I just ate an entire pound of strawberries.

You spent $4 on a pound of strawberries? Of course produce is expensive out of season, they have to ship it from timbuktu.

or California.

i don't know if they're in season in california right now, either.. if they are, it would be under rather unnatural conditions.

If not in season now, then they will be ripe in a month. We're I lived they grew them year round. 3-4 crops a year. There wear always fresh strawberries at the farmers markets.

I am pining for my California home this weekend.

There are a lot of healthy, tasty foods that you could have eaten instead of strawberries. Strawberries are not in season now and will be much cheaper in the summer. For now, you may want to stick to apples and oranges for fruit, maybe add a few berries to a fruit salad instead of eating a whole pound by itself. Or get some frozen berries. But in the long run... if that was the best choice today, it was the best choice. Don't sweat it.

Strawberries aren't out of season everywhere - they're in season here in Florida.

who buys just one item off the dollar menu at McDonalds?

Me! I did last Friday. One fruit and yogurt parfait. $1.11. It was the first time I had tried one, and only 150 calories. I needed a quick pre workout snack and well, seemed like the best cheap choice on the menu.

And it had some strawberries in it

Lucky for me I live in Nh where we grow a ton of apples so they tend to be cheap but avacodos and mango are things I love but they are pricey.

I know what you mean. With me I live in So Cal where strawberries are in season year round, so super cheap if you buy them locally. Same with avocado and citrus.

Apples... Or at least the kind I like are what is pricey. Honey Crisp are like crack though so when we have then I have so splurge and buy them.


I think buying fruit over fast food is money well spent. Quality over quantity.

I'm in Indiana and strawberries are about 1.65 a pound right now on sale. I could never pay $4/lb. To answer your initial question, there are a lot of foods I don't eat out of expense, but that doesn't mean you should go eat crap because its cheap. There are a whole lot of cheap healthy foods, too. Eating garbage is just an excuse many people use to justify their situation. Shop around, watch sale papers, and you can find plenty of good options

If you're looking at calories/$, you'd be better off buying a few bottles of cooking oil.

If you compared the weight of the McDonalds burger vs the strawberries, the ratio would be vastly improved.

Not an uncommon "snack" for me. Or a pint of blueberries, too. LOL

We are on both a "calorie budget" and a financial budget. When we do our groceries, we spend a whole afternoon, and hit two grocery stores, Costco and the local farmer's market. It is exhausting and we spend about $100/week but we get a ton of food for it (we have drastically minimized our eating out this way, too!). I will often hit the farmer's market first for things like lettuce (who am I kidding, this time of year in Canada, they are shipping it in but it is usually less $$ than other places by at least $0.50 if not a dollar or more), occasionally they will have deals on berries or cauliflower, etc. I tend to do the best when I am eating roughly the same thing every day so sometimes I have to switch it up but between three different chains and a farmer's market, I am usually able to get everything that I normally get for roughly the same money.

You spent $4 on a pound of strawberries? Of course produce is expensive out of season, they have to ship it from timbuktu.

or California.

i don't know if they're in season in california right now, either.. if they are, it would be under rather unnatural conditions.

We have fields and fields of strawberries growing year round in California. They are always in season. Nothing unusual about it at all. heck we even have a strawberry festival.

most strawberries aren't year-round perennials, though, so they may actually be growing, but that doesn't mean they're "in season". california is notorious for pushing boundaries. I used to live in monterey... they'd spray so much on those plants in watsonville that we'd all itch and cough from the downwind.

but you could get strawberries almost year round depending on the variety and if you covered them, which is likely how strawberry farms would do it.

you can always start growing your own this year and freeze them...thats what I do...so I have fresh in season and frozen out of season

ahh good idea. do you grow from seed or do you buy baby strawberry plants? When I lived in Cali I tried growing strawberries but never got good yield

I don't grow strawberries but I have a blueberry bush. I yield about 3 gallons of blueberries a season. Freeze what I don't eat or make sugar free jam. :-).

Now if I can find almond butter for less than $9.

Just make your own. Unsalted roasted almonds + food processor = almond butter.