Produce is WAY to Expensive!

What you see in this picture cost me less then $50 and it doesn't include all the produce I bought!. Read the list to see exactly what is above.

• 3 large pineapples - 8.97
• 3 2.5lb bags of red cherries - $14
• 3.88 lbs of peaches (10) - $3.84
• 5 mangos - $5 (high estimate) 
• 5 lbs of bananas (well note quite, we ate some) - $2.96
• 2 garlic cloves - $1
• 1 yellow onion - $1
• 4 lbs of strawberries - $6 (high estimate)

Missing from the photo are 16 ears of sweet corn ($.33 an ear), 1 head of romaine lettuce ($1) and 1 bag of potatoes ($1.99) -  ~ $8

So, for every food I just listed above, I paid $50 for. That isn't expensive. These will be snacks and contribute to dinners for my family for darn near a month! We get paid once a month so fresh fruit at the beginning of the month and dehyrated after that is the way we do it. 

When I went into the store, I had no idea what fruit I'd be buying other then bananas because we always get bananas. I grabbed an ad as we went in and on the front page (we shop at City Market and Costco) were several of the fruits and veggies that were on sale. 

At Costco, I learned that they typically have their fruit for a good price. At City Market we pay 3-4 (depending on if it is on sale) for a pineapple about half the size of the ones in the pictures. Buy shopping at Costco for the pineapple we get MUCH more for the same amount (or less if it isn't on sale!). The same is true for the strawberries (usually 3-5 dollars at city market but less then $2 at Costco) and the mangos which happened to be out and less then $2/lb as well. 

The cherries were a nice surprise because I love cherries and last time we bought them they were FIVE a lb which makes one bag about ten bucks! Crazy right? We were able to buy THREE large bags of cherries for just 15 bucks because they were on sale for $2.99 a lb. 

The peaches were on sale for $.99 a lb. 

The onion was on sale for $.99 a lb. 

Corn was .33 an ear, lettuce was .99 a head and the 5 lb bag of potatoes were just $1.99. 

The common theme in what I just wrote is rather then going in set on getting apples, oranges and bananas, we get what they have on sale during that shopping trip. Fruit can be VERY expensive so get what is on season or what is on sale to help with the expense. This is the first time we have bought peaches since we mvoed and I cannot wait to dehydrate them! Which is my second tip. 

Buy the on sale fruit in bulk, invest in a $40 dehydrator at wal-mart and you'll have fresh(ish) fruit to eat right away and dried fruit to eat as a snack later or bake with. That's actually why we bought so many cherries. In the picture you can see a container behind the bananas... that's one bag's worth of dehydrated cherries. Took a good 16 hours to do, but darn do they taste so good! 

Now... let's put this in perspective. At this shopping trip, we spent less then $50 on fresh produce. Not buying milk, eggs or hardly any meat (we did get bacon and sausage that was on sale) we spent an additional $100 and it doesn't take up near the amount of room on my counter nor is it all as healthy. (We bought a lot of cooking spices/wines/vinegars which can rack up the bill.) 

Eating healthy CAN be expensive (particularly if you do buy organic which we don't at the time... not because we don't want to but because we are skeptical of what the label actually means) but if you shop sales, buy from the sales in bulk and preserve your food in healthy ways (food saver bags or dehyrating or even canning) you'll save a ton of money in the long run!

A few more things we buy in bulk (from Costco... I do recommend a membership, it is worth the money for these particular items) include: 

• organic coconut oil - 78 oz - $23 
• extra virgin olive oil - 101 oz - $20 

I'm not even kidding. Coconut oil and olive oil are EXPENSIVE in stores. With what I save on just these two products damn near pays for the membership LOL And for my family of four, the coconut oil lasts 4-5 months and the olive oil will probably last a year haha Other items I feel justify the membership cost are toilet paper (lasts my family of four several months and is $15), wipes (big box lasts us about 3 months and is $20), dog food (large bag lasts about 3 months and is $30), eggs (last an entire month and is $10) or egg whites (also a month's worth and about $10).

We get some not so healthy things at Costco too but I won't go into them as they aren't the point :p 

So yeah. Buying in bulk and preserving your food for later and shopping sales is where its at. Do this and you WILL save money. And sometimes you might want to hold off on a meal or even just wait a week to check the next weeks sales (we went without bell peppers this time which means no fajitas for us). 

In total, I saved over $30 dollars at City Market. So, my $150 bill would have actually be $180+ and those savings don't include the discount in gas I earned AND I only used TWO coupons on the entire purchase. Sales are really where it is at, particularly if you have coupons with the sale items.

I hope this helps you gain an idea of how to eat healthy as far as fruit and veggies go when working with a budget. My family gets paid just once a month and our food budget is typically just $400 a month. This month we did spend a bit more then that because we had some bulk items we had to catch up on but next month, we won't spend a penny over $400 in food for the entire month and that will be with fruits and veggies, not chips, snack cakes or any other processed snack.