About Me
Hi there and welcome to Kosher on a Budget! My name is Mara, and I’m glad you are here.
So, a little about me… well, I am a wife, a mom, a freelance writer… and a bit of a freak about saving money. Over the last two years, I’ve become rather addicted committed to saving my family money through coupon shopping. (And yes, I have the stockpile of shampoo, razors, diapers and toothpaste to prove it!)
But unlike so many of the bargain bloggers already out there, I am an Orthodox Jewish woman, raising a strictly kosher-keeping family of five. If you are reading this, you probably know what I’m talking about when I say that keeping kosher is far from the world’s most ingenious money saving plan. I can’t tell you how many times I have wanted to cry reading about some amazing deal on treif ground beef for $1 a pound. I’m psyched if I can get it for $3.99 a pound!
So, no, I can’t save big on non-kosher chicken cutlets or Kraft cheddar cheese, but when it comes to staples like cereal, rice, pasta, condiments, eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, produce and, of course, toiletries, I can still make our dollars weep from frugality.
For my family of five, I aim to spend no more than $500 per month, which includes a good deal of organic produce; grass-fed, free range kosher beef (special ordered); plus all of our household items, like laundry detergent, shampoo and toilet paper.
Whether it’s combining coupons with sales, cooking from a monthly menu plan, baking from scratch, or getting freebies, I want to show you how to keep your budget to a minimum while still living a rich, full, kosher life!
If you are new to the world of frugal shopping, you might want to visit my Getting Started section. Think that coupons aren’t for you? I might change your mind with my series on Debunking Coupon Myths.
And finally, if you feel like all of this is just a drop in the bucket compared to your mountain of monthly debt payments, take heart: You might find a little hope in my series called An Honest Discussion. That’s where I reveal our most intimate financial struggles – from overcoming more than $30,000 in debt to building up an emergency fund of 6 months of expenses.
I’m so glad you are here and I can’t wait to learn more about YOU! Leave me a comment or contact me with any questions or suggestions you might have!
{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Mara,
I just found your blog on a link up with Life as Mom. I find it really interesting. I’m not Jewish, my family and I are Mormon. But, we greatly admire the Jewish faith, history and traditions. I too am interested in keeping my family budget under control, feeding my family high quality foods at a reasonable cost and getting us debt free. Being Mormon has it’s costs as well.
We recently moved from Seattle WA to Phoenix AZ and I’ve just started a blog about it and our life in general.
Anyway, I just wanted to drop you a note and let you know that I like your writing style and find you blog very interesting.
Thanks,
Danna
@Danna – Thanks so much for finding my blog! That so neat
Good luck with getting settled in in Phoenix. We moved from Israel back to the U.S. 2 years ago and I know what a big upheaval that can be. Hope you’ll stick around here.
Hi Mara,
I just found your site and I love it! What a unique perspective! I look forward to reading more from you in the future.
@Brittany – Thanks! I’m so glad you found me. I just clicked over and read your ‘peak into my stockpile post.’ Love that tip about the bay leaves!
I’d love to win the cookbook!
Hi Mara,
A friend of mine just told me about your blog, and I am glad she did!
I live in the tri-state NY area, where prices, even with sales/coupons, seem to be much higher than those you advertise, even for the same stores, like Target, Office Depot, etc. I have simply NEVER seen deals like the ones you get (.07/cereal, a few cents for a bottle of water, etc. I looked at your price book and was in complete shock) in NY or CT. I know that you live in KC–do you think that regional price differences can make a huge difference on your budget–not only on food and other grocery staples, but on other costs, like rent and buying a home? Are the deals you get in KC available here in the NY/CT area, but I am somehow missing them? Obviously, online retailers are a different story–it doesn’t matter where you live, which is why I love, love Overstock.com, amazon…and shopping in the IKEA as-is section: I have scored like-new furniture with nothing wrong with it for mere peanuts (like $25 for a dining room table!!!). Further, I would like to know how you find out about these deals to begin with. We get some circulars and coupons in the mail, but it’s not all that much; when I arrive in the store sometimes I look at the circulars, but I never see the prices you do, and never the amount of coupons you seem to receive. What am I missing? Finally, I appreciate your sensitivity to buying wholesome and organic food. For my family, I try to buy as much organic as possible. I would say that ~70%+ of the produce I buy is organic; milk, cereal, and eggs–always organic; fish–always wild caught; I don’t buy meat, but if I did, it would be organic-fed and free range; other products I buy are a mix either because there is less added value in buying them organic or because the difference in price is large enough that I simply haven’t been able to bring myself to buy the organic version. I know that such a lifestyle is a choice I am making, and for me it’s really important. But if you have any tips for those of us who are trying to save despite buying mostly organic food, please let me know!! I get the same good deals you do at Costco on the organic spinach, carrots and spring mix; I shop at Target, and sometimes at WF. Thanks for your tips and inspiration. I didn’t expect I would learn anything new from your blog, to be honest, but I have!
Thanks so much for finding me! I’m glad you are here! Awesome deal on that dining room table. WOW! That’s a lot less than I paid for my USED table on Craigslist. If you don’t mind, I think rather than answering your question about tri-state area pricing here, I am going to borrow it for a Reader Q&A post. I hear this question a lot, so I think it might be good to make it more prominent — that way everyone can benefit. I do Q&A every other Wed… so look for it tomorrow! Thanks again, Angelika!
Hi Mara. I discovered your blog through a Frugal Fridays post and was extra excited to see you are a fellow KC blogger. I look forward to following you in the future. Just wanted to say ‘hi’.
Julie
Hi Julie – Thanks so much for popping in. I love reading fellow blogger’s… especially from Kansas City
Hi Mara -
My rabbi circulated a link to KOAB in his online newsletter and I clicked out of casual curiosity (I don’t keep Kosher nor am I great at budgeting!) but I was really taken with your candor, your helpful tips and your engaging voice. I did a write-up of KOAB today on The Lunch Tray: http://bit.ly/g1Px31
Bettina
Bettina – Wow! Thank you so much. What a kind review and I LOVE your blog. I am so with you, although I wish I was a better example for my own children about that backdrop of sensible diet and exercise you talk about!
I still find it amazing that anyone other than my friends – and maybe my mom’s friends – read my blog… so to know that your rabbi (!) mentioned KOAB in an online newsletter… wow, that is such a compliment! Thank you so much for your kind words and for sharing the love on your own blog.
Mara!! Hey! I found you! I’m subscribed in all way possible
) Can’t wait to read more
send some deals over to us here in NY! Would love to have u blog for us!!
Hi! I just stumbled upon your site! I’ve often said to my coupon buddy that we should make a kosher coupon blog. We are both “crazy” couponers and it’s so nice to find another orthodox person doing it!
I’ll be checking in!
P.S. Yes, it also kills us when the Kraft cheese is basically free! Compared to my $25 for a 5lb bag~!
Mara,
I just found your website and I am very impressed with your goal and keeping kosher affordable. I have been in the meat business for over 30 years and involved in the kosher meat business for the past 18 years. We used to produce for golden West Glatt until we closed our business over a year ago. Most recently I have started to work with a non kosher company in Denver and am continuing to bring in both Glatt as well as Regular or “steam” kosher. Our goal has always been to make Kosher as affordable as possible and we plan to continue to keep focused on the goal of affordability. Please let me know how we can start working together!
Thanks
Jeff
Mara,
Just to clarify-regular kosher is also known as “stam” norm”steam” as the spell check wrote.
Thanks
Jeff
Thanks for your comments, Jeff. I will be in touch with you later this week. You can also email me, if you’d like at kosheronabudget AT gmail DOT com.
I have a daughter named Mara. (though it is a nickname from Maranatha). It was fun to see someone else shares her name.
Small world
Thanks for sharing.
I came upon your gem of a site trying to find out what in the world happened to Golden West Glatt, from whom we have placed many a massive order. For us, getting decent kosher meat requires some fine folks to ‘chip-in ‘ at the local JCC on a run to the Austin HEB, the only nearest source of kosher beef with an on-staff mashgiach. The meat there isn’t that fantastic either. It borders on the ridiculous the prices that HEB (a company of such a monopolistic magnitude that it’s lettuce could be publicly traded) charges for packaged kosher meats here in San Antonio. Golden West was the one mainline out of this situation which was in any way economically sensible for my family. And their products were damned good, too. Now it seems they are all but kaput.
So now what? Who do we need to bow and scrape to turn to a better mail order source? Any recommendations would be fantastic!
Hope your site continues to grow and reach more of us.
Phillip
Hi Phillip – I know, I am so sad about Golden West. We have been getting Solomon’s at our Costco lately, but it doesn’t compare. GW was amazing meat. And very reasonable – even with the shipping. I’ve got my ear to the ground, so when I hear about other reliable sources, I will be sure to let my reader know. Thanks for finding me!
I’m a 65 year old widow who began keeping kosher in 2008 not long after my husband died. We were married for 43 years and were both raised Jewish (in New York) but unaffiliated. My mom kept “somewhat” kosher but his did not. I became active in our conservative synagogue shortly after he died. Unfortunately only a small percentage of our members observe kashruth and the orthodox community is relatively small, so the availability of kosher meat is somewhat limited.
I found your site tonight while searching for the latest information on Golden West Glatt. I ordered from them the first time last fall and was thrilled with the quality of the meat. It was so much better than anything I’ve found here in North Florida and the shipping charges were exceptionally reasonable. I began trying to reorder almost two months ago and just kept checking back in hopes of a different result (I think that’s the definition of insanity)
Hi Mara,
Great site! I’m a very busy Lakewood working mom. I just stumbled upon your site from twitter. Quick note – http://www.Virtuallakewood.com has a great price for kosher elecare formula on the store Dial-a-diaper on it’s site and it also offers Bookman’s kosher meat store online (the prices should be good).
Thanx for your info!
Thanks for stopping by – and for the link. I bet that will be helpful to some of my readers!
Wow, I can’t believe I just found this site! I am an “extreme” couponer and read the mommy blogs but I am SO excited to find a Jewish woman who writes one! The menu plans are awesome, I was always tweaking recipes and trying to figure out what I could freeze to keep a Kosher kitchen. Thank you for doing this!!
Thanks so much, Celia – I’m glad you found KOAB, too! I look forward to getting to know you – look for a new menu planning post tomorrow.
Hi Mara, I’ve been following your blog for a while and trying to use some of your strategies for saving money on groceries. This month, I decided to track our spending electronically to actually get a sense of what we spend. I want to cut my hours at work in the fall, and I thought groceries would be a good place to start. HELP! We’re at $600 already (family of six) and we’re less than 2 weeks into the tracking. (It doesn’t help that we’re restocking after Pesach, but STILL. This seems obscene.) How long would you recommend tracking to get a sense of our average spending? How do I know if this is a typical month / a good representation of what we usually spend? Thanks for any advice, or for directing me to any posts / books you have on this topic.
Hi Rivki – well, as you know, the two weeks post Pesach are not “normal”… that said, they do need to figure into your overall budget. Either as part of your holiday budget (some set aside a certain amount every month, others cash-flow it for that month – we do the latter at the moment.)
As for a realistic reading, we did two “normal” months – so May and June (yes, there’s Shavuot – plus Yom Ha’Atzmaut and Lag b’Omer, but I don’t find they really negatively impact the monthly spending too much.) Anyway, we tracked for two months and that gave us our baseline. Then I took a hard look at our income and everything else we needed to spend money on and tried to figure out a target number for our spending. It took me almost a year to go from $850 to $700 to $600 to now $500. It won’t happen overnight, but you can get there!
xxoo
Thanks so much for the speedy reply. I think I’ll continue tracking this month, since I’ve already started, but maybe track for another two months after this to get a better picture. At the rate I’m going, we’ll be lucky if it’s only $850 a month. !!! Anyway, thanks for the advice and encouragement. I enjoy and benefit so much from your blog posts. Thank you!
My pleasure!!
(And just so you know, the $850 is once we started cutting our budget – we were spending $1000+.)
Mara,
We ar working with several companies and hope to have quality and affordable kosher (both Glatt and Staam) in the near future. Will keep you posted!
Jeff
Hi, Mara. I enjoyed meeting you and your family when you brought all that wonderful stuff to us at UHC in Joplin yesterday. Thank you again for everything.
I don’t remember if I mentioned that my husband and I keep kosher in the easiest possible way – we’re vegetarians. Plus, I love to cook, so I make almost everything from scratch. That means I don’t have to read a lot of labels on packaged foods to be sure there’s nothing objectionable in them. Even if I were tempted to eat meat, the thought of keeping separate dishes and everything would stop me for sure. The once-a-year business of switching everything out for Passover and then back again at the end of the holiday is about all there is for us. I’m sure we save a lot of money, too, not having to buy kosher meat. I’m not saying everyone should be a vegetarian, but it’s something to think about.
Terry – It was a pleasure to meet you and Norty as well! I was a vegetarian for a looooong time (my hubby “corrupted” me
, so I definitely relate to the appeal!
Thanks again for letting us come down!
Hi, Mara! I just discovered your site and am loving it!
Would you mind sharing where you order your free-range, grass-fed kosher beef? I’ve had the hardest time finding a reliable source for meat. We had a local source for a little while, but he’s no longer in business.
Thank you so much!
Mary – I was ordering from Golden West, but now that they have closed, I’m also looking for a permanent source. For now, I pick up my beef at Costco, which carries Solomon’s. HTH.
Thanks for the answer, Mara. I hope you’re able to find another place soon. My Costco (in Central Florida) carries kosher lamb but not beef. It seems there’s a real shortage of quality suppliers out there!
Hi Mara,
It’s not often that I see people with my same name. I just found your website and look forward to reading older posts.
We are eating kosher to the best of our ability. There are no kosher butchers in our area so we find it very difficult to choose kosher meats. We do, at least, eat biblically clean meats.
I look forward to learning,
Mara (Yes, my real name)
I had heard about your blog a few months ago right as I was starting my own. I was at first afraid to read it because I didn’t want to find out that what I was writing about was already being done (I am also an Orthodox Jewish mom/writer seeking to save money). I finally checked out your site yesterday, after following a link from http://www.jewish-life-organized.com. It is great. I think our blogs complement each other! You are so diligent at finding so many deals and doing so much research for us all. I have now subscribed and will review your site on my blog soon. I am so glad to read all of your tips and can’t wait to catch up on all the other sections on your blog!
So glad you found me – can’t wait to check out your blog more thoroughly, but it looks great. (Funny, I think we’re pretty close to one another geographically!)
Mara,
Thank you so much for this website! I live in central Florida, and it is so hard to find kosher anything here! I coupon alot already, But I am so limited on what I can actually buy as far as food goes. I am stuck having to order from Avi-glatt or Kosher.com because any other place is just too far away. I look forward to finding deals on this site, and checking out recipes. Thank you so much for doing this! It is such a gift to us!
Hi Mara, A friend of mine just told me about your blog, and I am glad she did! I live in the tri-state NY area, where prices, even with sales/coupons, seem to be much higher than those you advertise, even for the same stores, like Target, Office Depot, etc. I have simply NEVER seen deals like the ones you get (.07/cereal, a few cents for a bottle of water, etc. I looked at your price book and was in complete shock) in NY or CT. I know that you live in KC–do you think that regional price differences can make a huge difference on your budget–not only on food and other grocery staples, but on other costs, like rent and buying a home? Are the deals you get in KC available here in the NY/CT area, but I am somehow missing them? Obviously, online retailers are a different story–it doesn’t matter where you live, which is why I love, love Overstock.com, amazon…and shopping in the IKEA as-is section: I have scored like-new furniture with nothing wrong with it for mere peanuts (like $25 for a dining room table!!!). Further, I would like to know how you find out about these deals to begin with. We get some circulars and coupons in the mail, but it’s not all that much; when I arrive in the store sometimes I look at the circulars, but I never see the prices you do, and never the amount of coupons you seem to receive. What am I missing? Finally, I appreciate your sensitivity to buying wholesome and organic food. For my family, I try to buy as much organic as possible. I would say that ~70%+ of the produce I buy is organic; milk, cereal, and eggs–always organic; fish–always wild caught; I don’t buy meat, but if I did, it would be organic-fed and free range; other products I buy are a mix either because there is less added value in buying them organic or because the difference in price is large enough that I simply haven’t been able to bring myself to buy the organic version. I know that such a lifestyle is a choice I am making, and for me it’s really important. But if you have any tips for those of us who are trying to save despite buying mostly organic food, please let me know!! I get the same good deals you do at Costco on the organic spinach, carrots and spring mix; I shop at Target, and sometimes at WF. Thanks for your tips and inspiration. I didn’t expect I would learn anything new from your blog, to be honest, but I have!
A little while back u posted a great deal when u buy 2 sets of melissa and doug wooden building block. I can’t remember where the purchase was from. I ordered them but they never came. Can u remind me the link? Thank you.
Hi Mara,
Thank you so much for sharing all of this information. My husband and I eat mostly organic/natural produce because of my health condition and between the two of us (my daughter is 6 months old) we spend $600 on food a month. How do you save on organic produce and where are you getting grass-fed beef from??? I live in NYC. Could this be why?
Looking forward to your response.
Chana
Love your blog. Just followed you on Twitter also.
I’m looking forward on reading your olders posts and finding more about you and multiple ways of saving more money. I’m spending lots of money on food (kids, cats, me and friends) and I’m always looking for ways to cut buget. Any tips?
Jessie,
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