11 Ways To Eat Healthy On A Budget
Eating healthy can be overwhelming for a lot of reasons. Not only do you have to change the way you’ve been eating for years or sometimes decades, but learning to shop and pay for your new meal routine can be a lot to manage! When you imagine healthy foods, you might think of pricey grocery stores like Whole Foods and Fresh Market and get conflicted with these questions. Do I eat healthy and spend a lot of money? Or save a lot of money but not eat healthy? Well, I’m here to tell you that healthy eating doesn’t have to cost your entire paycheck!
So, today, I am dedicating this post to healthy eating on a budget! (After all, we should all be following a budget anyway, right?) No matter what your grocery spending budget is, you can feel good about your food and your money with these 11 tips:
11 Ways To Eat Healthy On A Budget
Eat at home.
Though prices at the grocery store have definitely gone up in the last year, it’s still much cheaper to eat at home than to go out to eat. Plus, it’s easier to make sure you’re actually eating healthy food when you’re cooking in your own kitchen rather than ordering from a menu where you can’t see who’s cooking your food and what ingredients they’re using.
The average serving cost of a home cooked meal is only $4.31 and the average serving for eating out is $20.37 (and let’s not even go there with Doordash and Uber Eats). That’s a 5x difference! Restaurants and delivery drivers need to make money, so of course prices have to be increased for them to make money. When you cook at home, no one is trying to make a buck, so it’s much cheaper.
Opt for crockpot and sheet pan meals.
There are lots of benefits of crockpot and sheet pan meals. Not only are they easy to prepare and require less clean-up, but they’re cheaper too! When you cook a standard meal, you usually have your main dish and a couple of sides. Each one of those foods require their own ingredients, driving up the cost (and the dishes).
Sheet pan and crockpot meals only have one item to cook, with the sides integrated into the dish. Usually the meals consist of your favorite sources of protein and assorted vegetables. Once you add seasonings and maybe some broth or sauce (I’m a fan of salsa), the meals come together deliciously, but at no extra costs to you! You can even make these in large quantities and eat the leftovers for lunch as an easy meal-prepping hack.
Use recipes with mostly on-hand ingredients.
If you go searching for recipes online, you can find healthy meals and snacks that look delicious, but they’re not always inexpensive. For example, let’s say you find a recipe that calls for dijon mustard and spinach. Even though these ingredients aren’t significantly expensive, if you buy an entire bottle of dijon mustard or a whole bag of spinach, and you use a little for the recipe and let the rest go bad, you’re wasting money and food.
You’ll find your grocery bills get really high when you’re not mindful of the ingredients in the recipes. So, try to find recipes with similar ingredients and pantry staples like brown rice or quinoa, that ensure all your food is used by the end of the week or month. You’ll stop overbuying and throwing things away!
Meal prep.
Meal prepping is great because it can predict our spending habits and stops us from going out to eat. Why? Because it forces you to plan ahead and therefore only get what you need! It’s easier to say no to fast food or restaurant meals when you already have a ready to go healthy recipe at home. Plus, you can avoid unexpected trips to the grocery store if you plan out your meals and know how many servings you have left before needing to get groceries (or impulsively grab restaurant food.) If you know you eat out a lot because of your busy schedule or disorganization, meal prepping can easily save you money but also time and hassle!
Buy frozen produce instead of fresh.
Here’s a myth! Fresh produce is better for you than frozen. In fact, frozen food is often picked at peak harvest and frozen quickly to lock in the nutrients, which means frozen fruits and vegetables are sometimes better for you than fresh produce! How about that? And, the best part? It’s cheaper AND has a longer shelf life. So, opt for frozen fruit when you can.
Bonus Tip: Use frozen produce to make delicious and healthy protein shakes!
Don’t buy name brands.
If you’re not a coupon shopper, you can buy generic or store brands to reduce your grocery bills by a lot! Some items are only a few cents cheaper, but others can save you a couple dollars. That all adds up by the end of the grocery trip and end of the month.
I put the note about coupons, because often coupons are for name brand products only. So, if you find a good coupon, a name brand product may cost less than the generic! As a general rule, though, store brands are cheaper and just as high quality.
Buy whole foods.
When I say “buy whole foods,” I do not mean shop at Whole Foods. What I mean is, buy foods that have been less processed and prep them yourself. It’s cheaper to buy a whole block of cheese and shred it or slice it in your own kitchen. And, it’s cheaper to buy bulk meat and cut it yourself rather than buying it pre-prepped. Anyone here ever go to the grocery store only to see a small container of mango for $10? Take a look at your grocery list and see if there’s a way to buy less processed or prepped versions of your favorite foods and instead do the prep-work at home.
Be strategic about your snacks.
Snack foods can carry a reputation for being pricey and not very filling or nutritious. Especially if you’re shopping on an empty stomach, it can be a vicious cycle of spending extra money on non-nutritious foods. Be sure to choose nutritious foods that are more satisfying and more affordable. Opt for things like eggs, high quality lunch meats, and fresh produce for snack time. Here are some cheap and healthy snack ideas:
Raw Fruits + Vegetables
Apples + Peanut Butter
Carrots + Hummus
Hard Boiled Eggs
Caprese Salad
Meat + Cheese
Don’t overbuy.
Overbuying is a big problem in America. 119 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S.—that’s almost 40% of all food purchased. Wow! You are probably not wasting that much of your food, but many of us are no strangers to throwing out food that you bought and you let it go bad.
We tend to overbuy because we’re not being intentional about using all our ingredients or because we don’t have a plan in place. Getting groceries once a month might sound nice, but your bags of lettuce may not survive to the final week. Try buying less at a time and using every bit of food you purchase, even if you have to get a little creative! (Who says you can have tacos and orange chicken as a meal?)
Use grocery pick-up.
If you struggle to stay on budget and avoid impulse buys, order online! You can add everything to your cart, check the price, and readjust to ensure you’re sticking to your budget. It’s much easier to total your groceries and and since you’re not strolling through tempting aisles, you’ll avoid the junk food!
Grow a garden!
Any green thumbs out there? If you like gardening, try growing your own produce. This can provide significant savings. Plus, you get delicious fresh fruits and vegetables right in your backyard! For every item, it’s can be tough to estimate how much cheaper it is, but as an example, one package of tomato seeds that’s around $4 can produce 10-30 lbs of tomatoes. However, just one pound of tomatoes at the store will cost $2. If you do the math, that’s a huge savings!
You can eat healthy on a budget with these tips!
Eating well doesn’t have to be expensive. You can make healthy meal and snack choices without breaking the bank. Just take some time to review your meal plan and grocery list and find where you can strategically save a little extra cash. That way, you can reach your nutrition goals without compromising your financial goals!
If this feels too overwhelming to do on your own, I get it. When you’re just getting into healthy eating, everything is new and kind of stressful. A fitness and nutrition coach like me can help you plan meals, make grocery lists, maintain healthy habits, and reach your weight loss goals. Explore my programs here and contact me when you’re ready to take the plunge! Before long, you’ll feel better and more confident eating healthy without breaking the bank. Win win!
