1. What made you choose to start 'Living Thrifty,' specifically, on a $30 budget for groceries?

We originally adopted the $30/week idea after realizing that we were spending too much money on groceries, many of which ended up spoiling.  Our Co-op started utilizing a debit card system that made it very easy to just swipe a card and get whatever we felt like eating, so we found ourselves spending as much as $60 a week.  Cutting that in half seemed like a good budgeting project.

2. How has your lifestyle changed because of this restriction to grocery purchases?

Our lifestyle is pretty much the same - we're just a little more careful about planning and we're more creative with leftovers. It can be nerve racking if we decide to have people over for dinner. Usually, we just look for the best looking and freshest produce for the lowest price and then go on from there.

3. What are the typical food items which are included in your $30 grocery bills?

Oats, salad, tofu, bulk whole grains, and eggs are things we tend to buy every week, although with Spring coming, I think we'll stop eating so much oatmeal for breakfast.  Dried fruits and nuts and, of course, vegetables are always on our list.

4. As a result of your budget, what sort of food items have you stopped buying?

We've pretty much stopped buying any packaged or prepared foods (unless soymilk counts).  We definitely don't buy fancy cheese or ice-cream, both of which we love.  Well, Tina loves ice-cream a lot more than Phil, but we equally love stinky cheeses.  We're lucky that a bunch of co-workers got us a cheese gift certificate from Murray's that allows us to occasionally indulge.

5. As a result of your budget, what sort of original ideas have you come up with when preparing food?

Our freezer stock is definitely something we came up with to save money and produce something that we use quite often. Having a ready supply of vegetable stock on hand makes creating delicious soups, grains and bean dishes a lot easier. Buying in bulk was always something we did, but now we really make the effort to only buy dried beans and create a lot of bean dishes and sprout beans, which we never made before.

6. How has a vegetarian diet helped you to stick to your budget?

Being vegetarians has probably helped us stick to our budget, considering that if we did eat meat, we would probably stick to the organic, free-range stuff.

7. What advice can you give our readers who want to follow a lifestyle similar to yours?

First of all, we encourage people who want to do some sort of budgeting, or just want to set up some structure to help themselves be more engaged with cooking and eating, to find a challenge that's achievable. Some people who find our site get caught up with the $30 a week budget in particular, pointing out that our particular budget probably wouldn't be possible without being vegetarian, or without having a resource like our food Co-op. Maybe so, but you can still find a budget goal that's reasonable for you and stick to it.  

Second, while we spend less money on food than we used to, we're investing more time than we did before. This can also be tough for people who work, have kids and/or just have other commitments, but with enough planning you can make it work.  For instance, cook a pound of dried beans in a crock-pot overnight and then use them to make all sorts of different stuff - veggie burgers, soup, burritos. You can even freeze portions of them for later. Re-think your leftovers - a curry you make for dinner one night can be turned into samosas the next.  Get creative - the Internet makes it too easy to search for different things you can do with the food you have on hand.