Less Is More — CampFIRE Homesteading

If you’ve switched from eating food in boxes and packaging, to eating fresh food, especially from your garden, CSA farm box, or farmers market, you might be eating less. No, not just less calories, but less food altogether. Having a tomato for a snack fills me for just as long, if not longer, than a bowl of cereal for a snack. A home-cooked meal ‘sticks to your ribs’ in a way fast-food does not.

We make our own granola bars and popcorn, so we don’t buy much in the way of snacks. This helps us eat a little cleaner, but also save some money. Have you noticed at the stores that when snacks are on sale, it’s 3/$$ or 5/$$. They really want you to stock up! But have you also noticed that snack food is one of the first things you eat up, or run out of?

Each of us Americans average 6 cups of sugar each and every week of the year…

Or, put another way, 3 pounds of sugar a week!

I’m convinced it’s because of how much sugar is in everything packaged and sold as food. I’ll spare you the diatribe, but sugar is as addictive as cocaine, and wreaks havoc on your body. Sugar has lots of names so it can hid as several ingredients in your food, not just as one. Spark notes rant: sugar is very bad for you, but it’s everywhere.

So, if you switch to raw foods, especially for snacks, and opt for a handful of almonds and an apple in lieu of a packaged bar of some kind along with a bag of something crunchy... how much sugar do you think you’re saving yourself from? And how many dollars do you think you’ll save? Not just immediate grocery budget dollars, but also your budget for health expenses. If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure… probably quite a few dollars!

But let’s look at the national averages, because I love a good food math problem.

The average household in St. Louis, Missouri, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Surveys, spends $353.58/month on groceries, and an additional $272.33 eating out, for an average total of $625.91/month spent on food. And this is in a Midwest city!

I like to think of my expenses in annual terms, especially as we track our FIRE progress. That’s $7,511 a year on food. For a little context, the national poverty level for a family of four in the lower 48 states is $26,200. Oh my, do we spend a lot on food.

Let’s experiment here: let’s say that for one month, we don’t eat out. Let’s say we’re gazelle intense with our meal planning and prep. Do we really need $600 for a house? We recently watched a video where June, from Delish, cooked her meals for less than $5 a day for a week, in New York City. Let’s say you do a challenge like that. That leaves you $575 for the three remaining weeks. You might lose a little steam, since $25 for a week seems pretty intense. But to go from $25 to $192 for the week, and the subsequent weeks for the rest of the month???

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm Box

In the Midwest, it’s common for CSA farm boxes to be about $30 a week, for at least three months out of the year (compared to the national grocery average of $88/week mentioned above)—and lots of CSA members get more fresh produce than they can eat in a week! If you paid $480 for 16 weeks of fresh CSA farm box goodness, that might feel like a lot up front, but divided over 3 months, that’s only $160/month on locally produced, nutrient dense, unbleached, herbicide/pesticide/fungicide-free produce. Good luck finding similar prices at nutrition stores! Oh, by the way, those boxes normally come heaping full, so that you can also freeze, dehydrate, or can the extra items to save for later, knowing you’re getting another box in just a few days!

Not only is there more nutrition in these fresh foods, but cooking with whole foods is better for your body. There’s more nutrition in your food, the closer you eat it in its original state. Fresh spinach has more vitamins and minerals that cooked or frozen spinach, because some nutrients get destroyed in the heat/cooking process.

The funny thing is, this idea of less is more applies to a lot more than just the food we eat. Have you noticed that, even though 2020 has been crazy, we’ve had fewer places to go, and more time to reflect? This doesn’t just resonate because it’s 2020. I think it’s always the case that we can have more, by having less, if what we have is quality.

Generally speaking, I find less to be more. Perhaps having less clutter in our homes, on our schedule, and on our minds frees us up to be more thoughtful, creative, and relaxed. Less on our to-do list might mean more time to brainstorm creative solutions rather than driving up to the Big Box Stores to purchase things to fix things? Less worry, maybe means we’re spending more wholesome quality time with the ones we love, and therefore have less to worry about? Less stress, maybe means we’re living more? And probably healthier!

When I have less on my plate, I am certainly happier.