How do you stay frugal when one or more of your children are diagnosed with allergies or food sensitivities? Our family has dealt with this for quite awhile however, now it's about to become even harder as we are in the beginning stages of going gluten free as well. My oldest daughter is extremely sensitive to artificial colors and other unnatural ingredients in most convenience foods. Another one of my daughters cannot have dairy or soy and we are now taking gluten out of her diet as well. Here are some ways we have found to stay on budget with all of our dietary restrictions.
When we first started avoiding all artificial colors and preservatives I went crazy buying all organic versions of our favorite convenience foods! It didn't take me long to realize that our budget could not handle that! My whole food budget was gone in one shopping trip and all I had to show for it was a few boxes of organic oreos and some organic teddy grahams. Something had to change. I decided it was time to spend more time in the kitchen and make all our snacks. For example, I'll spend one day a month and make a triple batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and freeze it in logs in the freezer for quick snacks. I'll also make up bags of brownie mix and muffin mix so all I need to do is add the wet ingredients when we want brownies. This one change significantly lowered our grocery bill.
The next thing I did was to really think about the think about the things my kids really love to have. Candy is one thing that I'm willing to spend a little more on. I have made it a policy to always have organic chocolate or suckers on hand so if they get candy that they can't have at church or Halloween or whatever they can trade it in for something they can have. Ice Cream is also something I like to keep on hand. Organic ice cream is expensive so I searched and found that Breyers all natural ice cream is dye and artificial flavor free and it goes on sale for $2 or less many times! For my daughter who can't have dairy or soy I buy her organic rice ice cream at the health food store for $6.85 a quart.
Breakfast is another budget killer if you buy only organic cereal or pop tarts. It can take a little more time each day to make something from scratch but it will really make a difference in your budget. For example, once a month you could make a huge batch of pancakes, waffles, or muffins and freeze them for later. We are using Pamela's Product for our waffle/pancake/muffin mix and it is worth it as my kids will actually eat this brand of gluten free food!
A great deal on some gluten free/dairy free food might seem like the perfect time to stock up however before you blow your budget on food you haven't tasted buy one first and make sure they like it!! We've found that many gluten free items on sale taste like a box and that's why they're on sale!
Lunch and dinner can be hard if you don't plan ahead. Dinners are my most easy place to save money. We usually have meat/rice/vegetable or meat/salad/vegetable. Occasionally we have bread but I don't give it to my daughter. Lunch is the hardest meal for me and the one that is taking the most time to figure out. Leftovers are great if we have them. If not we have baked potatoes, tacos, or finger foods like fruits, vegetables, and popcorn.
Here is a sample day of food at our house:
breakfast: gluten free pancakes/bacon
snack: apple cut up
lunch: tacos with corn shells
snack: cucumbers with salad dressing
dinner: chicken, rice, steamed broccoli
drinks are organic rice milk or apple juice or water.
If we're going somewhere and we need to pack a lunch I'll often make homemade lunchables with cut up lunch meat (turkey) and grapes and lays plain potato chips ( dairy and gluten free!)
Check out Biblical Womanhood for more frugal Friday tips!
1 comment:
We deal with some of the same issues. I also keep treats on hand, for when people try to give my dd a treat that she can't have, or if everyone else got a cookie, I can hand her one too. As for dairy and soy free ice cream, I have been getting my dd flavored sorbets at about $3 a pint, less if I have a coupon. Sounds like you are figuring it out. It is constantly a learning thing dealing with food allergies and the companies are always changing things, so I have to always read labels.
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