Organic on a budget?

eating healthy on a budget can sometimes be a challenge. it is often the biggest excuse people make not to eat healthy, "i don't have the money", "i can't afford organic". and i'll be honest, i have made that argument many times especially when it comes to buying organic. a lot of people think it's overrated or a waste of money. and when you don't really think about what you are really eating, it's easy to turn the other cheek and eat whatever is the cheapest. and we have been guilty of that for a long time.

with our new lifestyle we are eating lots of fresh fruit and veggies which has been taking a toll on our budget. we avoided buying organic by planting a small vegetable garden and have been washing our non-organic produce really well(which reduces but doesn't eliminate pesticides) but our small garden hasn't produced much crop yet and it probably isn't big enough to sustain us through the summer. so we have skirted around buying organic, trying to hold on to as much of our money as possible. we shop at our local farmer's market whenever possible, but we have found it so hard to spend extra on local and organic produce sold in stores and pass up non-organic strawberries for 99 cents in the grocery store. i am slowly realizing that strawberries for 99 cents might be easy on our pockets now, but in the long run we are only hurting ourselves. the pesticides that soak into the produce we eat on a regular basis is so harmful.

Dr. Axe has a great article i just read which has helped convince me to grow more of our own food, buy organic for certain foods, and eat more local produce. Dr. Axe has included a list in this article provided by the Environmental Working Group of the "Dirty Dozen" & "Clean 15". this is a condensed list of the top foods that you NEED to buy organic and 15 foods that are "okay" to consume non-organic in order to save money. therefore you can still stay on a budget while eating healthy. you can read Dr. Axe's article HERE, and check out more info on the dangers of pesticides and why you should avoid them HERE for more in depth info, but here is the list:

WORST(buy these organic): celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries, nectarines, bell peppers, spinach, kale, cherries, potatoes, grapes(imported)
BEST (lowest in pesticides): onions, avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, mangos, sweet peas, asparagus, kiwi, cabbage, eggplant, cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit, sweet potato, honeydew melon

another option for eating healthy on a budget is becoming a member of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). basically you pay a membership amount generally $400 - $700 for the growing season and in turn you will receive fresh produce from a local farm once a week. some CSA's offer weekly programs so you don't have to pay the whole fee upfront. we have looked into them before, but in the past they seemed too expensive. this of course is before we realized the dangers of what we were eating. when it comes down to it $400 for a weekly supply of fresh and in most cases organic produce over a 6 month period is a great deal. you can find out more info about CSA's and how to join one in your area HERE. we are considering doing a weekly payment option and getting produce, meat, and eggs. this in combination with our little garden should help us get through the growing season more healthfully.

DEBT

i mentioned debt before and how we got our motivation to get it out of our lives. i wanted to share the thought process behind being free of debt as well as some tools that have help us get our finances in order. we are FREE of consumer debt and are tackling education debt now. we used to think we were good with our money, but quickly realized the way we were going about paying things off by paying the minimum or sometimes a little more wasn't helping us get out of it.

Dave Ramsey is a big believer in paying the smallest debt first and paying the minimums on everything else. so when you do your monthly budget and you figure out how much you NEED to spend on the basics, whatever is leftover should be applied to debt. You should pay the minimum on everything except your smallest debt which should get the remainder of everything leftover for the month. this method will help you to see a quick reward of paying off a small debt and once that is gone you take what you were paying towards that combined with what you are paying toward your second smallest debt and put it all toward that. Dave Ramsey goes into more detail on this on his website and has plenty of free tools and information that are worth checking out.

Another tool we utilize is the envelope system. several financial folks recommend this method as a way to have a clearer picture of what you are spending. when we do our monthly budget we use an envelope system for items that can be paid for in cash such as: groceries, entertainment, gas, clothing, etc. for example if we have budgeted to spend $200 a month on groceries, when we go to the store we pull cash from the "Groceries" envelope. when the envelope is empty we don't have any more money left to spend on those items. so instead of just going out and buying things we may or may not need we think about what we are purchasing and if we need it right away or at all. since we have started eating more healthfully, we have noticed we have needed to spend more on food during the month. so when we do our budget we adjust it accordingly, shifting money from other things that are of lower priority.

even though we still have a little ways to go we feel so much lighter knowing we have already accomplished so much. it helps us to really think about what we are spending our money on and what we really need not what we think we need. there are more people who are out there giving financial advice aside from Dave Ramsey, we just trust and respect his advice, which is why we refer to him on here.