I love creating meal plans with the Milk and Honey Organics Sweetness Basket list each week! If you’ve seen any of them on my blog (My Journey to Lean), you may have noticed that several of our meals do not have meat in them. If you’re a meat and potatoes family, please feel free to add that to any of the meal plans. After all, meal plans are more guidelines than anything. However, it is fun to throw in a “Meatless Monday” occasionally, even if for no other reason than to expand your taste buds.
So, why the lack of meat? Well, last year, my husband was unemployed for about four months. During that time, we really had to watch our budget. At the same time, we came across Milk and Honey Organics online and started ordering our produce from them. Our budget was about $50-60 per week for the two of us, and $35 of that was going to the produce. We had watched several of the popular food documentaries (Food, Inc.; Super Size Me; etc.) and had started down the all-natural and organic path. But could we really do it on one income?!
It was at this time that we chose to limit our meat consumption. This way, when we chose to eat meat, we felt like we could afford the higher quality, hormone and antibiotic free options. And while we would not call ourselves vegetarians, we enjoyed eating more produce and less meats. This helped our budget immensely. I would get my basket on Thursday and go grocery shopping on Friday or Saturday to pick up things like beans, rice, flour, cornmeal, eggs, milk, and yogurt. I also started making more things from scratch, like homemade pizza, pie crusts, bread, hummus, salad dressings, and other household items (like deodorant and washing detergents).
I continued to read blogs (like Frugal Granola, Going Home to Roost, and Simple Organic) and saw that other families were choosing Organic options and still living economically and within their means. We find that the amount of produce in each week’s Milk and Honey Organics basket is the perfect amount for the two of us for a week. This means we’re not wasting money by buying more than we need and throwing out spoiled produce.
And on top of being frugal, we feel spoiled because we’re getting fresh, organic produce delivered right to our door! Who knew it could be cheaper than going to the grocery store!?!