Day 5: The Cost of Juicing

I've had several questions about whether this juice thing is super expensive, that is something that definitely needs to be addressed. I think, overall, it doesn't actually make that much difference, financially, if we are juicing or eating real foods.

When I went to Amarillo last week, I purchased 6 juices to take with me, as well as 2 large bottles and 3 small bottles of juice for J to take to work with him while I was gone. It cost about $45 for all of the juices. That sounds like a lot for 11 bottles of juice, but if you think of it as being 2 days of meals, for 2 people, it's not quite so daunting. If I had eaten out for lunch in Amarillo, I probably would have spent about $10 per day, and I probably would have grabbed dinner on my way home somewhere, so really, by taking my $15 of juice, I spent less than I would have otherwise.

That's the breakdown for store-bought juices, which are typically more expensive than what we make at home.

As an example, of what we're spending at home, this is my favorite juice, which I usually use for breakfast, since it's pretty sweet. It is made of:

1 Keitt mango ($2.50)
2 Stalks of celery (less than $1)
1 cucumber (69 cents)      
1 large carrot (less than $1)
1 honey crisp apple (about $2)

So all that together adds up to less than $8, and usually makes me 2 servings of juice. The other juices typically cost about the same, almost all of them are under $10 for 2 jars. I drink between 4 and 6 juices per day, so I'm looking at about $25 per day, for all of my meals. (Also, things like carrots and celery and beets, etc. come in packages of more than one, for usually less than $2, so that makes the price breakdown slightly higher than if I estimated how much that one carrot actually costs.) If I buy things that are on sale, or in season, it's obviously cheaper than if I was going to buy, say, watermelon in December.

J started his full juice fast yesterday, but I'm assuming his intake will be similar to mine. So, for both of us, it's about $50 per day. Again, that sounds like a lot, but think about it like this:

A typical meal for us would include a pound of chicken ($7), some kind of fresh vegetable ($3-$5), some kind of starch (pasta, potato, bread, whatever) ($2-$5), so that's about $12-$18, or more if I need sauce or other ingredients, for one meal. We also eat out a lot, and fast food generally runs between $16 and $30, for one meal, or if we go to a "sit-down" restaurant, we're looking at at least $40 to $50. Again, for one meal.

I know that's sort of rambling, and might be confusing, but it's all to say, we are spending about the same amount on groceries that we always do (maybe just a bit more), and we are saving money by not eating out, so it pretty much breaks even. If you want to try a juice fast, definitely don't let the cost be what scares you away. I know that people always say that fresh produce is expensive, but it's really not, if you're careful, and you end up saving money in other places.

xo