Ten years ago, I ate a Nutri-Grain bar every day.  I am someone who is hungry all day long (thus the food blog), and Nutri-Grain bars were my mid-morning snack.  Sometimes I would have another one later in the afternoon if I just couldn’t make it until dinner.  I was vaguely trying to be healthy, and I thought these bars fit the bill. “Nutri” is short for nutrition, and “grain” is good, right?  Those marketing folks knew how to get my attention.  I bought several boxes at a time when they were on sale, although I wasn’t a coupon clipper back them.  I shudder to think how many hundreds of dollars I spent on those bars over the years. I will never forget the moment, after years of this daily habit, when I looked at the ingredient list and I realized that I was actually eating the equivalent of a Pop-Tart.  Every day.  For years.  And I was trying to be healthy.  That realization was the start of my critical look at my grocery cart.

Over the past few years, I’ve swapped out highly processed foods for the homemade versions.  I’m always looking for ways to make healthy eating more affordable, so I was happy to have the opportunity to read and review fellow blogger Anne Simpson’s e-book, Your Grocery Budget Toolbox.  If you’re interested in striking the balance between staying within a reasonable grocery budget and eating the healthiest food possible, then this is the book for you.  I enjoyed the book very much, and even though I’ve been focusing on this topic for years, I learned quite a few things from it.

For me, the highlight of the book is her detailed account of how to establish a grocery budget.  Budgeting can be tricky for people who want to eat the highest quality food, but it’s necessary if you don’t want to over-spend on groceries.  Simpson is a believer in the “Once a Month Shopping” concept, which means that she does about 70 percent of her grocery shopping once a month.  This leaves a small portion of her budget for perishables such as produce, and she goes out once a week to pick up a few things that didn’t make it into her cart during the big shopping trip.  As someone who goes grocery shopping more than once a week, I’m intrigued by the idea of planning a monthly menu and doing most of my shopping all in one shot.

The book includes a practical application at the end of each section so readers can apply her ideas to their own situations.  For example, in the section about how to put together a grocery budget, Anne breaks down the different categories of food and gives a suggested percentage for how much money each category should take.  She then asks readers to determine their nutritional priorities and plan their budgets accordingly.  Here is my response to this challenge:

1. Produce:  This is my top priority, because no matter how much I focus on produce for my family, I still feel like we’re not eating enough.
2. Grains:  We’ve been transitioning to 100 percent whole grains in our diet, and I want to focus on bringing home a good variety of whole grains.
3. Fats:  We are using butter, ghee, coconut oil, and olive oil as our sources of fat for cooking and baking.  It would be nice to move to higher quality butter at some point, but for now I’m sticking to what’s on sale.
4. Sweeteners:  I do a lot of baking, and I use maple syrup, honey, and mashed fruit as my sweeteners.  As you might expect, this approach is more expensive than white sugar, but the price breakdowns in my recipes show that it’s actually not that much more expensive given the small amounts of sweetener I tend to use.
5. Meat:  We’re contemplating joining a meat CSA, which costs $8.80 per pound.  The cost gives me pause, but I’d love to be able to serve exclusively high-quality, local, grass-fed meat to my family.
6. Dairy:  I don’t eat much dairy, and the rest of my family gets whatever is on sale.  It would be nice to buy organic dairy products, but it’s not in the budget at the moment.  I have enjoyed switching to homemade Greek yogurt, which tastes so good and costs much less than the store-bought version.
7. Everything Else:  Spices and other miscellaneous items are at the bottom of my list of nutritional priorities.

The Grocery Budget Toolbox includes lots of tips for how to save money on healthy groceries.  Writing a price book can help you to keep track of the typical prices of the items you regularly buy (see mine here).  She details the many sources of coupons, affordable grocery websites, and internet savings techniques that are out there.  She even includes recipes for food items that are much more affordable when you make them yourself.  I was excited to learn that I can make my own apple cider vinegar from apple peels, and that there are lots of ways to use coffee grounds once they’re done making your coffee!

This book is an excellent resource for someone starting out on their money-saving journey, but it’s also full of great tips for veterans of frugal living.  I think it’s a bargain at $4.99.  If you’re interested in buying a copy, Anne is offering a 20 percent discount with coupon code realdeal.  This code will be available until Sunday, August 5^th.  She has also generously offered to give away one copy of Your Grocery Budget Toolbox in conjunction with this review.  If you buy the book and then you’re lucky enough to win the giveaway, she will refund the purchase price.

Giveaway Details

Trust me – you want to read this book.  There are so many great tips for making your grocery shopping more efficient and cost-effective.  To enter the giveaway, you may do any or all of the following:

• Follow Real Food, Real Deals by email
• Follow Real Food, Real Deals on Facebook
• Follow Real Food, Real Deals on Twitter
• Tweet this giveaway or post on your Facebook page
• Follow Anne Simpson at Quick and Easy, Cheap and Healthy
• Follow Anne on Facebook
• Follow Anne on Twitter

Make a separate comment below for each action you take from the list above.  If you are already following my blog or Anne’s blog in any of the ways listed above, leave a separate comment for each one so you can get multiple entries.  The giveaway will end on Friday, August 3 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book for this review, but all of the opinions are mine.

Linking to Monday Mania, Thursday Giveaway Link Up.