Cost of Eating Healthy...

futurecowvet

I've been trying to buy healthier foods at the store lately and while I'm loving what I'm buying and am happy making healthy choices I can't help be discouraged when I reach the checkout isle. I'm studying veterinary medicine abroad on a small island called St. Kitts and it's becoming very frustrating and disappointing to go to the store and consistently spend over $100 every other week. If I were stateside I'd buy things in bulk but the problem is 1) by the time foods get shipped down to the island and put on the shelf they usually only have 1 week left before their expiration date and 2) the concept of buying in bulk seems to just be reaching the masses down here but there's no cost benefit yet, you're still paying almost the same price as if you were buying a smaller amount (and sometimes it costs more to buy in bulk), factor in that you're going to need to use it rather quickly it's not that productive.

Anyway, long story short today I spent $105 and change USD (it rang up as $284EC (local currency) and it's rather depressing when you know you're living off student loans with an interest rate between 6-8% and knowing you're in line to have almost $300K in debt with the average annual salary for your career being about $27,000-$31,000/yr. Not to mention the fuel it cost me to drive to the 2 different stores required to get frozen products and produce (there's really only one store that reliably keeps their refrigerators/freezers on overnight and that store has a poor produce selection).

How do you balance eating healthy and living on a tight budget? It's starting to feel like it's impossible for me to do this while I'm abroad as going to the store every week/other week (usually the weekly trip is for things like milk that expire after 7 days if you're lucky).

beemerphile1

Define "healthier foods". We can only guess what a vague term like that means to you.

I haven't found my new eating plan to cost any extra specially since I am eating less and have cut out most junk food.

jcow84

It's hard to get cheaper imported foods on small islands for the reasons you have stated. What do local people eat? Are there markets you can go to get fresh veggies/fruits? There must be some locally available food there.

forgtmenot

For me it is cheaper to eat produce, meat, And other fresh food than it is to buy packaged foods. I will say though that I grew up in Alaska where produce and meat other than seafood was very expensive, so I understand how that may not be the case in all areas.

The only advice I can really give is to stop telling yourself you have to eat certain foods to lose weight. As long as you are taking in less calories than you burn you will lose weight. Maybe eating "healthy" all the time won't be possible while you are where you are, but that doesn't mean you can't lose weight.

PeachyPlum

Having experienced military commissaries overseas, I feel your pain. Transporting food from other locales gets very expensive, and by the time it reaches you it's not really the freshest.

I'm not terribly familiar with St Kitts, but could you learn to enjoy more of the local food and locally grown produce?

azulvioleta6

You can't buy locally-grown meat and produce on a tropical island?

Are you going to be there long enough to grow your own garden?

shrinkingletters

Learn to stock up on dry grains and legumes:
-Brown rice, quinoa, barley, whole grain pastas
-Lentils, beans, nuts
Learn to stock up on canned goods:
-Stock
-Canned tomatoes (super versatile in soups, pastas, and braises)
-Beans
Learn the word "mirepoix" or "holy trinity" for bases to soups, pastas, bakes
-Onions, Carrots, Celery
-Onions, Bell Peppers, Celery
Learn to stock up on meats if you can buy them in bulk to freeze and defrost as you go.



There was a time when I was unemployed for 8 months (after 6 years of work at one company) following being laid-off. My family was having a hard time due to my mother's illness and she also could not work. We were living with a basically empty fridge and limited benefits and scraping by worried about what we could do for food.

In this time, my sibling also volunteered at a food bank, the upside being she got to bring back any extra food that was about to go bad or couldn't be given away. I'd come home to crates of zucchinis or tomato or bananas and had to learn what to do with all of it. I can tell you right now, I make a mean zucchini soup, and I know how to make pasta sauce bases to freeze and play with when needed.

Learn to cook, learn your staples. Eating healthy can be a struggle, but it's not impossible, and it doesn't have to break the bank at all.

edit:

Don't forget eggs. Eggs. Eggs. EGGS. They're cheap, they're perfect.

alliesgettinghealthy

Look around and see what the locals are eating and where they are shopping. I can guarantee you that they are eating healthy staples like rice, beans, plantains, eggs, bananas, etc. You should try to focus on longer lasting staples (dry beans and grains). It may just turn out that you can't reasonably eat a salad every day but you can add some veggies in here and there. Do they have a local butcher? I'm sure it would be far cheaper than buying imported meat. If you don't mind me asking, what did you purchase?

fallenoaks4

futurecowvet wrote: »

it's rather depressing when you know you're living off student loans with an interest rate between 6-8% and knowing you're in line to have almost $300K in debt with the average annual salary for your career being about $27,000-$31,000/yr. .

Monthly payments on $300K at 6% for 30 years is approx. $1800 per month. $31K per year pre-tax is $2583 per month. Perhaps it's time to reexamine your career goals. This makes no sense to me.

SuggaD

fallenoaks4 wrote: »

futurecowvet wrote: »

it's rather depressing when you know you're living off student loans with an interest rate between 6-8% and knowing you're in line to have almost $300K in debt with the average annual salary for your career being about $27,000-$31,000/yr. .

Monthly payments on $300K at 6% for 30 years is approx. $1800 per month. $31K per year pre-tax is $2583 per month. Perhaps it's time to reexamine your career goals. This makes no sense to me.

This. Makes no sense.

navyrigger46

I'd say the real problem is your career choice, compounded by the path you chose to get there. With numbers like those, a $105 grocery bill is the least of your worries.

Rigger

dawnna76

eat beans and rice and eggs, should all be cheap, not much variety but you do what you gotta do. i do second and third the responses that think its carzy to pay 300K plus high interest for a job that earns so little. i would definatly be reevaluating because life will only get harder when those student loans kick in!

CrabNebula

I'd be planning to spend the rest of my life in St. Kitts if I had that kind of debt. Heh.

futurecowvet

By healthy foods I'm meaning, apples, watermelon, grapes, and veggies. I purchase locally slaughtered ground beef and chicken breasts. Most of the produce is already locally grown with the exception of romaine lettuce, spinach, apples and frozen fruits for smoothies (blueberries/strawberries). I'm not purchasing local lettuce or spinach due to the taste/smell. They have a sulfur smell to them which is rather unpleasant and they taste about as great as they smell. I tried the deli counter to cut the cost of turkey/occasionally ham for a wrap for lunch but 9 times out of 10 they are out of the deli meat or their supply has gone bad.

I have rice, beans and canned food items my family sends me from the states. and have been working to try to find more recipes to keep things interesting in that aspect.

In general the cheapest items down here are sugar based or fried and so the switch to fruits and smoothies was to cut out the processed sugars. I gave up soda despite it being the cheapest drink option and purchased a Brita water bottle so I don't have to continue to buy bottled water when I'm out, it's not perfect but it helps cut out some of the weird taste the water sometimes develops.

Regarding career choices, this is what I've always wanted to do and I'm too far in to turn back now. If you love what you're doing then you never really work a day in your life. I'm in my 3rd/4th year. The statistics I pulled were from the AVMA's general survey, the range is actually quite large for starting veterinarians however the way they broke it down that smaller range had the greatest number of responses. That said, I plan on working in food animal medicine which is one area that is desperate for veterinarians, that said projections are showing starting salaries in this specific area are around $67,000/year (that data has not been published yet in an area I could find which is why I did not initially use those numbers). This also opens up some loan forgiveness options whereby if I show I spend a certain percentage of my time working in the food animal sector then some of my loans are forgiven/payed off (aka it's an incentive to try to get veterinarians to work with food animals as they play a significant role in food safety).