I'm a SAHM living in the city with 4 small kids, so it can be a challenge to balance our desire to eat hormone- and antibiotic-free meats and dairy with the reality of a single income and not enough land (or sun) for a significant veggie garden or critters (except DD's 8 banty hens).
(1) Join a CSA for local veggies and eat meat only 1 or 2 times a week. Even my midwestern, meat & potatoes husband loves the vegetarian recipes in the Moosewood cookbooks, and of course we have eggs for supper at least once a week. We also eat lots of peanut butter, beans, and cheese. No processed foods. I also make all our bread and try to only buy generics (except ketchup!).
(2) Buy spices from the bulk bins at the health food store and keep them in baby food jars. This saves a TON of money, since I like to use a lot of different herbs and spices and can't stand paying $5 a jar at the grocery store. I also have a small herb garden.
(3) Buy hormone-free cheese at Sam's Club. Any European cheese is automatically hormone-free, but you have to watch the American brands.
(4) Craigslist for every major purchase (furniture, cars, etc.). Also our local Habitat store is a gold mine for home improvement stuff.
(5) I belong to a local Yahoo! garden group where I can swap perennials and landscape plants with other gardeners for free.
(6) Interlibrary Loan. Just about any public library in the country can get you almost any book you could ever want to read from another library. Anyone with a library card can do this, and it's free. I only discovered this a few years ago and it's revolutionized our book-buying habits. If I really do want to buy a book I only buy used ones at Half.com or abebooks.com.
(7) Buy #2 or "B" grade produce from local orchards. I just got 50 lbs. of low-spray apples for $6 just because they were either small or had a surface blemish. I've also gotten peaches this way.
(8) Swap babysitting with friends instead of paying a sitter.
(1) Join a CSA for local veggies and eat meat only 1 or 2 times a week. Even my midwestern, meat & potatoes husband loves the vegetarian recipes in the Moosewood cookbooks, and of course we have eggs for supper at least once a week. We also eat lots of peanut butter, beans, and cheese. No processed foods. I also make all our bread and try to only buy generics (except ketchup!).
(2) Buy spices from the bulk bins at the health food store and keep them in baby food jars. This saves a TON of money, since I like to use a lot of different herbs and spices and can't stand paying $5 a jar at the grocery store. I also have a small herb garden.
(3) Buy hormone-free cheese at Sam's Club. Any European cheese is automatically hormone-free, but you have to watch the American brands.
(4) Craigslist for every major purchase (furniture, cars, etc.). Also our local Habitat store is a gold mine for home improvement stuff.
(5) I belong to a local Yahoo! garden group where I can swap perennials and landscape plants with other gardeners for free.
(6) Interlibrary Loan. Just about any public library in the country can get you almost any book you could ever want to read from another library. Anyone with a library card can do this, and it's free. I only discovered this a few years ago and it's revolutionized our book-buying habits. If I really do want to buy a book I only buy used ones at Half.com or abebooks.com.
(7) Buy #2 or "B" grade produce from local orchards. I just got 50 lbs. of low-spray apples for $6 just because they were either small or had a surface blemish. I've also gotten peaches this way.
(8) Swap babysitting with friends instead of paying a sitter.
