I just posted about some personal troubles and someone mentioned a lady that was doing a blog on paleo on a budget....Any tips would be great.....every book that I've looked at says to cut out meat at some meals and eat more grains And beans but that goes against everything that this is about. Can someone post their shopping list, tips, insider info, etc?

Shop loss leaders i.e. the stuff that supermarkets sell low to get you in. If they have a limit, then go back several times.

You don't have to go for steaks, go for the chucks and the roasts, crockpot them again find them on sale.

Chicken... eat lots of it...

Again when you find a fantastic deal buy large, I have a small grocery that routinely puts chicken leg quarters on sale for 39 cents a pound and they are in 10 pound bags... I buy 100-200 pounds and freeze them.

Hamburger, don't worry about the fat content... sometimes 75/25 is lower price, but check what you will get out of 85/15 sometimes the yield is better.

More later

Fatty meat tends to be cheaper and higher in calories than lean meat which makes it good if you don't have a lot to spend on food. Organ meats and eggs are usually cheap too.

I second the suggestions already made. What helped me a lot too was to increase the types of meat I would eat (at least I tried them!) I never would have eaten organ meat before I went paleo, and I didn't eat a lot of the cheaper cuts of meat either. I learned how to cook! Embrace the crockpot, and if you have a programable oven, you are in paleo heaven! I prepare my cheap tough roast in the morning, put it in the oven which I program to come on at 1PM at 250F, and cook it low and slow throughout the afternoon. I come home to a delicous roast!

It's amazing what you find when you ask around too. A lady that I work with raises chickens! I buy 3 doz. eggs from her weekly for $2.50/doz. I don't know what kind of egg prices my American friends have, but here in Canada that's pretty darn good for free range eggs!

Good luck, keep surfing around the boards and checking posts...you will LOVE paleo! I know I do!

If you type in your zip code on Local Harvest, you'll get a list of nearby farms and farmers markets. A lot of the farms will arrange pickups of items. You can get eggs, produce, local meats and save a lot, plus get very fresh food!

http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?m&ty=0&nm=

A surprising number of farms will now ship nationwide, so you can also buy things online and have them delivered to you. The shipping charges vary, some are high but others offer great deals. On Local Harvest you can add items to the basket, input your zip code, and preview shipping charges, then edit basket as needed.

That was probably me she was talking about. ;-) I feed me and my 2 kids on $200/month...and we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is known for a high cost of living. (For example - gas = 4.12 at the cheapo station around the corner from me)

I have a lot of tips available on my blog - check out my "basics" page at http://paleoonabudget.blogspot.com/...get-basics.html .

Good luck! Post your questions here or private message me if you have any questions!

Anne

hi!

i'm new to Paleo, but we divide our grocery trip between Costco, our local farmers market on Saturday, Aldi, and our local grocer.

Aldi has decent prices on fish and produce; Costco is great for bulk produce, meat, frozen berries, eggs. invest in a chest freezer if you start shopping at Costco, though.

if you have a weekly farmers market, hit the market just before it ends...i know our farmers offer deals on their remaining produce, eggs, and meats.

we actually spend less on groceries, now. we used to spend more on soda, cookies, tv dinners, chips, frozen pizzas, cereals, cakes, ice cream, candy bars, etc.


~stephy

Grains and beans are definitely anti Paleo. Mention this because grains certainly wouldn't suit me. They make me fat and unwell. I lost a lot of weight leaving out grains, but gained it back when I started to eat them again. Only you know if they are okay for you, so ignore this if they are. I find Paleo expensive, but worth it. I did everything organic a few years ago, but had to drop most of it because of spiralling prices. Smaller portions might help the budget. Again only you know the answer to what is right for you to eat.