Let’s talk about money, choices

I’ve often heard the com­ment “I can’t afford to buy organic” or other sim­i­lar state­ments about pur­chas­ing more nat­ural and “green” prod­ucts. While I com­pletely under­stand, I always raise the point of the choices we make.

Let’s say, for instance, that your fam­ily bud­get won’t allow a few organic pro­duce pur­chases (like apples, straw­ber­ries and other pro­duce that might be a good choice to pur­chase non-conventional), organic milk, organic ketchup (both great places to start to cut your chem­i­cal expo­sure) and say a more nat­ural soap and sham­poo. Step back and look at what other pur­chases you are mak­ing. Do you buy packs of soda, lots of snacks, sweets or meat for every meal? Do you eat out a lot? Do you find your­self grab­bing fast food quite a bit when you are in a rush? Go cold turkey and quit. What if you redi­rected those “con­ve­nience food” dol­lars to the pur­chase of some organic items at the store or local farmer’s mar­kets and maybe even some more nat­ural per­sonal care prod­ucts (which are now easy to find at local stores)?

Coupons are a huge help, too. I clip, cut and save coupons from the Sun­day paper but also from sites online, includ­ing my gro­cery store’s web­site. You can also find “nat­ural” prod­uct coupons on sites such as Mambo Sprouts. In addi­tion to redi­rect­ing our dol­lars away from sug­ary snacks, sodas, fast food and other “junk foods,” I also shop the sales in the “nat­ural” sec­tion of our local gro­cery store. I may not be able to pur­chase a lot of organic foods, but I make choices depend­ing on the sales and the coupons I have.

I also try to make a once a month visit to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods to shop their sales and grab a few items which I can’t find here in Delaware. It’s tough to exer­cise self-restraint when wan­der­ing the aisles at Whole Foods (my neigh­bor calls it “Whole Pay­check”). Yes, it is daz­zling and I want just about every­thing, but the prices can be high so I really have to go in with a list in hand and, again, make some good choices.

Even with these tips and ideas, I com­pletely real­ize that bud­gets are what they are and, given our econ­omy at the moment, many fam­i­lies are fac­ing tough choices when it comes to food and other gro­cery items. But remem­ber, eat­ing well and using more nat­ural prod­ucts can be afford­able, it often just takes time and effort — some­thing I know, per­son­ally, is hard to come by.

If you have any money-saving tips and ideas we can share with read­ers, please let me know by email­ing me at Tuesday.trippier@dccmc.com. Thanks for sharing!

Tues­day and fam­ily wel­comed Samuel Ben­jamin two weeks ago. He was served his evic­tion notice (induced) and was a gen­er­ous 8 lbs and 14 oz and 20 inches long. He and mom and fam­ily are doing great — happy and healthy.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Aug 24 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.