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I don't find organic produce to be that much more expensive than conventional where I live. I shop all of the stores but am very lucky to have many options. To keep costs down, here's what I do.
Look for every sale, coupon, and other savings like Target's "cartwheel" program. Check out the organic produce for every nearby store. Aldi always has refrigerated organic greens like Spring Mix and Spinach at a great price, they just don't have a lot of variety.
Buy bags of apples, pears, and oranges when on sale. These, along with carrots, last a long time if refrigerated, which makes them stock-up items for me.
Be flexible and buy what is the best price rather than being strict about what you want. I eat a salad most days of the week and look for whatever is on sale that week. I might want only Romaine, but if I see a Spring Mix is cheaper, I'll buy the Spring Mix instead.
Frozen berries. I love, love, love my frozen blueberries! Target has a 2 1/2 pound bag normal price $12.99, but with sales, cartwheels, and the Redcard, I get them at around $10. A bag will last me all month. Walmart has a $10 just a touch smaller bag all of the time.
Don't forget about frozen organic produce. It's very cheap and goes on sale here often. I make lots of soup with it.
The one staple I can't always find on sale and that we use a lot of, is organic potatoes. Sometimes I'm able to get them at under $1 per pound, but without sales, it's closer to $1.20 per pound.
I'm the healthy eater in the family and try to eat organic whenever possible. My food costs are always lower than my husband's who happens to eat more junk.
Thank you so much for your help! We are not that close to Target and we like to shop close by, being in our senior years as well <gg>. We avoid Costco because it's exhausting for us to shop in these (wonderful) big box stores.
Yes, we do follow sales as much as we can. Here, in NYC, organic can be 2x as much as conventional, depending. We buy it anyway.
We are very careful shoppers and use the techniques you suggest <ss>.
Our freezer is stuffed with frozen organic produce.
We only buy organic potatoes. My goodness, what a difference, isn't that right? I would never buy a conventional potato now! We have been buying only organic potatoes and yams for the past 6, 8 years at least. We are vegans so we eat lots of veggies all the time.
I do not buy frozen berries. Know why? There have been a few incidents of serious poisoning. I am not comfortable with them for that reason.
You can check for online delivery service. They send you seasonal veggies/fruits. Costco has more organic fruits/veggies/products nowadays. I'm lucky that I live near many coops and farmer markets, so I can easily get them.
We are not near farmer's markets. Very inconvenient to get to them.
We cannot grow our own.
So we buy our organic produce in supermarkets. So expensive!
Also, there are no co-ops near us.
Well first of all: most farmers markets are anything but inexpensive so don't feel bad. Now, as for organic, our local grocery store will have a bin daily with produce that is ready to be sold as it is ageing and much of it is organic. That being said, yes, organic is expensive, so many of us have to be happy with the stuff we have been eating for years before the word "organic" became the trendy word
Buy some sticker labels that say "organic" and take turns with spouse going to grocery store and applying them to normal produce that you buy. You'll probably have same results.
.Actually we have found Wal Mart produce inferior and not any cheaper than our local stores. I am a huge supporter of Wal Mart, but not for produce and we live in Wal Mart . Of course this is just my opinion. another place that sells organic is ALdi's.
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