Saturdays are as good as Christmas morning to me! That sounds crazy, but every Saturday morning I go pick up my produce for the week at a Bountiful Baskets pick-up location. This really is my one big "grocery" trip for the week. And I love it! And, of course, it's SUPER CHEAP!!! (Come on, it's ME! Of course it's cheap or I wouldn't do it!)
This entire assortment of fruits and veggies cost me $15! Yes, $15!!! There's a pineapple, two small cases of organic blueberries, a large container of strawberries, pears, apples, bananas, cucumbers, zucchini, asparagus, romain, cabbage, and two big bunches of spinach! And it's all great quality, it will last all week...or longer!
So how does it work? Bountiful Baskets is a Co-op, run solely by volunteers. They use collective buying power to buy produce at incredible prices! To place your order, you need to go to
bountifulbaskets.org on Monday or Tuesday (depending on state). There is a first time fee of $3.00, and you do pay about $1.50 per order in handling, but seriously, this is an amazing deal! On Saturday morning you go to your specified pick-up location where volunteers will be there waiting with baskets of produce for you. You need to bring your own laundry basket, or box, or anything you can use to haul it home in, since you'll be transferring your produce from their baskets to yours. This morning a lady was really smart and brought a cooler on wheels, good thinking! She was picking up two orders today.
You need to buy the "basket" for $15 to participate, but there are other add on items you can purchase besides the original basket, if you want. My husband and I were so excited about the add-ons for this week!
This is the Mexican basket. My husband loves Mexican food. He wanted me to buy two. I didn't, only because we knew we'd already have the first basket and didn't need that much produce! But for $6.50 we were able to get avacodos, garlic, onion, jalepanios, limes (aren't those limes so adorable!), cilantro, green onions, a bunch of dried peppers, and another kind of squash I'm not sure what it is. It looks like the zucchini I grow in my garden, but they don't look like the zucchini in my other basket, so I'm not sure.
This is the delicious 9 grain whole wheat sandwich bread that my family loves! My two-year-old eats two peices of this for breakfast, and then two peices on a sandwich for lunch! She loves it! And it's so healthy! Each slice is just 50 calories! It cost me $10 for 5 loaves.
This is the first time I've seen them offer tortillas. My husband loves to make burritos, so he was so excited to get these! They are delicious! And they are suppossed to freeze really well, good thing because there are a ton of them! It cost me $10 for all of these.
So my grand total for this week for my main basket, the Mexican basket, 5 loaves of bread, and tons of tortillas was $43.00 including the $1.50 handling fee. Like I said, this is my one big shopping trip of the week, and it has totally cut down on my grocery spending! Plus I feel so good knowing I'm feeding my family healthy food. My kids now reach for an apple, banana, or orange instead of crackers that they used to love.
Do you know of any other Co-ops? Have you tried either of these?
