5 Tips to Help You Reduce Your Food Expenses. You Can Save Money Growing Your Own Food This Year Even as a Beginning Gardener Living in the City or in the Country

Hey there! 

This has been an interesting week and I decided I will go back to 1 episode per week unless I have some extra time each week to put out 2 probably for the next few months anyway. 

If you haven’t listened in the last few weeks, God put it on my heart last month to put our house up for sale which makes no sense to us at all, so knowing that we need to be obedient, within a few weeks, we put our home up for sale and it sold within a couple days.  I am a planner and at this time we don’t know where we are going to live because there is nothing available that we are looking for and we want to make sure we stay debt free and if we build, it probably won’t be done this year because most of the builders around here are already booked up, so we are trusting that God will make it obvious as He already has His plan for us and God’s plan is always perfect.

It has been 2 weeks now and waiting is so so hard sometimes.  We do have a couple options, but God is saying to have patience and wait.  We did rent 2 storage units, bought a 24’ enclosed trailer and plan to have a storage container delivered to our cabin because we have lived on our 10 acres  for 10 years and have accumulated many items-especially having a little homestead.  Our goats will go to our son and daughter in laws house and the chickens will be split up to a variety of places, so we are planning as much as we can at this time, but moving from this home will be very hard because we have put so much work into our place to make it just how we want it and we will most likely be starting from scratch again.  I will keep you all up on this journey because I believe God has something for us that He wants the whole world to know about and I can’t wait to share it with you when I know more!

Today I want to talk to you about 5 tips to help you reduce your grocery bill by growing your own vegetable garden as a beginner gardener.  If you have never planted a garden and you don’t know how to save seeds, you can still save money growing your own vegetables this year!  Listen to episode 25 to learn more about seeds if you would like to save even more!  Depending on where you are in the country, you might still be able to start seeds if you want to!

First, figure out where you are planning to have your garden and how much space you will have.  If you are growing food in pots, then you will be a little limited as to what you can grow.If you have space, I recommend starting raspberry bushes or strawberry plants, because  they will grow and you will yield more each year.  Many people are happy to give away shoots from their raspberry plants and runners from their strawberry plants in the spring, so ask around or look on craigslist or marketplace so you don’t have to spend money.  You won’t get much fruit the first year, but the second year you should be very pleased!  If you have some extra money, plant a few fruit trees as well for your future.

 

Second, many times you can go to smaller greenhouses and they have smaller plants, but their prices for 1 plant is usually cheaper than buying whatever it produces at the store and each plant will produce multiple vegetables.  Right now I’m thinking about peppers.  It cost me almost $2 just for 1 pepper the other day in the store, but you can usually find pepper plants for less than that and it will produce several peppers.  Just to compare-when you buy a packet of seeds, it is usually less than $2 as well and then each seed is a plant that produces several peppers, so you can see how planting seeds is even cheaper than buying a plant that is already started, but it is much more convenient to buy the plants than start seeds, so whatever works best for you-you will save so much money planting them yourself as long as you take care of them!

Third, you will be able to save money because you can preserve food for most of the year and then you won’t have to buy food in the off season because that can really get expensive when you buy food when it is out of season-here anyway when we can really only grow food about 4 months of the year.  The bonus to learning how to can and preserve food is that it tastes amazing,knowing you grew it and that you can do it, and the huge amount of money you will save!  You can do this - I want to help you start growing your own food because not only is it more nutritious, but it also gives you a sense of accomplishment.  I can’t even tell you how much you will enjoy this process!

Fourth, If you are not able to grow your own food, you can buy from a farmers market or look for people giving produce away.  Many people grow more food than they need and so they are many times looking for people to give it away to, so keep your ears open and  learn to preserve the food so that when you are able to grow your own food, you know what to do with it.  Just preserving food for the year will also save money even if you can’t grow it yourself right now and that is a huge step forward in your journey.

Fifth, have fun with it and don’t get discouraged.  If you are a beginner gardener and some of of your produce doesn’t do well, use that information as a learning experience for the next year.  We all have different soils and weather, and each year seems to be a little different, so don’t get frustrated.  I have been gardening for quite a few years, but I still learn new information each and every year and there are so many different ways to grow food, so if something doesn’t work one year, try something else the next year.  

As you probably already know, I like to keep everything streamlined and simple, so I know you do not need to complicate gardening either.  Start small so you don’t overwhelm yourself! Get a few plants that you want to try and get started!  Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions and I would be happy to help in any way I can! I will keep you updated on my new garden this year as it will be a new adventure for me with new territory starting from scratch with clay and rocks, so I don’t know what will grow this year and what won’t, but I am going to give it a try!

 

If you haven’t already,  go to claimingsimplicity.com and sign up to get my recipes and simplifying tips that I will be sending out!

 

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Have a super week!

Monica