Probably the most frustrating part of becoming a healthier family is the food supply overhaul. One day you’re fully stocked with boxed mac n cheese and canned ravioli (ack!), the next you’re shoving everything into a large, black trash bag as quickly as possible. (After all, with what you now know about the insane number of chemicals, preservatives & additives in those “foods” and what they can do to the human body and mind, there’s NO WAY you’d donate them to someone else, if you’re nice.)
Maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that for you. But it’s pretty darn close to what we did when we saw the light. (The bag may have been white… I can’t really remember.)
So now what?
Well, for starters. You get a pizza for dinner. From the local mom & pop that uses better ingredients, of course. And maybe on a gluten free crust? If you are lucky enough to live near a large whole/organic foods retailer (like Whole Foods, Earth Fare, Lucky’s Market, etc), then you can run out and do your best to buy healthier foods to restock the pantry. If you live in a smaller town like me, you may have some great options for locally grown or Farmer’s Markets (though it will take you some time to find them since it hasn’t been on your radar), and your smaller grocers (like Publix) or mom & pop stores likely have a fair amount of healthier choices too.
At this point, you’re probably dealing with the sticker shock of your grocery bill. Last week you could go grocery shopping and come home with 10 bags full for less than $100. Granted, most of it wasn’t actually food, but your friends eat it. Maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe all of those things you just learned about food colorings, sugars, preservatives, and chemicals weren’t as bad as you first thought.
Hmm…. it’s funny how money will make us argue with what we know is the right thing to do. Trust me, it won’t be your last internal debate on a grocery shopping trip. We would all rather spend our money on clothes, sporting events and vacations. But FOOD… oh that precious food… you need it, several times a day, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Every time you eat something you are either feeding disease or fighting it.
I didn’t invent that line… but it’s genius. Write it down on a post-it and stick it on your grocery list. Somewhere along your journey, if you continue to educate your family and strive to make better choices, it will just become natural. No more arguments in your head about whether you should feed your family foods that will nourish them, or save $50 and feed them foods that will make them sick. Because in reality, those are your two choices.
Thankfully, healthier eating is on the rise. Cancer, obesity, autism, diabetes, auto immune disease and many other illnesses are skyrocketing - and folks are starting to pay attention. Farmer’s Markets are growing. Grocers are carrying more organic and non GMO options. Whole foods markets are popping up across the country. It’s getting easier to find REAL foods (well since the 1950’s, anyway). With US consumers spending hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars through online shopping, you’d think there would be some options of online grocers offering discounted pricing, at least on non-perishable food items. Well guess what? There are. And I'm going to tell you about one we've been using for a few years now.
Meet Thrive Market. I’ll let them introduce themselves in their own words:
Thrive Market is the first socially conscious online store offering the world's best-selling natural and organic products at wholesale prices. We carry over 2,500 of the highest quality food, supplements, home, personal care, and beauty products from over 400 of the best brands on the market, all delivered straight to your door at 25-50% off retail prices. Our mission is to make health living easy, affordable, and accessible for every American family.
Thrive Market makes my life so much easier. I almost feel like it’s not even fair to someone, somewhere that I can order my groceries from my recliner after my kids are in bed and have them delivered to my door (in beautiful packaging, nonetheless) just days later and NOT. EVEN. PAY. SHIPPING. Is this real life? YES! With a $49 minimum order, Thrive Market will ship it FREE right to your door! I’ve rarely stepped foot in the grocery store and walked out for less than 50 bucks - $49 I can do! By ordering just once or twice per month, it’s easy for us to reach the $49 free shipping minimum, even without adding impulse items, which never happens when we physically shop a grocery store.
Registering for a Thrive Market membership is easy and FREE. This gives you access to:
view the online catalog and wholesale member pricing;15% OFF your first purchase (cheap just got cheaper!); and a 30-day FREE trial membership (which you can cancel anytime)!
I LOVE the 30-day trial, because I’m a “try before you buy” kinda girl. I think this is a great way for a company to say, “Hey… we’re legit and we have something GREAT to offer you, and you’re going to love it.”
If you decide you love it as much as we do, you can stick around to become a member for an annual fee of $59.95. After seeing the wholesale pricing and what kind of savings we could expect, I thought this annual fee was more than fair. But for those whose first response was, “that’s too much”, allow me to point some things out.
Probably the coolest point – Every paid membership sponsors an annual membership for a low-income family. I think of this as about 30 bucks for my family, and about 30 bucks for a family in need to have access to the same quality of foods. I really don’t think there need to be any other points, but I’ll go on.
The average savings at Thrive Market is 35% (and up to 50%!). So you should have recouped your investment within your first $110 of purchases. This is about 1-2 orders for our family of 4, and definitely (for us) within just one month.
I don’t have insider info here, but I am a business owner and I feel confident stating that it undoubtedly takes a lot of money to pull off what Thrive Market is doing. If my $59.95 once a year helps them continue to do that, then sign me up for auto ship, baby! (No, you don't have to be on AS.)
You have nothing to lose. Thrive Market guarantees that your annual membership fee will pay for itself in savings. If you don’t make your membership fee back in savings by the end of the year, Thrive Market will automatically give you the difference back in product credit upon your renewal. It’s really only about $5 a month anyway. And I’m sure you can think of one thing in your life that you spend $5 on that isn’t as valuable as this could be to you.
Another thing we love about Thrive Market is how organized the shopping is. You can browse several different ways, based on your diet and lifestyle. Browse organic, non GMO, vegan, paleo, gluten free, kosher, raw, and more. Even search as specifically as “Contains Probiotic”, “Peanut Free”, and “Dye and Color Additive Free” plus about 60 others! WOW. Let me just say that I worked with a team in years past to put together a website that would do something similar to this (same concept) and it was not easy. In fact, it was so intricate and time (aka money) consuming that the project was never completed. So if you see a product marked, for example, “paleo” and you know that it is actually not paleo, do them a favor a send them an email letting them know that someone checked the wrong box, instead of demanding a refund and blasting all over social media that they are incompetent. Surely there will be a special reward waiting for you somewhere down the road for being a great person.
At the risk of increasing the odds that they will become out of stock when I order (because just like any grocery store, it’s going to happen and it’s just the way it is), I’m going to share with you some of my very FAVORITE Thrive Market products. (You need to be logged into your Thrive Market account to view the products and wholesale prices.)
Organic Tampons (Can I get an amen, ladies?)
Organic Quinoa Flakes (Great for hot cereal, thickening sauces, making cookies, etc!)
Dr. Bronner’s organic peppermint hair crème (The one and only product I’ve used to hold natural curl in my hair for about three years now.)
Mary’s Gone Crackers organic, gluten free, non GMO crackers (There are several different varieties.)
Organic Coconut Milk (Because the stuff you’re buying in the refrigerator section of your grocery store probably has Carrageenan, lots of water, sugar, and/or “natural” flavors.)
Coconut Aminos (Amazing for stir fry, as a salad dressing… I am tempted to pour this stuff on everything I cook.)
Dr. Bronner’s Unscented Baby Mild castile liquid soap (great for bathing and making your own cleaning products.)
Thrive Market Baby brand diapers (I'll post more on this soon... but basically, for the mom who wanted to aspire to cloth diapering but never made it happen (ahem, me), the ingredients line up almost exactly with Honest Company diapers, minus the designs. We have used these for a year and a half and they are my fav.)
As you can see, Thrive Market is more than just food. They also have a great variety of bath & beauty, babies & kids, health, and pet products too. Recently, they've also added perishable/frozen foods and wines. I have also often seen Thrive Market offer a free product or gift with a minimum purchase. I love this because it gives us the opportunity to try something that we may never have purchased otherwise.
Thrive Market has other values that you can read about HERE. Though I have not personally met the team, they seem to be truly passionate about their mission to make healthy living easy and affordable to everyone. And I totally dig that.
