Getting back on track with food budgeting and eating healthy can be tough especially if your grocery bill looked anything like ours in April. Since the wife altered her eating habits slightly by starting a low glycemic diet last month she’s been working on putting a low gi list of foods together.
She was struggling with what to eat on a low glycemic diet so a bit of research has gone a long way for her. My mate who is also a doctor but specializes in healthy eating and alternative medicines spoke to us a bit about the gi diet, eliminating fructose and the caveman diet or the paleo diet which I will get into in another post.
It’s certainly not a diet for the foodies faint at heart as there’s not much to it. Must like twigs and berries but all kidding aside the paleo diet seems like one heck of a healthy diet. The Mrs. will certainly be focusing on less carbs and more proteins in her meals.
Eating Healthy To Lose Weight
If you want to eat healthy that means making changes to the diet that may or may not affect your grocery budget. Over time once you build up a pantry full of the foods that are good for you and fit your lifestyle and diet you can easily make up an eating plan that suits your daily needs.
This is what Mrs.CBB is working on and the fans have been a great support for her by sending her lists of gi foods that she can read over and experiences which they have went through. She thanks you all so very much for your love and support and the lovely emails and blog comments.
I give her credit for taking this lifestyle diet on not only because I’m a big wimp and don’t think I could do it but because I should do it. As we get older our bodies change and we want to make sure we are supporting our bodies the best way we can.
Quitting smoking last year was the first part of our healthy lifestyle journey after we mastered the keeping active part of our life. Along the way our friend Bonnie inspired us to give it all we’ve got when we want to reach our lifestyle goals like she has been getting fit on a budget.
I’m a healthy eater as it is but eating cleaner seems to help me feel revived, less full and cleanses out my system more often if you know what I mean. If all else fails a good bowl of the Mrs. bran will do me good.
I always thought it was good to work your way into a new eating plan unless you are forced to change your eating habits due to health issues under the supervision of a health professional.
In this case the Mrs. did talk to her doctor who gave her the green light. If you are looking for healthy meals to stretch your budget getting back to the basics usually helps. Grocery budgeting for the both of us has been up and down but we are going to work extra hard in May to make sure we get back on track.
Drink More Water
We are both good at drinking lots of water but we could also stand to drink a bit more as sometimes hours can go by without a beverage because we are so busy.
I installed a water purification system in our home so we always have it on hand so we have no excuses not to drink it. One of our goals is to make sure we drink 2 glasses of water as soon as we get up in the morning so it absorbs through our system easily.
The both of us typically always keep our bottle of water on us at all times but need to keep up with the drinking pattern each day. The human body is mainly made up of water and water is very good for your body, your skin and flushes all the toxins in your digestive system.
It’s like a constant stream of cleansing for our body, taking in water and letting it out either from sweating like I do most days or simply going to the bathroom (urination).
Getting Back on Track
Making sure we stick to the budget in May is going to be not a “nice to do” it will be a “must do” otherwise we risk struggling further to catch up with our yearly overall grocery budget totals.
Just because Mrs. CBB has changed her eating habits slightly that doesn’t mean it has to affect the budget too much, if anything we will be eliminating foods we typically buy and replacing them with more healthy fruits, nuts, beans, vegetables, grains and dairy.
We were never really the convenience food type eaters but we have bough sauces in jars that were pre-made foods mainly for flavouring. Now we like to create our own sauces if we can from spices and juices such as lime and lemon juice.
If you know me you know I have a love for limes and lemons especially in our salad dressings. We are also using sesame oil and various other extra virgin olive oils in our cooking. We have also incorporated coconut oil into our diet and use the Grace Coconut oil which we both enjoy as it has a bit of a nutty flavour.
This month we have a small grocery budget of just $72.26 to spend which will be challenging but at the same time we stocked up well for her new low gi diet in April.
This weeks shop mainly consisted of lots of vegetables and fruits. I’m going to jump in and see if I can make her some sweet potato poppers in the oven crusted with I don’t know what yet but I’m intrigued to begin creating some new menu items for the both of us.
Question: Are you on a special diet or lifestyle eating plan and how has the affected your grocery budget?
Grocery Game Weeks for May
This is our first shop for May 2013. The WINNER of the April Grocery Game Challenge …IS…….. Ballot#4 Jen Peacock! Please email me your address so I can send off your prize to you!
Congrats Jen but I’d also like to congratulate each one of you for sticking through another month of the 2013 year with me. There’s 8 months left let’s complete the task and beat the grocery budget together.
- Last week of April Grocery Shops>>Week 5 ~29 – May 5- No shop week for the CBB family- Ignore Your Grocery Flyers
Past Blog Posts To Help You Shop and Save!
Free Money Saving Downloads just for YOU!!! Get organized with a freezer inventory, meal plan, shopping list, price comparison list and much more!!! Click, Save and Print.. It’s that easy~
- Let Your Coupons Expire And Save Money
- Knowing Your Prices Is The Key To Saving Money In The Grocery Budget
- Product Price Adjustments Don’t Miss The Savings
- Scanning Code of Practice In Canada (SCOP)
- How To Start Saving Money On Groceries In Canada?
- How Much Should My Grocery Budget Be?
- Top Ten Ways To Cut Your Grocery Budget
- Meal Planning For The Budget
- The Grocery Game Challenge and Our Grocery Budget
- Grocery Budget Saving Tips
- Food Shopping On A Budget
Our Grocery Game Challenge Results #1 May
Walmart
- Carrots $1.97 Sale
- Yams $3.46 Sale $0.97lb
- Ginger $0.42
- Apples $3.46 (these are amazing.. just look how big they are)
- Lemons $1.48
- Bag of Barley $1.49
Total Out of Pocket: $12.28
No Frills
- 2 bags of Welches Blueberries Sale $3.00 each
- Yoplait Yogurt $1.97-$1.00
- Skinless Chicken Breast on the bone $4.52, $4.50 Sale $2.00 lb
- Bean Sprouts $0.97
- Celery Sale $0.97
- Cucumbers $2.00 Sale buy 2 $1.00
- Garlic $0.97 each
- Red Onion $1.92 (pricey)
- Bananas $1.80
- Whole Wheat Pita $1.00 Sale
Total Out of Pocket: $25.63
Food Basics
- 2x Fresh blueberries Sale $1.44 each
- 1x Strawberries Sale $1.44
- Arctic Gardens Veg Sale $5.00-$5.00
Total Out of Pocket: $4.32
Yearly Grocery Budget For 2 : $2819.38
- Total Grocery Budget for the Month: $235.00 or $78.33 week with one no-shop week per month or $58.75 for 4 weeks per month. (During the months with 5 weeks we just make it work)
- Total Budget For May: $72.26
- Total Coupons Used this Week : $6.00
- Total Discounts this Week: $0
- Total Gift Cards Given Used this Week: $0
- Total Rewards Points Used: $0
- Stockpile Budget: $20.00 Used: $
- Total Spent This Week:$42.23
- Total Spent So Far for (May): ($162.74)+($42.23)=$204.97
- Total Over/Under spend this shop: $ N/A
- Total Over/Under spend for the month of (May): $N/A
- Total Left to Spend for the Month: $30.03
- Total Coupons Used This Month :$6.00+
- Total to Carry Over Next Month : ($ 162.74 has been carried over to May from April 2013)
- Total Spent To Date This Year: $206.95 (Jan)+ $160.77 (Feb) + (March)$169.62 + (April)$397.74=$935.08
- Rendezvous Account: $65.38 (this will be used for a date night or a summer holiday)
Weekly Overview: So far so good but there’s still a few weeks of grocery shopping left so we have to make sure we plan ahead to keep our grocery bill lowered.
Canadian Coupons Found This Week
How was your grocery shop this week?
Grocery Game Frequently Asked Questions
Grocery Game Challenge RULES….. Read the rules first and if you have any questions email me or comment on this post with your question and someone will answer you as soon as possible.
- Do I have to be Canadian to post my Grocery Shop? No, you don’t have to be Canadian to post your shops only to win a monthly prize. We have a few players from around the world.
- When does the Grocery Game Close each month? The Grocery Game Challenge Closes at Midnight of the last Sunday of the last post for the month. You can post your shops all month-long.
- Does Your Grocery Budget Include Health and Beauty and Laundry? Yes our Grocery Budget includes such items as shampoo, conditioner, laundry soap, fabric softener, dish soap etc. We don’t mind stockpiling items that won’t be effected by expiry dates or have long expiry dates but not so much food any more. It’s just one way to help cut your budget to save money.
- Where can I find Canadian Coupons? Here are your latest Coupon Match-ups of the week including Checkout 51 from 25 Newspaper Inserts around Canada compliments of Save Big Live Better that you can use to help you save money in the Grocery Game Challenge.
- How Do I Know what stores accept coupons? You can find all your store coupon policies here. If you are not sure it’s always best to call the store and ask.
- How Do I Grocery Shop?- I can tell you about grocery shopping and what we do in terms of shopping to save money and how it works for us. There are no wrong or right answers, just smart choices. Over time you will gradually learn where you should and shouldn’t go in the grocery store or at least how to say no, I’m on a budget I don’t need to buy this or that. You may also substitute items in order to stick to your budget to make it work.
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Related articles
- Paleo Diet helps Fairfax family shed pounds, stay healthy (wjla.com)
- The Grocery Game Challenge #2 April 8-14, 2013~Tracking Grocery Expenses (canadianbudgetbinder.com)
- The Grocery Game Challenge #5 April 29-May 5, 2013- Ignore Your Grocery Flyers! (canadianbudgetbinder.com)
- The Grocery Game Challenge #3 April 15-21, 2013- Can Your Budget Handle The Low GI Diet? (canadianbudgetbinder.com)
- Let Your Coupons Expire And Save Money! (canadianbudgetbinder.com)
- The Grocery Game Challenge #13 March 25- 31,2013- How To Grocery Shop (canadianbudgetbinder.com)
- The Grocery Game Challenge #4 April 22-28 ~We Blew The Grocery Budget Up! (canadianbudgetbinder.com)
