Growing Food At Home As A Simple Personal Finance Strategy

Hi there. In this short post, I would like to talk about the benefits of growing food. There are obvious health benefits to growing your own food but I want to focus more on the financial benefits of growing food.

When I was younger, I used to think that growing food in your own house backyard was kind of silly. Grocery stores would always carry groceries at affordable prices. As of late, commodity and grocery prices just keeps going up over time. Currencies are depreciating in value over time as more money is being printed in circulation by central banks.

Cost Savings

Seeds, plants and gardening supplies can be thought of investments. Yes there are initial costs but do think about the abundance of vegetables and fruits being grown in nice weather. The cost of the home-grown produce will be much cheaper than the store-bought produce.

From a personal finance perspective, growing food is a strategy that would protect oneself from higher food prices due to inflation (hedge). If food shortages ever happen from the grocery store, the price of produce will increase. Anything grown would be of great value.

Less Grocery Trips & A Smaller Grocery Bill

Being able to grow fresh produce, herbs and fruits will result in less grocery trips. Fewer grocery trips results in savings in the grocery bill and less gas would be used for driving to the grocery stores.

Less visits also means a lower likelihood of those temptation food buys such as chips, cake, junk foods and other unnecessary purchases.

Growing Food As A Way Of Self-Reliance

As it is important to control what you eat and put in your body, I think it is also important to decide where you get your food from. Growing your own food helps avoid the long lineups at the supermarkets along with ensuring that the grown food has no chemicals. Grown food is much more fresher than the ones from the grocery store. You don't know the shelf life of the produce and how it is shipped from grocery stores. Getting sick adds to costs too.

What Can You Grow At Home?

There are a lot of options in terms of what you can grow at home. You do have to consider the amount of space available, sunlight and climate conditions for growing certain foods.

Carrots
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Celery
Salad Leaves
Chili Peppers
Herbs Such As Mint, Coriander, Sage, Oregano, Thyme
Green Onions

Currently, I do reside outside of the Toronto area in Canada. It is near the end of our winter season and we are entering spring. There are not a lot of options for growing food. For those of you who live in nice weather that is suitable for growing food, take advantage of it. Who knows when groceries can shoot up in price.

An easy and available option for growing food is growing green onions in a cup filled with water as described in this webpage.

According to the Lifehacker article, you can also grow romaine lettuce, garlic sprouts, fennel and leeks in water.

References:

Thank you for reading.

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