I read a very interesting post this morning (Joe Average Buys Groceries) that I’ve found myself thinking about, off and on, throughout the day.  The first part talked about how much people spend per month, per person, for food.  The other part was personal experiences involving buying food on a limited budget.

Reading it got me thinking about the many things can affect our food purchases.  As someone who has had a lifelong interest in food history – I believe one of the best ways to learn about a culture is through their food – I’ve noticed the many factors that influence what becomes a “cultural” food.  Geology.  Climate.  Trade.  Levels of individual freedom. Government.  So many things are involved outside of just, who grows what and what does it cost people to acquire it.

There is a lot of discussion these days about affordability and accessibility of food.  Unfortunately, too often, these discussions are coloured by misplaced emotionalism, and more than a little condescension.  Our current North America culture also tends to view food and its consumption as a reflection of morals, and a method of determining the value of a person.  A person is “good” if they eat certain foods, but “bad” if they eat others.  And if you’re poor and are caught eating a “bad” food, then an extra layer of judgementalism is applied.   There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance in this.  People who are broke are expected to be totally frugal at all times with their food purchases, and must never, ever buy a bag of chips or candy, because if they do, well, that’s why they’re poor; they are wasting money.  Yet, at the same time, it is lamented that if you’re broke, the only food that’s affordable is “junk” food, so that’s why poor people are unhealthy and fat.  Because there can’t possibly be any other reason a person is unhealthy and fat that isn’t self-inflicted through their poor choices, which they have no choice to make, because they’re too poor to buy healthy…

Ya just can’t win for losing on that one.

Now, I do recognize that there is a problem with lack of information leading to people not knowing how to make better food purchases, or what to do with the food, once they have it.  From my personal observations, too many people just don’t know what to do with basic ingredients.  There’s an irony that cooking shows are so incredibly popular at a time when fewer people actually know how to cook.  There have been a few times when we’ve been able to help friends in desperate financial situations by helping to feed them.  In some cases, these were families on social assistance, or relying on food banks.  I remember my shock one time, when helping a friend get their food bank hampers home.  This was a monthly “top up”; they were among the working poor who only needed a bit of help.  That “top up” for a family of 3 was more than I was feeding my family of 4 with for the month.  I couldn’t believe how much food they were getting!  Other times, I gratefully accepted the offer of food from someone clearing out their pantry of items they couldn’t use.  These turned out to include cans of donated food (they didn’t like the flavour variety) and bags of rice (which we had given to them, but they didn’t know how to cook it).

These sorts of things, plus going through some incredibly tight times ourselves over the years, has made me really appreciate my “two sticks ahead of the stone ages” upbringing.  If nothing else, I had the knowledge I needed to find ways to feed my family when our entire income for the month was only $400.  We certainly didn’t eat well, but we didn’t go hungry, either.

So it interests me to learn about how other people work things out, not just on limited means, but limited circumstances.

With our move from downtown city living to a farmhouse (the farm itself is rented out, so it’s not like we’re going to be growing crops or raising livestock, even if we could), there are many factors that need to come into play when it comes to what we buy.

For starters, there is living on a fixed income that comes in once a month (both long-term disability payments and CPP Disability come in at the end of the month).

When my husband first went on short-term disability for 6 months, we went from being paid every two weeks to once a week.

I couldn’t believe how much harder it was to budget around weekly pay periods.  Before, we could split things between “this is the housing charge pay period, this is the automatic bill payments pay period” and work around that.  With weekly payments, you have to be extra careful to set aside for things like housing charges, utility bills, etc – which means you don’t have the budget to take advantage of some sales or bulk buying.  It’s amazing how much changes when you only have $200 to buy groceries for 4 people for a week, instead of $400 for two weeks.  The buying efficiency drops substantially.

Keep in mind that we’re not talking just food, here.  When I say “grocery budget”, I mean everything I buy at the grocery store, including things like household cleaners, pet food, personal hygiene products, toilet paper, and so on.  For a while, it included prescriptions, too, but eventually, I had to break those off as a separate budgetary line item.

Then long-term disability payments kicked in, and we were being paid at the end of the month.  That first month was a killer, since that meant going from being paid every week to not having anything at all for 4 weeks.  Once we switched over, however, I found it much easier and efficient to manage our budget with monthly payments.

Bulk purchasing of items with long shelf lives became the norm.  I also started doing things like doing bulk meal preparation and freezing the results.  Having a small apartment size freezer made all the difference in the world for that.  Later, I tested out some meals-in-a-jar varieties, which I found I liked much better than freezing.  I also started dehydrating vegetables, which I included in the jars, but I’ve also found very handy just on their own.

When money came in played a big part in what we bought.

Transportation is another big one.

Having our own vehicle made a huge difference from when we had none and relied on public transportation or walking.  We couldn’t afford cabs.

One of the first things to disappear from our groceries were soft fruits.  They just didn’t survive the trip home without being bruised and battered, no matter how careful we were.  Frozen stuff was limited, because of the length of time it took to get it home.  Canned goods or things like bags of flour or sugar or containers of oil were also limited, due to the extra weight.  There’s only so much you can carry all at once.  Getting one of those wheeled granny carts helped with that, at least.  We used that thing until it wore right out.

Even the type of vehicle makes a difference.  What we bought when we had a car was different from what we bought when we got a minivan.

I love minivans.  They’re the most useful vehicles, ever!

Now, with our move, we have other things to consider.  For the first while, with all the hassle of paying for movers and a new hot water tank, on top of all the other little expenses that always happen during a move, we were getting the most basic of basics.  Enough to tide us over.  Which meant we were short on the ingredients needed to do much of anything.  As things are settling, we can slowly start building up a pantry of items that have long shelf lives.  We have a freezer, though we need to take into account that if we are going into The City for a major purchase, things will start to thaw in the hour plus it takes to bring it home.  Insulated bags and a cooler become essential, both of which we already have.

As for what we get, well, there’s only X amount in the budget for the month.  That’s it.  No more money is coming in until the next month.

The juggle begins.

What do we need to get now and what can wait until next month?  What meats can we get that will stretch the farthest?  What can we freeze, and what will need to be eaten first?  What’s on sale, and is the sale worth it? (It’s amazing how often it isn’t.)

On it goes.

It will take us several months to get to the point were we have adjusted to our new circumstances, caught up on the extra expenses of the move, and stocked up on the basics that we’ll need to have on hand.  There are going to be things we need to buy regularly now, that we never did before, and it’s going to be a while for us to even find out what some of those things will be.

One thing’s for sure.

Getting groceries is about so much more than how much it costs.

The Re-farmer