Gluten Free Food Shopping Tips to Save Money Ep. 13

Shopping for gluten free food can get expensive. I'm sharing some great tips with you this week to help you save money on your grocery bill. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Welcome back to this week's episode. So we are talking this week all about how to save money when you're shopping, because as you probably know, by now, it's quite expensive buying gluten-free foods. So this is a question that comes up quite often, and it's basically how to save money when you are shopping. So if you are the only person in your family that has to eat gluten free, you are very lucky. Um, in our household, it's currently myself and my son that have to eat gluten free. He's got non-celiac gluten sensitivity and of course I've got celiac disease. So there's two of us out of our household of five. And to be honest, that diagnosis with my son wasn't that long ago. And I have actually noticed an increase in our grocery bill since he got diagnosed. So he's only four and he's a big eater I'm actually scared for when he's a teenager. So I thought it would be great to share some tips when you guys this week to help you save some money on your shopping. So we'll start very simply by, as you probably know, by now, I do truly believe in eating as much real food as possible. I'm more about eating good wholesome food than packaged foods. So when we buy food, that's actually real food. And when I say real food, it's something that was grown. It's not something that's been, you know, messed around with and packaged and marketed and all those types of things. It's basically meat and veggies and rice and legumes and beans and things like that. And you'll find that the more of those types of foods that you eat, the cheaper your grocery bill will definitely be. Now, I know in the very, very beginning of going gluten free, when you get your diagnosis of celiac disease, it is very expensive because you go through your pantry and you go through your fridge and you find all these food that you just simply can't eat. And I know for my husband and I, when I found out that I had celiac disease, I went through everything and we just decided it was too hard to keep, you know, sources and condiments and things like that that had gluten in them. So we got rid of all of those things and we replace them with gluten-free versions and that cost an absolute fortune. So I do know that in the beginning, it costs a lot more, but over time you can save the money. So a big tip. So this is something that I know a lot of people are very scared to do, and they don't know how to do it, but instead of just buying products that are labeled gluten free, you can also purchase food that is labeled, um, on the ingredients. So when you look at the ingredients list, it's basically gluten-free bright ingredients. So what that means is there's no, um, ingredients listed that contain gluten. So it does take a little bit more effort because we can't just look at the shelves and see that gluten free label jumping out of, out at us and grab it off the shelf. We actually need to pick up food and compare the labels and have a look on the back of them and read the ingredients and find out what's in them. So you will find that when something's not labeled gluten free, it just is cheaper. It's so much cheaper. And I know here in Australia, that companies do pay to have gluten-free labeling on them. And, you know, they've got to make up for that money, which, you know, it's fantastic that we have these options and I fully support gluten-free products. Absolutely. But just know that there are products out there that are naturally gluten-free buying ingredients. So it's definitely worth checking out and looking for those products as well. So another one to do is to stock up on specials. Now I do this, we do eat a fair bit of pasta. We, we love our pasta dishes in this family. And I find that pasta is a great way to bulk up a meal. You know, if you've got pasta sauce or, um, you know, you've made something that pasta goes with, then you can add a bit more pasta and it goes a lot further with a family of five. So it went past, it is on special. I buy, um, one particular brand and it's often on special in my local supermarket. So I grab an extra couple of boxes whenever it's on special and just have them pop it away in the pantry. And then I don't add them to my grocery list. Again, I know that I've got them there and you know, I've usually saved a few dollars by doing that. So that's a really good way to save money. So you might want to allow a little bit of extra money in your grocery budget for looking for things that are on special. You know, you might not necessarily need it at that point in time, but you know, you can grab it because you know, it's shelf stable and you can keep it in your pantry for later on. So, you know, that's a good way to save money long-term as well. Now I know that a lot of people eat plenty of bread and our bread consumption has gone up a lot since my little man reef has had to eat gluten free. He doesn't generally eat bread during, um, most of the days of the week, but the days that he goes to kindergarten, I send him with a sandwich because he eats a lot of food and they only have a, have a limited time to eat at the kidney. So I, I find that a sandwich does feel hemo. So yeah, if you, if you go through a lot of bread, then I suggest that you find a good bread. That is a little bit on the, you know, the cheapest side. Now I bought Audi gluten free bread many, many years ago. And I thought it was, it actually tasted like it had, um, orange pew in it. And I just didn't like it. I just, all, I just couldn't stand up and I didn't have it for such a long time. And then just recently, for some reason, I don't know whether someone bought me a low for, I had it at someone. I can't actually remember where I had it, but it's completely different. It's a hundred percent better. It's actually really quite nice now. And it's about half the price of what other gluten-free bread is. So, you know, try a few different ones. Cause you might find one that you like. Um, here in Australia we have a supermarket called Woolworths and some people like the home brand version of their Woolworth bread and it's much cheaper as well. My mum enjoys that and she's got celiac disease and she likes that one. So it's all personal preference, but you know, there are, there are cheaper versions of bread around and another option is to make your own bread. You know, if you've got the time, that can be another great way to save a few dollars is by making up your own gluten-free bread. All right. So moving on to the next one is to meal plan. If you,

Speaker 2: 7:34

Ah, if you go shopping

Speaker 1: 7:35

On a whim and you know, you're spending money left right and center and you grab a few things extra and you know, you're not prepared for what you're going to have. You tend to overshop. So I find that meal planning is an excellent way of saving money and I'll pop a link below to meal plans made easy, which is a hundred percent gluten free and dairy free meal plans. And that's a great way to save money. For sure. Now I did mention first up about buying as much real food as possible. And this also ties into my next one, which is cooking from scratch. So the more you can cook from scratch

Speaker 2: 8:13

The easier

Speaker 1: 8:14

It is to use those real ingredients and to cut out the packaging and cut out the junk out of your diet. So that's a really excellent way of living as well. And I highly recommend it. The more that you can cook from scratch the better if you work during the week and you find it's just too hard to, to cook from scratch each day, you might want to batch cook. And you know, some people cook a big heap of meals on a Sunday and that'll keep them going for the week or even just a few nights. And another way that I like to do that as well is cook once and eat twice. And basically what that means is let's just say you were making a Curry or you're making a spaghetti bolonaise you would double your recipe and then you would have it for another meal another night. So you can either use it that week or pop it in the freezer and have it another time. So I find that that for me personally, is a massive saver and it's not only saves me money. It saves me time as well. So I love that idea.

Speaker 2: 9:15

All right, if you are a bit

Speaker 1: 9:17

More of a sweet tooth or you've got kids and you send them, you know, treats to school, it can get really expensive buying those packaged treats. So a great way to save money is to bake your own goods and pop them in the freezer. You know, you can bake up a whole big batch of say muffins, or even some cookies, probably not put them in the freezer, but you know, things that you can put in the freezer are fantastic because you know, you can make 12 muffins at one time and that's weeks and weeks worth of school snacks done easy, and you can save money doing that, utilizing leftovers. This is another big one. I don't know how people throw out leftovers. I don't, I didn't ever know this was a thing, but we had my husband's best mate and partner stay with us many years ago. And he was paying us out that we would keep the leftovers and his partner was like, yeah, for sure. I've been trying to tell you this for years. I don't understand why you throw the leftovers in the bin. Like you just eat it the next day or you put it in the freezer. Absolutely always utilize leftovers. You know, even if there's only a little bit there, chocolate in the fridge, you know, pop it in a container, put it in the fridge, you might be able to add it to something else, um, to bulk it up or have it for lunch the next day. I even know some people like to have a hot meal for breakfast. So if that's you, you can do that for breakfast as well. Super easy. So yeah, definitely don't be chucking out food. That's that's a massive waste of money. All right. Nother thing is to have a basic meal, just one lot a week, just a really simple meal. And I know growing up, we didn't have heaps of money and Sunday nights we used to call it easy night, easy night dinner, and I loved it. It was awesome. You know, we would have things like baked beans on toast with cheese, you know, just really simple foods like that. So you might want to just have a really simple meal one night, a week where it doesn't cost you much. It doesn't have to be bagged beans. It doesn't have to be that basic, but just something that's quite simple and doesn't cost an arm and a leg that can just help your overall budget. And then you might want to have something like a meat-free Monday. So if you're a meat, eating family, you know, that meat adds up it's there, it gets expensive. And obviously the more in your family, the more it costs. So having one night, a week where you just have a meat-free night can cut back your costs as well. So it could be something like, you know, a taco night. And instead of putting me in there, you have some referred beans and you make up, you know, your feelings with out the meat in it. So, you know, just, just work with it and get creative because there's so many meals that you can make without meat that don't cost the earth. All right. So shopping at particular stores, I know for me that there's definitely cheaper shops around and you know, the range may not be as great. So for me, I know that Audi is a really great place to pick up some budget items and you can get things a lot cheaper in Audi and they can be, you know, just staple items, really simple things where you can save money. You might have a Costco near you, um, depending on where you're living, but I know that there's these cheapest supermarkets throughout the world that you can look for as well. So, you know, if there's a, there's a supermarket that's nearby you, it could be a good chance to stock up on those, you know, standard items, flour, breads, things like that, where, you know, if it is half the price, like the bread I was talking about before from Audi is half the price of what you pay somewhere else. You know, even if it's a little bit of a drive to go there, grab a couple of loaves and put them in the freezer so that you don't have to pay more for those types of items, you might want to grow your own food from home. So starting up a vegetable garden, having Herb's things like that, depending on the size of where you leave your garden, you might even want to pop some fruit trees in. That's a fantastic option as well. I know that takes a long time, but if you're living somewhere that you're going to be forever, then that's a good, good option as well. All right. So another thing that I like to mention is bulking up meals with things like lentils and rice, just so you're making a Curry and it's got chicken in it. If you only put chicken and vegetables in it, it's not as feeling and it's not going to go as far. So what happens is you tend to need to put more chicken in it. So instead of doing that, you can bulk up with lots of lentils, lots of rice, and it can go a lot further and those items are really cheap. So that's a good way to save money there as well. Now this one's another one shopping online. So even though sometimes you can be tempted to buy more things. You can save money this way. So for example, here in Australia, we have a site called catch of the day and I'll put a link below. So catch.com.edu, and you can buy multiples of gluten-free items. And sometimes they are really, really cheap. You know, you can get three items for$9 of the same thing and this super cheap compared to if you were to buy them individually in store. So you might be able to do a bit of Googling and find something like that way. You are an equivalent to capture the day and have that option of shopping online. I must admit recently as well, I've been doing a little bit of online shopping at Woolworths and just picking up my groceries. And it's basically to save time and to not have to drag my kids through the shopping center, especially with everything that's been going on with COVID and the checking in and all that type of thing. It's just easier to just order online, pick it up and come home. So that way I'm not getting distracted by all the little specials at the end of the aisles and you know, all these different things that are going on in the supermarket and not wasting my money on buying things that I wouldn't need otherwise. So yeah, doing a bit of online shopping, if you've got the option, whether it can be delivered or you can pick it up, it's a really great choice. And that leads me to my last tip, which is sticking to your shopping list and less your boring things that are on special and will benefit you in the long run. So things like the pastor and things like that, that I mentioned. So I hope those tips have helped you. And if you've got any more to add to that, I would love to hear from you. So send me a DM over on Instagram and I'll pop a link to that below. But in the meantime, if you are on apple podcasts, I'd love it. If you could leave me a review and you can also subscribe to my emails over@belindawhelan.com so that you don't miss a thing, but otherwise, thanks so much for listening guys. And I will talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.