Real Food on a Real Budget: Review and Giveaway

[This competition is now closed. Congratulations to Louise, our winner of Real Food on a Real Budget.]

I previously shared how Stephanie Langford's blog Keeper of the Home is one of my inspirations for living a more healthful life.

Well I'm pleased to tell you that I've been reviewing her latest ebook Real Food on a Real Budget: How to eat healthy for less this past week and it's fantastic. Better yet, I have a copy to give away to one lucky reader. More on that later.

What it's about
It's all in the title. Real Food on a Real Budget: How to eat healthy for less. Stephanie has shared all the tips and tricks she's acquired over the years for feeding her family a natural, whole foods diet without breaking the bank.

Real Food on a Real Budget has given me so many ideas for getting better quality foods into our diet while sticking to a set budget. It has really encouraged me to think outside the square, to analyse where I'm spending my food dollars and whether I'm getting the best value for money, and to find ways to become more efficient in the kitchen.

What I liked about it
Comprehensive. Stephanie has covered all the bases with this book: She explains how to set up a working grocery budget; investigates the many places you can source food from; lays out various techniques for meal planning; discusses the benefits of cooking from scratch, buying in bulk and couponing; encourages readers to eat local and seasonal foods, grow their own food and preserve produce; talks about how to get into a frugal mindset; lists the most affordable nutrient-dense foods; looks at many of the little things you can do to save money and time; talks about the labour of love it is to feed your family; and includes a number of worksheets to get you started.

Personal experience and more. Under the topics listed above, Stephanie has not only shared the techniques that work best for her, but has given a range of ideas she's gathered from others. This gives readers lots of methods to pick and choose from, so they can find the ones that will work best for them.

Encouraging and empowering. The work we do feeding our families may not be highly valued in today's society, but as Stephanie points out, it is so important. This book encourages readers to be conscious about what it is they're feeding their families, and gives them the tools to do the best possible job with the resources at their disposal.

Internationally applicable. Although Stephanie lives in Canada, the ideas she's given can be applied anywhere in the world (save perhaps the chapter on couponing.)

What I didn't like about it

The only thing I found tiring was reading it on the computer. (I love to read in bed.) If you decide to buy this book, I recommend getting the paperback version rather than the ebook because it only costs a few dollars more and would mean you could read it somewhere comfortable (aah, warm snuggly bed!), write notes on it and refer back to it easily. I considered printing it, but it's 277 pages long... and I just don't have that much paper in my printer.

Giveaway

Stephanie is giving away a copy of her ebook to one lucky Craving Fresh reader! The giveaway will run from now until 11.59pm Thursday 2 September 2010 (NZ time).

How to enter. (There are 6 possible ways to enter, and you're welcome try them all to increase your odds of winning. Please leave a separate comment for each entry.)

1. Leave a comment. How do you prioritise where you spend your grocery money?

2. Subscribe to Craving Fresh. (Comment if you already do subscribe as well).

3. Subscribe to Keeper of the Home. (Comment if you already do subscribe as well.)

4. 'Like' Craving Fresh on Facebook. (Comment if you're already a fan as well.)

5. 'Like' Keeper of the Home on Facebook. (Comment if you're already a fan as well.)

6. Follow Keeper of the Home on Twitter. (Comment if you already do as well.)

Remember, for each of the entries above that you do, leave a separate comment on this blog.

The winner will be picked at random and notified by email, so please leave your email address for me in a way the spammers can't pick up on, eg. cravingfresh (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Disclosure

I requested a copy of Real Food on a Real Budget to review. Happily for me, Stephanie said yes and also set it up so if you buy either a digital or paperback copy of the book using one of the links from Craving Fresh, I will receive a small payment for marketing it. I've tried not to let that incentive bias my review of the book. 

To buy it

If you're interested in purchasing a copy, it's currently on sale for US$18.97 for the ebook version and US$21.97 for the paperback version. The paperback version also currently comes with free shipping (usually US$3.99), if you use the code FREESHIP at checkout.