obvious ones have been covered above. It is hard to compare those who live in an area with land and room for animals and a big garden to those who don’t. It’d be wrong to just calculate the hard&fast grocery bills of someone with a garden, cows, chickens etc., and compare that number with someone who is living in a different situation. You’d have to adjust for cost of the land, water, seed, fertilizer, the purchase price of the original animals, their feed and vet expenses etc., to say nothing of the time. Neither lifestyle is better/worse than the other, just different lifestyles. And I for one would love the thought of not being in a fix if there’s ever a run on the grocery stores…that’s got to feel good to be more self-sufficient. So the best I can do is try and be prepared with my years’ supply and learn to rotate the storage we have. I realized as a kid that if we had to live on our food storage I would surly die, because it contained only items that I simply wouldn’t be able to consume. I hated the whole idea of food storage as a young child, because of what I knew awaited me out in the garage should utter disaster ever strike.

As a teen, I met a family with a food storage program that included (what a concept) Foods You Would Actually Eat. And they DID eat it! They bought the stuff they used on a daily basis in case loads, and rotated through it steadily. I was an instant convert and my newest fantasy is to someday have those rolling can shelves that they sell to make using the oldest-first so much easier. Rotating it is the big barrier.

Anyway, not to be on a food storage tangent, but it’s just something that can actually reduce the food bill. I have a friend who decided to live on her storage for one month, just as a trial, to see how they did. It was like a practice run to find out what they needed to adjust in case they ever had an actual need to live on it. She realized what they needed to store more of, and what they really didn’t end up going through. Hats off to her because she was pregnant and dearly missed her fresh foods after a while (she included their garden in their consumable items).

Waste not, want not. A penny saved is a penny earned. These were my mottos as a single woman and new mom, and now that we’re living the student life again I try to keep it in the fore of my mind. Doing better one month and saving the difference makes a difference in the long run.

Thanks for all the fun ideas everyone! ♥

Eating together is a big deal to me. Many times we eat 3 meals a day as a family, almost always at least one. My kids are homeschooled, and we choose to live close to my husband’s job. It still takes some planning, though. I choose which activities the kids can do in part by how they fit with the family’s schedule as a whole, and we all shift a bit every few months because my husband’s work schedule changes several times a year.