Illustration by Kat Frick Miller
It was about 15 years ago when Cyndy Neilly-Spence learned that by breaking down the protein in milk, adding fresh bacterial cultures and storing the mixture in heating bags for a few hours, she could make yogurt.
While that description is a synopsis, and the actual process involves specific boiling points and temperatures – in addition to a six-hour incubation period – Neilly-Spence says the cost-saving benefits outweigh the time it takes to make her favourite breakfast.
“Yogurt is relatively expensive, if you compare the cost of a litre of milk,” she says. According to Statistics Canada’s data on monthly average retail prices, the price of 500 grams (or about two cups) of yogurt was approximately $3.50 in January, while one litre of milk, which would provide double the amount of yogurt, was $3.03.
That savviness was evident when Neilly-Spence first reached out to The Globe and Mail about how she grocery shops: “A bone doesn’t leave our house without being turned into stock,” she wrote.
She doubled down on cooking from scratch when grocery prices went up considerably in recent years. Since retiring from her full-time job as a nurse in 2016, the 65-year-old and her husband have been implementing cost-saving tips and tricks they learned years ago to shave some costs off their grocery bills.
The two still work part-time (her as a Master Life-Cycle Celebrant and wedding officiant and her husband as a Pilates instructor) and cook, bake and cultivate most of their food at their home in Toronto’s Beach neighbourhood.
Besides the homemade yogurt that the couple makes and stores every two weeks, they also batch-cook four to six weeks worth of homemade cereal with oatmeal and quinoa, and cook 12 servings worth of stew or chili at a time, all of which they store in glass containers in their pantry or one of two large freezers they keep in their basement.
“The freezers were investments, but they paid off big time,” she says.
Besides the reduction in cost, the couple says they were inspired to make their meals from scratch by an article on ultraprocessed foods, which have been linked to an increased risk of chronic diseases including obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and colon cancer.
“I know that what I’m making at home has less fat, sugars and additives than the packaged foods at the store,” she says.
How we save money on groceries: By cooking at home, we save money by not buying premade or packaged foods. We purchase dry beans, rice and lentils, instead of canned, which saves us quite a bit.
How we splurge on groceries: We lean toward organic fruits and vegetables, locally farmed meats and poultry, whole milk from Guernsey cows and artisanal bread from the bakery at Fresh from the Farm, our local shop.
The hardest shopping habit to keep up: We do not bulk-buy our splurges or treats, such as butter tarts, mostly because we do not bake, so whenever we want them we have to travel to get them. We also have to have a lot of glass containers for all the food we make, which can be tough to store.
How we’ve changed our eating habits recently: We try to eat at least 30 different fruits, vegetables and pulses (legumes) a week. We do pretty well with that, by making sure that we pack each of our meals with a number of each. Our soups have a lot of vegetables and legumes and our breakfast yogurt is topped with three different fruits.
Five items always in my cart:
- Organic blueberries – Fennec – $13.99: These blueberries are grown in Nova Scotia. We usually eat them with our homemade yogurt, topped with our homemade cereal, hemp hearts and chia seeds for breakfast.
- Golden Guernsey milk (4.8 per cent) – Eby Manor – $5.70: This milk is delicious. It comes from Guernsey cattle, from Ontario. The milk is very rich, fatty and high in protein.
- Ground Angus beef – Fresh from the Farm – $9.39: We enjoy this beef that we buy from our local butcher, which is sourced from Mennonite and Amish farms around Ontario. It’s great for burgers, chili and cottage pies.
- Organic quinoa – Kirkland – $18.99: Even though we buy this from Costco, the quinoa is grown in Bolivia. We use it in our homemade cereal and in soups.
- Gluten-free butter tarts – Yatton Home Baking – $9.69 for six: These are the best butter tarts ever! These are our special treat every once in a while.
