Gluten Free On a Budget

I'd like to start this post with a thank you to my high school classmate Tim. He inspired me to write this piece. Thank you Tim!

When I first went gluten free, my grocery bill sky rocketed. Instead of spending $75 bi-weekly I was spending double that. I would only go to Wholefoods because they had the most gluten free offerings and I didn't want to spend my entire Sunday bouncing from store to store. I love Wholefoods, the products are great and I even used to work there back in high school and early college, but the cost of food was eating into my savings. 

In the beginning I also spent a lot of time patrolling the internet for information. Somewhere in my travels I heard that you can write off gluten free food on your taxes as a medical expense if you are a diagnosed Celiac. I was ecstatic because that meant that some dough was coming back my way. Tax time rolled around and I was sorely disappointed to find out that you only get the extra expense of the gluten free food back and that in total it had to be more than 7.5% of your AGI, (adjusted gross income). So, if you buy gluten free bread for $5 and you used to buy bread for $2, you can claim $3. Now, say your AGI is $40,000. That's $3,000 worth of gluten free food just to get you to the threshold where the IRS will start giving you money back. Unless you have a family that is eating gluten free, I don't understand how you can pull this off.

Since I wasn't getting extra cash back on taxes for my gluten free food, I needed to find other ways to save some money. Here's what has worked for me.

Check Out Discount Stores

Christmas Tree Shop has gluten free food and it is surprisingly cheap. I buy Goldbaum's gluten free brown rice spaghetti and radiatori. Not only is it inexpensive, but it's one of my favorite gf pasta brands along with Bionaturae. I've also seen them sell  Wellaby's Crackers in Rosemary and also in Cheese flavor. I usually hate most gluten free crackers, but these are pretty good. 

Gluten Free Crackers - Wellaby's

Goldbaum's Gluten Free Spaghetti

 Ocean State Job Lot has a lot of Bob's Red Mill products as well as gluten free chips and baking mixes. My mom also found a huge stash of corn pasta and bought me a crap load of it. Unfortunately, I can't stand the corn pasta and am now the proud owner of several bags. If you like it and you want it, just e-mail me and I'll be glad to send it to you for free. I don't want to waste it.

SamMills Gluten Free Corn Pasta

Shop Around

I've found the same products at Trader Joe's for dollars less than Wholefoods. Also, if you live anywhere near Oxford, Mass you need to check out their Market Basket. It is absolutely incredible and has a pretty good spread of gluten free products. Most importantly it has Udi's and Rudi's gluten free breads and buns in the freezer section for only $4.89!! That's at least a solid dollar less than my local Wholefoods and dollars less than most specialty stores. I buy my bread in bulk from this store when I go visit my parents and stash it in the freezer.

Check Out Main Stream Products

More and more main stream products are being labeled gluten free, which is great for us because it means we don't need to buy specialty brands, which are usually more costly. Major brands that I buy are Hormel Naturals lunch meats, Boar's Head lunch meats,  Cedar's Hummus, Tostitos corn chips and Yoplait yogurts.

Eat Naturally Gluten Free Foods

There's no up pricing on fruits, vegetables, eggs and meats from the butcher. They are naturally gluten free. I buy a lot of fruits and vegetables, (do it from the Market Basket... it almost feels like stealing it's so cheap). I also buy meats from there and freeze them because again... it's ridiculously cheap. 

Going Gluten Free doesn't mean breaking the bank it just means you need to do a little bit of research and some shopping around. After that, let the savings roll in.