Impossible to eat healthy when in debt

WendyTerry420

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Why do you give your children such a huge choice in what's for dinner? I think most people my age or older were raised without the option of eating things that weren't prepared by our mothers. The two choices were eat what I made or go hungry.
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^THIS ... exactly. The kids won't go hungry for long.

desiv2

Do you have an Aldi in your area? You can get a 3lb bag of red potatoes for .79 cents, turkey meat for $3 dollars, a head of cauliflower for .99 cents. I guess that would be barely over $4 dollars and much more healthy for your family. Plus, you'll have left-overs. (I mean that's 3lbs of potatoes!) I got this off of their weekly ad.

Buy bulk rice, it's cheaper in the long run. Buy bulk cereals, grains, etc.. You can cycle what you buy so it's not too much on your budget. Frozen veggies can be cheaper than fresh, and are just as good. They sell bags of it at walmart, $1, combine that with some meat and you have a healthy meal. You can buy meat on sale, or buy the frozen chicken breasts. 6 dollars for 5lbs.

It's possible, but you have to stop looking for excuses not to eat healthy and find solutions instead.

EccentricDad

As I said 9 hours ago, I abandoned this thread because it exhausted its usefulness. How I raise my kids (I am liberal) and how much power I give them (I respect them like little adults not possessions like the most of parents I've seen) is none of your business. While some of you truly understand my situation, there are a lot of you who are overly aggressive with your solutions. Tactile and taste eaters deserve to have their needs accommodated. People with food restrictions the same. I have no problem catering to everybody's needs as long as my wife gives me the budget to do it with! $80/week isn't enough with everyone's dietary needs.

Now, I will no longer be replying because the most of you aren't even reading the thread, you are just throwing in your two cents and creating drama.

Thank you all for your help though but I can handle it from here.

leeann0517

The way to be healthy and not forking out your riches is to buy in bulk. Freeze massive meat portions and have a big bag of oats and rice etc. you don't always need to rely on meat. Sometimes meals cooked just with veg can be delicious and healthy. I bought hugh fearnley-whittingstall's cookbook on veg and its given me great ideas!

I agree and want to try rice (Oats give me a gluten like response) but my son refuses to eat rice and my daughter "hates it" and my wife would eat it as long as there is a sauce mixed in like BBQ sauce or Sirachi... Le sigh...

Meat isn't really the problem (though it is very expensive too), it's trying to cater to everyone's demands (and dietary needs) on a budget.

ok, your wife and kids sound like a bunch of spoiled brats! they don't eat rice - good lord, it's not like rice is some weird foreign food.

and if you're home all day then I don't see why your wife cares how long it takes to cook something. Can't you cook during the day?

EccentricDad

As I said 9 hours ago, I abandoned this thread because it exhausted its usefulness. How I raise my kids (I am liberal) and how much power I give them (I respect them like little adults not possessions like the most of parents I've seen) is none of your business. While some of you truly understand my situation, there are a lot of you who are overly aggressive with your solutions. Tactile and taste eaters deserve to have their needs accommodated. People with food restrictions the same. I have no problem catering to everybody's needs as long as my wife gives me the budget to do it with! $80/week isn't enough with everyone's dietary needs.

Now, I will no longer be replying because the most of you aren't even reading the thread, you are just throwing in your two cents and creating drama.

Thank you all for your help though but I can handle it from here.

I repeat the above. Please quit stirring up drama and giving me your 2 cents. Clearly this thread spiraled WAAAAAAY out of control and I'm just not going to have it go any further. I can handle it from here and if anyone else calls my children spoiled brats I'm ignoring you. I give my children the power of choice instead of oppressing them; that is MY choice and I could give a *kitten* how you feel about it.

Raise your family the way you want to; leave me to raise mine. I'll figure out this problem on my own. Let this thread die please. Thank you.

grassette

This thread stopped being about you when you posted a question that affects a lot of people. There are some great tips on this thread, and you can pick and choose those that apply to you.

But when I see your attitude, it's your wife that gets my sympathy.

With $80/week, you can set up a great stockpile of good foods that you have to cook from scratch. If you were to have great meals on the table when she comes home from work, she would not feel the need to put the family in the car to go shell out another few dollars at Macdonalds.

Instead she comes home to an empty table and a pouting husband whose sense of self-entitlement is over the top.

Change the script. Have a good tasty meal ready when she comes home. Max out the $80. Share the info on the food budget with her. If you do a good job as cook and communicator, who is to say that she won't give you another $20?

As far as your delicate stomach is concerned, there is a no-gluten group on MFP where you could get great advice.

As for the rest, folks these were some great tips, and I am sure that we have all learned how to better spend our food dollar from this exercise.

EccentricDad

This thread stopped being about you when you posted a question that affects a lot of people. There are some great tips on this thread, and you can pick and choose those that apply to you.

But when I see your attitude, it's your wife that gets my sympathy.

With $80/week, you can set up a great stockpile of good foods that you have to cook from scratch. If you were to have great meals on the table when she comes home from work, she would not feel the need to put the family in the car to go shell out another few dollars at Macdonalds.

Instead she comes home to an empty table and a pouting husband whose sense of self-entitlement is over the top.

Change the script. Have a good tasty meal ready when she comes home. Max out the $80. Share the info on the food budget with her. If you do a good job as cook and communicator, who is to say that she won't give you another $20?

As far as your delicate stomach is concerned, there is a no-gluten group on MFP where you could get great advice.

As for the rest, folks these were some great tips, and I am sure that we have all learned how to better spend our food dollar from this exercise.

Great reply minus the assumption that I don't have dinner on the table when she comes home and more or less implying that I'm a lazy dead beat. Why is it SOME women can't speak to a man without personal bias or perpetuating stereotypes?

I cook every meal that the family eats and have for over a month now. It is ready at or before the time that everyone expects. The reason she wants fast food is because of her addiction/cravings and because she sincerely thinks $1 burgers for everyone is cheaper than a home cooked meal. Of course she isn't concerned about malnutrition, stunted growth, hormonal imbalances, diabetes, ADHD flares, arthritis, or high blood pressure like I am.

My wife is also very "idealistic" which is a fancy way of saying she has "unreasonable expectations". If she is going to have a home cooked meal, she doesn't want chicken, rice, beans, or pork; she wants ribs, steak, premium cut beef sirloin, and premium "game"! In her mind, a meal at home should be just as luxurious and should taste like a meal that came from a 5 star restaurant.

I'm sorry that I'm not choosing to "be a man" and take your passive aggressive remark on the chin but this is the sexist bias that needs to be corrected. Saying "Instead she comes home to an empty table and a pouting husband whose sense of self-entitlement is over the top" implies some personal issues with men because not once in this thread did I even closely insinuate that meals aren't cooked by the time she gets home, so where the hell did this come from if it wasn't from personal issues with your own husband or with the stereotypical male? Perhaps you should get to know the stranger you're talking about before you make false accusations. I treat my wife like a princess in every single aspect of our life EXCEPT money; so before you call someone a selfish and "self entitled jerk" I want you to carefully interrogate your subject to get the information you seek before you make ASSUMPTIONS.

And yes, I understand that this thread is probably being viewed by a lot of people who are not commenting and it is helping them with getting ideas on how to survive on a low budget. But the point here isn't survival. The point I was trying to make is living a higher quality of life than just "surviving". Surviving on a budget is absolutely do-able and I never said that people couldn't "survive" on $80/week. Hell, I could feed my entire family of 4 on $30/week!!! But you and I both know how miserable we all would be and how macronutrient deficient we all would be eating that poor. And it's not JUST about hitting your macros, it's about hitting your macros with quality foods! While I could easily stuff my non-gluten allergy child with $0.49 white bread for a week, the nutritional quality of that $0.49 bread is absolutely the pits! No trace of bran, no fortified vitamins, not even real sugar! The food is absolutely garbage and should have never been invented.

So the point again of this thread is the argument between my wife and I that not enough money is going towards our debt because food costs are so high. So because clearing the debt was more important than eating, she stole my money for food and paid our debt off... And while I bet I could find food that would accommodate the new budget, it's going to reduce the cognitive, physical, and emotional function of the entire family eating less quality foods and more empty calories to fill our calories up. I respect her conservative and republican-minded upbringing to pay off debts and follow the "safe path" to her goals in life (which is to be debt free); but she is not respecting my liberal and democratic-minded upbringing to taking care of the people we are responsible for and doing things whatever way that we need to in order to get the needs of each person met. You could say that my marriage is a very "Yin-Yang" arrangement where we argue most of the time since our priorities are often in opposite directions; but this is a good way to keep each other "in check" when we are being too "idealistic" about our own beliefs and goals.

EccentricDad

"This thread stopped being about you when you posted a question that affects a lot of people.

So let's stop making it about me then. Let's all discuss our issues with money and eating healthy. Leave me out of it!

ilovedeadlifts

I've actually found it to cost about the same to eat fairly "healthy".

Things like tuna, talapia, hamburger, green beans, peas, etc are pretty cheap.
I try to eat a lot of whole foods and my grocery bill hasn't went up at all.

FlaxMilk

OP, I know you said you want this thread to turn around away from you, and I respect that, but just a word of (unasked for) advice: Being a sensitive person, you may want to be very careful about how much of your personal life you include in your posts because many people here do not at all believe in being subtle or tactful, and you may find yourself more hurt and frustrated than is worth your while. I'm not judging you, I'm not what you would call laid back myself

EccentricDad

OP, I know you said you want this thread to turn around away from you, and I respect that, but just a word of (unasked for) advice: Being a sensitive person, you may want to be very careful about how much of your personal life you include in your posts because many people here do not at all believe in being subtle or tactful, and you may find yourself more hurt and frustrated than is worth your while. I'm not judging you, I'm not what you would call laid back myself

Thank you for this. Yeah, I'm learning that people are ill equipped to deal with other people's emotions despite their personal desire to help others (which is a very emotional thing to do in the first place). You can't help others if you don't know how to be empathetic to their situation or at least sensitive to their temperament. No one wants your sympathy, let alone your "tough love" for that matter; but everyone deserves and requires your empathy. Because to me, the problems I'm facing are BIG; no matter how small you think they are.

Sadly, I give my personal life as details because I want people to see how there is no cut and dry solution to any problem; you have to look at the BIG PICTURE and not just the details that you see as a problem. I could have said "My wife restricts my money for food and I'm sad" but that's not the big picture; the big picture is the dietary needs, the debt, the picky and idealistic eaters, and I didn't even go into detail about the amount of help I'm getting doing home chores (which is zero). So when you look at the big picture, the problem becomes more complex and robust (the way it really is); unfortunately, most people are offering minor solutions to an even major problem and while it would stop the leak in one area, the boat is still sinking from other unpatched holes....

But again, thank you for this. I do need to learn to be more careful trusting the wild internet too much. I had to close my Facebook account for the same reasons; too many people offering unsolicited advice and throwing around unfair judgement, personal prejudice/bias, or perpetuating stereotypes. No one wanted to look at me as an individual, all of them saw me as a 30 year old caucasian male who has 2 children, no job, no education, and does not act in accordance to posted "male" stereotypes.... Le sigh; no wonder I'm a recluse...

EccentricDad

I've actually found it to cost about the same to eat fairly "healthy".

Things like tuna, talapia, hamburger, green beans, peas, etc are pretty cheap.
I try to eat a lot of whole foods and my grocery bill hasn't went up at all.

No it is cheap if you've budgeted for it! But picture your grocery budget is cut in half because your wife bought tickets (without budgeting for it) to go on a cruise with you and the kids; how would you eat if your grocery budget was cut in half due to irresponsible spending? That is what this thread is about. When someone takes money from you meant for food; how do you eat healthy when someone's priorities aren't in line with yours?

mehani48

I feel your pain. I had a house full of picky eaters as well and limited funds.

Then I learned how to coupon shop...not like those crazy people on TV (which is all staged and the stores bend the rules for the TV show, and they misuse coupons and give all couponers a bad name) but 50% to 70% savings each week for me is pretty normal. And yes, I am able to get produce and meat. Last week I was able to get $16.00 worth of produce for free. I am diabetic and our family practices mostly clean eating with very little processed foods.

There are only three of us at home now and I probably spend around $50 - 75 a week and we eat really well, and I donate food to my son who has 3 kids and my best friend who is a single mom.

I'm in Florida so I am not familiar with the stores in your area, but I see you have a Kroger and I know there's a site called iheartkroger.com that will do the coupon matches for their sales for you. I think they do it for Meijer stores too.

zenchild

It's all planning. My husband and I shop at Whole Foods and we don't spend any more than we did when we shopped at Kroger. We plan a menu for the week and stick to it. Look at what's on sale and what's in season and start from there. For example, heirloom tomatoes were on a great sale this weekend (my husband grew up in an Italian kitchen, I'm not going to deny him heirloom tomatoes). So we grabbed some beef and pork and made a giant pot of red sauce and meatballs. We'll eat some this week (fried spaghetti, manicotti, meatball sandwiches) and freeze the rest for the next couple weeks. If tomatoes are on sale this weekend, we'll buy more. I made a big pot of chicken noodle soup last week. I ate it all week (I was sick) and we'll be finishing it tonight.
We also try to make ethnic menus. All Vietnamese one week, Greek the next, Italian after that. We can buy the basic ingredients and then use them all week. I'm not going to buy daikon root if I'm just using in one meal. I'll buy it if we're using it all week. It helps us use up ingredients so we're not throwing spoiled food away and keeps our diet varied and interesting.
In the winter, find recipes that make lots of food and freeze portions. I spend most cold Sundays cooking soups, chilis and Indian food. In one day I can make 2 weeks of dinners.
So, plan what you're going to eat, make ingredients last for several meals, and make recipes in bulk.

EccentricDad

I feel your pain. I had a house full of picky eaters as well and limited funds.

Then I learned how to coupon shop...not like those crazy people on TV (which is all staged and the stores bend the rules for the TV show, and they misuse coupons and give all couponers a bad name) but 50% to 70% savings each week for me is pretty normal. And yes, I am able to get produce and meat. Last week I was able to get $16.00 worth of produce for free. I am diabetic and our family practices mostly clean eating with very little processed foods.

There are only three of us at home now and I probably spend around $50 - 75 a week and we eat really well, and I donate food to my son who has 3 kids and my best friend who is a single mom.

I'm in Florida so I am not familiar with the stores in your area, but I see you have a Kroger and I know there's a site called iheartkroger.com that will do the coupon matches for their sales for you. I think they do it for Meijer stores too.

Great reply. Couponing isn't easy when you depend on the coupons coming to you in the mail and neither you or your spouse get the paper. So more websites like this would be ideal. I will be combing this page often, thank you very much for the link! :flowerforyou:

FlaxMilk

My advice to get personalized advice around MFP is to build your friends list with people you like and respect and believe you can trust over time. I post pretty much whatever I want on my feed but have learned not to do that here in the forums.

HMToomey

Last night I cut an 8 ounce chicken breast in half, coated both pieces with mustard then put a 1/4 cup of panko bread crumbs on each and sprayed with a little Pam and baked and I made a spaghetti squash to go with it. Those bread crumbs might not got with you dietary restrictions but I'm sure there is something else you could use.

I use coupons, I stock up on things when they are on sale, and I cook everything from scratch. We don't go out to eat. I find when I do it's not as good as what I can make and it's far more expensive. I won't even go out to get a cup of coffee everything comes from my kitchen, and no I don't buy organic not in meat or produce because of price and nutritional content. If I am splurging on a good cut of meat like a pork roast or Thanksgiving turkey I'll go to the next town over and buy it from the free range farm, they aren't organic either but they are using sustainable practices which is more important to me and the Earth anyhow! For every day stuff I own three hens for eggs, I buy chicken breast when it goes on sale for $1.99 a pound, I'll buy 30 pounds. I cut it into 4 ounce pieces and put them into individual bags and freeze I can do a lot with chicken and it is pretty much what we eat. Weekly I buy milk and produce, the rest is in the house already since I stocked up on it. I use the coupons on canned and frozen veggies, cleaning supplies & toiletries. Vegetables are anywhere from $0.25 to $1 for a pound, I haven't paid for a toothbrush or toothpaste in 2 years and shampoo is never more than $0.50 Laundry detergent and fabric softener is never more than $2. When I find these prices I stock up on them, it's not uncommon for me to buy 10 bottles of laundry detergent for the next 3 months, or 6 bottles of shampoo for the next 6. Find places to save money it's manageable but you have to get creative and it takes work.

(I only ever keep 6 months of stock on anything, I don't have the space to be an insane couponer like on the shows!)

EccentricDad

I agree it's all about planning. But what do you do when you're in charge of the food planning, you've already figured your budget, and then someone takes money from you? Do you make half the food and make the person responsible for their irresponsible actions? Or do you substitute with UNHEALTHY options until funds become available again?

I'm half tempted to buy a gift card for my budget amount to my grocery store to make sure this doesn't happen again

senyosmom

Maybe you can find a nice middle ground.... start with replaceing a few un-healthy food options with a healthier ones. Breakfast is a good place to start and not hard at all to get healthy food that is not expensive - fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, eggs, etc.

For lunch I pack a very healthy salad packed with veggies. I find that buying the ingredients on a Sunday gets me through the whole week of salads for lunch (4 days because I allow myself to eat lunch out with friends once a week). I buy a package of romaine hearts, a package of celery stalks, a package of mini sweet peppers, a jar of salt-free sliced beets, a package of nuts (usually pecans), a container of small cherry tomatoes and occasionally an avocado. I add a hard boiled egg and/or leftover meat/fish from dinner the night before (like chicken, steak or salmon) and there you go. Its not that pricey when everything I buy lasts me the whole week.

LoosingMyLast15

I agree it's all about planning. But what do you do when you're in charge of the food planning, you've already figured your budget, and then someone takes money from you? Do you make half the food and make the person responsible for their irresponsible actions? Or do you substitute with UNHEALTHY options until funds become available again?

I'm half tempted to buy a gift card for my budget amount to my grocery store to make sure this doesn't happen again

i've been reading most of these posts because well i'm terrible at budgeting for groceries. i realize you meant it as a joke but in all seriousness maybe you should consider the gift card approach or better yet on the day you do your planning and calculate how much your groceries are going to cost why not take the cash out and pay with the cash. this way you have the money upfront for whatever you have planned. if the funds are there the day you plan then take the funds even if you don't go grocery shopping that very day.

leeann0517

I agree it's all about planning. But what do you do when you're in charge of the food planning, you've already figured your budget, and then someone takes money from you? Do you make half the food and make the person responsible for their irresponsible actions? Or do you substitute with UNHEALTHY options until funds become available again?

I'm half tempted to buy a gift card for my budget amount to my grocery store to make sure this doesn't happen again

this is where everyone has said there are communication issues. If you have a budget of x for food and someone just decides oh well I feel like buying something else. then there is a communication problem in your marriage. Just because your wife makes the money doesn't mean she gets to decide how it's spent. The money belongs to you too and the two of you should sit down and decide how it is spent. Each of you should have an allowance so if she wants to buy something not in the budget (fast food because she doesn't like what's for dinner) she can use her allowance, but the budgets amounts in each category remain the same.

on another note though, I don't understand how a parent would want to feed their child a diet of crap (fast food) rather than a nutritious (maybe not perfect but definately many steps above fast food) diet.

AlexandraLynch

The gift card idea is not a bad one. I've lived with an impulsive man for years, and we put his gas money on a gift card so that he couldn't spend it elsewhere (before he became too sick to work).

What I find is hard is eating low carb when poor. It's far cheaper to eat higher carb things and use meat for seasoning. Adding to the problem is that I can't eat beans or a lot of vegetables without disabling gut symptoms.

binariiangel

Hey guys I've been looking at different ways to cut down on my grocery bill, and so I figured I'd share a few things. http://www.blissfulanddomestic.com/2012/06/how-does-she-live-on-budget.html
http://www.grocerybudget101.com/content.php/26-Grocery-Budget-101-How-to-Use-this-Site
Also if you have the food network a great program to check out is Melissa d'Arabian she also has a great cookbook that has yummy recipes such as broiled broccoli with Parmesan cheese.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/ten-dollar-dinners-with-melissa-darabian/index.html
Hope this helps,

dominikaro

Come on, I can't believe that ready meal is actually cheaper than home made! Just stay away from overrated quinoas etc and go for what is in season and grows in your area!

How expansive can a one pot of potatos/corn + spinach + chicken thigts be? Or a pot of beans, peppers and tomatos? or a desert made out of baked apples and cinnamon? or a baked zucchini stuffed with rice and beans? A carrot soup (all it takes is a bunch of carrots and onion) with some noodles? onion soup with potatos? This are all cheaper that ready made burgers, if you shop wise.

I will never believe that you can't eat well on a budget, just keep it simple, local, seasonal and use your imaginatin. End of story.

julieh391

Some of these folks are such grumps. Some have given great advice. I just want to say that I like your "no food after 7pm" category made me chuckle.

My advice? Avoid "health foods" and eat healthy foods. Everyone sells healthy food at a decent price (brown rice, beans, produce...) The marketing is what robs people. I don't need goji berries, pomegranates, and quinoa to lose weight and feel healthy.

dominikaro

And remember that we don't need animal products everyday, just 2-3 times a week is enough. This is a good news as animal products are the expensive ones. Beans and legumes are cheap source of protein.

ironanimal

And remember that we don't need animal products everyday, just 2-3 times a week is enough. This is a good news as animal products are the expensive ones. Beans and legumes are cheap source of protein.

Not as cheep (hurhur) as chicken or whey.

EccentricDad

on another note though, I don't understand how a parent would want to feed their child a diet of crap (fast food) rather than a nutritious (maybe not perfect but definately many steps above fast food) diet.

Only a person who cares more about the black ink at the end of the month would. My wife is an accountant by profession and she was raised by business minded parents who were emotionally disconnected to her and her siblings. They were also farmers who treated animals as food and not as pets. There is a complete lack of empathy I'm fighting here. And to think, she wants to be the one home so she can motivate the kids to do better at school.... A lot of good motivation is when they don't have the nutrition to be capable of doing the work without cognitive disorders or disruptions.

EccentricDad

And remember that we don't need animal products everyday, just 2-3 times a week is enough. This is a good news as animal products are the expensive ones. Beans and legumes are cheap source of protein.

I tried Beans and Legumes. I'm going to try it again tonight or tomorrow, but they destroy my digestive tract. I'm okay with peanut butter, but all dry beans (triple washed already before packaging) I cook turn out to cause me distress.

julieh391

After reading through more of your replies I'm pissed off with your wife. You really need to have a serious talk about priorities. She seems to have no concern for how you're feeling or the health of your kids, which is really sad. This is much more about your relationship than it is about your food budget.