Grocery Haul in Fall & Where We Source our Food

I love a good grocery haul – I don’t know about you but I find what other people shop for at the store so interesting! I always get so much inspiration when I watch a grocery haul video or read about one online. grocery and garden haul this week and where we source our healthy food. I’m also going to let you in on some of my secrets for sourcing healthy food like raw dairy, meat, and pantry staples for cheap!

Related: Traditional Cooking Guide for Beginners

This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.

watch my grocery haul

grocery & Garden Haul Items

I’ll throw out a disclaimer and mention that this isn’t what we spend every month! This was a massive haul and the foods from Thrive and Costco will last us several months.

grocery haul thrive market

This is where we purchase many of our snacks and pantry essentials. For a while when I was nursing my son I had to have an extremely limited diet because of some food allergies he had. I loved that I could search for food based on dietary preferences such as “vegan” or “dairy-free.” It made it so easy for me to find foods I could actually eat at the time!

• Ghee x2
• Organic French roast coffee beans x4
• Organic Viennese coffee beans
• Cocomels x2
• Organic coconut milk x4
• Hu Cashew butter chocolate bar x6 (wouldn’t usually get this many but it was a requirement for this item and we’ll totally eat it!)
• Hu hazelnut butter chocolate bar x6
• Siete nacho grain free tortilla chips x4
• Lesser Evil paleo puffs Himalayan sea salt x4
• Love beets organic cooked beets x3
• Grain free vegan nacho puffs x4
• Jovial brown rice shells x2

Total spend = 185.89

grocery haul fred meyer

This is where I’ll get some produce each week and just fill in any gaps.

• Fresh basil
• Fresh sage x2
• Bananas x5
• Sweet onions x3
• Avocados x4
• Mixed greens x2
• Oranges x2

Total spend = 19.11

grocery haul costco

We only do a Costco grocery haul quarterly. Honestly, I really dislike shopping at Costco so I try to make it super quick. I’ll literally have my route mapped out before I even go in the store!

• Coconut oil
• Diapers
• Garlic (this is my secret to getting garlic into most of my meals! I have no time for chopping regular heads of garlic, so I just buy this stuff at Costco, put it in a garlic press and call it good).
• Sweet potato fries
• Dried mangos
• Black peppercorn
• Gorgonzola cheese
• Bone broth rice

Total spend = $73.03

grocery haul Local farm

We get our raw milk, eggs, cheese, and some meat at a farm a couple towns over from us. It’s about a 20 minute drive and it’s so scenic and gorgeous! The cows are on pasture and I love that I can ask them questions about the food we are buying from them and they actually know the answer! Their farm is chemical and GMO free and their specialty is raw, Jersey milk and pasture raised eggs.

If you want to find a farm that sells raw milk near you, try the website Real Milk Finder.

• Raw goat milk
• Raw cream
• Pastured eggs
• Raw aged goat cheese
• Raw pepper jack cheese

Total spend = $37.50

garden haul

We are very new gardeners, but we did have a modest yield this year! On this haul I harvested:

• Zucchini
• Pears
• Spinach

Total spend = $0 (not counting costs of gardening)

Grand total spend = $315.53

how to source pastured meat

I didn’t get any meat in this grocery haul, but I’ll tell you a little bit on how I source our meat. I sourced a farm where we purchase our poultry from Get Real Chicken. Our beef I sourced from Eat Wild. I always call and ask a bunch of questions and if I can, visit the farm to see what the conditions are like.

Questions to ask your local farmer

1. Is your beef grass fed and finished? Marketers will claim their beef is grass fed even when theyare feeding on grain most of the time because technically all cows eat some grass – this doesn’t mean they’re fully grass fed AND finished.
2. Do you use any sort of hormones or antibiotics?
3. Can I tour the farm?
4. What supplements do you give your cattle?
5. Are your animals ever confined? If so, why and for how long?

There are a ton more questions you could ask, but I find that those are sufficient without taking up too much of the busy farmer’s time!

Grocery haul on a budget tips

1. Do your research

Spend a little time and go through all the things you buy on a regular basis and then compare prices across places you shop (or want to shop). I did this and I found that Azure Standard had way better prices for things I used to get at Costco like olive oil, dried fruit, etc.

2. Think outside the box

I used to hate the idea of a subscription where I have to pay to shop somewhere, but Thrive Market actually pencils out to be cheaper for much of the pantry essentials and healthy snacks we love! Also, I pick up my Azure order from a semi truck in a parking lot – not your typical grocery shopping trip but it’s cheaper so I’m all for it!

3. Don’t be sold by a sale

Sometimes sales can be gimmicky. Notice when they’re just jacking the price up on something only to mark it down as a “discount.” By knowing what you normally spend on something (step 1 helps with this) you won’t be easily fooled by marketing tactics. Also, be sure if something is on sale that it’s something you would have bought anyway. If you’re buying something JUST because it’s on sale, then you aren’t actually saving any money.

4. Don’t go in the store

I was skeptical of the whole grocery pick-up thing. But when Fred Meyer started offering it for free, I was totally up for it! I wasn’t sure if it would actually save me money since I’m not the once picking the produce (making sure it’s not rotten) or catching the sale items (for the things I would buy anyway). But, it turns out, I actually do spend way less not physically going into the store! I had no idea how much impulse buying I do when I go inside the grocery store!

5. Okay, sometimes take advantage of a sale!

Okay, I’m going to back-peddle here… shopping some sales are totally worth it! Like, for example, if something is on sale that you know for a fact you will use (such as olive oil). Just make sure the expiration date isn’t coming before you can use the food. Also make sure the price is actually a sale price.

meal plan for the week

Here’s what I planned to make with everything I got this week in my grocery hauls.

Related: guide to creating a seasonal rotating meal plan

breakfasts from grocery haul

Sometimes I’ll meal prep breakfasts and sometimes I’ll just make something quick in the morning. This week I meal-prepped breakfast burritos and homemade granola with raw goat milk.

Breakfast burritos

Homemade sourdough tortillas, Italian sausage, raw sharp cheddar cheese, spinach, and scrambled eggs.

Homemade granola

I used 3 cups oats, 1 cup buckwheat, 3 tsp cinnamon, 3 tsp pecan extract, 1/2 tsp salt, 3/4 cup Maple syrup, 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes, 1/2 cup coconut oil. Baked at 300 degrees for 30 min.

Related: Pumpkin Spice Granola Bark Recipe

lunches from grocery haul

We always just use the dinners from the night before as lunches for the next day. I always make more than enough for dinner for one night and lunches the next day. To learn how I meal plan head to this post: Meal Planning System.

dinners from grocery haul

The recipes for all of the below are in my Fall and Winter Meal Plan!

• Pear, Gorgonzola and Caramelized Onion Sourdough Pizzas

• Sourdough Skillet – read this post for more info on this!

• Pasta Alla Vodka

• Chicken Sausage & Sage One Pot Meal

• Brinner (Sourdough waffles with eggs and bacon)

• The rest of the week was leftovers and easy-button meals (those who have my meal plan know what these are!).

Snacks and extras

• I also made some lacto fermented pear chutney with some pears we have from out pear tree! If you want to learn how to ferment, head to this post: Lacto Fermented Cabbage

pin it for later – grocery haul

Shop my Six Month Meal Plans

Shop for my six month meal plans here. These will help give you a restful dinner-time routine by giving you all your recipes laid out in a weekly meal plan format for 6 months.

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12 inch Cast Iron Skillet

Pecan Extract

Thrive Market – 25% off & free gift! (where I get a ton of my ingredients)

Azure Standard: $25 off your order. Code kyrieluke1

Berkey water filter

Dutch oven

Stand mixer

Boos Block Butcher Block

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