>>Also, I notice that a lot of the food you eat is healthy, but not necessarily the most frugal. Like, mac and cheese would probably be cheaper to make than stuff with nuts, etc. And that soy bean oil is cheaper than coconut oil. But, for the healthy food you buy, you make sure to buy it in the cheapest way possible. So my question is this:
Are you frugal because a healthy lifestyle is important to you, and this is how you make it affordable? Or would you be just as frugal if healthy food wasnt as important to you? If you had to make a choice between frugality and health, health would come first, correct?<<

This is a hard question to answer directly, maybe because I don’t understand it very well.

I often hear people complain that it’s so expensive to eat a healthy diet.  While healthy food can be more expensive, I don’t think that a limited food budget should equate with low quality food.   Right now I’m spending about $600 on food monthly for a family of 11, but that’s a pretty generous amount and it allows me to buy more than a month’s worth of food.  Since my monthly food budget is lower than most people, even those who don’t keep kosher or eat healthily, it would seem even if I wasn’t particularly concerned about health I’d have to be frugal to eat well on this amount.

My food budget is what it is because that’s what I have.  I can spend it any way I want and on whatever foods I want, but in the end, that’s the limitation.  I choose to buy foods that nourish us because I think health is important.  But staying within my financial constraints is primary to me – I believe in living well with whatever you have, so having limitations doesn’t denote deprivation to me.

I’m frugal for two reasons – 1) my financial resources aren’t unlimited; 2) I believe our resources are sent to us by H-shem (G-d) and it’s our responsibility to use them well.  There’s no joy for me in spending more than I need to just because I have it.  My dh once asked me if we were millionaires if I’d shop the same way, and I told him there’s very little I would change.

By being careful I have fewer choices to make between health and frugality in regards to the foods I buy.  But if I didn’t have as much money to spend as I do – if the choice was between going hungry and having healthy foods – rather than let my family starve I’d feed them cheaper and less healthy foods.  (But as I said above, I don’t think this is usually the choice.)  I already make this choice to a degree – my strong  preference is to eat only grass fed meats, pastured eggs, and raw milk from grass fed cows.  Also, I’d like to only use organic produce from local farmers.  If I had the money, I’d gladly spend more for all of these choices, but I won’t financially overextend myself for them.  I do the best I can and I’m okay with that.

Avivah