Groceries for a large family

As most of you can imagine, it's getting harder and harder these days for a lot of families to get food on the table. Now imagine trying to feed a family of 9. Here in Hawaii, food is not cheap, and it still bewilders me how our own local produce costs so much more than Sam's Club and Costco. When I read about eggs costing $2 or bread for $.99 on the mainland, I am blown away since we pay about $2.99 for the "cheap" bread, $4.79 for "good" bread. Anyway, I'm occasionally asked how much my grocery bill is and how am I able to feed so many mouths.

So, we have a small farm that we are able to raise egg-laying chickens, pigs, and various tress and plants. We don't have to buy eggs since we collect them on a daily basis at our farm. We grow green onions, ginger, basil, papayas, bananas, mangoes, citrus, avocados, tangerines, pineapples, and tomatoes. That knocks off a lot of groceries we don't have to buy, I can't even remember the last time I bought pork from the grocery store. We used to have lettuce growing in our aquaponic growing bed but that has since dried up. We buy almost everything in bulk, lettuce, carrots, onions, zucchini, cereal, canned goods, you get the picture. We buy our ketchup in a bulk sized can and rebottle them into our old small ketchup bottles that have been thoroughly washed out. I have recently started buying the tomato paste in bulk and putting them in smaller vacuum seal bags and throw them in the freezer. I spend 75% less on these two items alone by doing it this way.

I utilize our local grocery store weekly sales and buy LOTS when it's on sale. I don't use too many coupons since I don't purchase too many items that are found on coupons. Besides, Costco and Sam's club do not accept retail coupons. I only buy red meat twice a month, which is still more than we should be eating anyway. We try to use our own chickens for consumption but lately I've been buying our chicken from the grocery store then freezing it. I'll post later about how I prepare our bulk items for the freezer to make meal prepping quicker. I try to buy organic as much as possible, but there aren't many choices close to home. Hawaii does not have. Trader Joes, we have Down To Earth and Whole Foods, which as I already mentioned, it is very very expensive.