Food Costs

lilacs4me

I need help with what to buy at the store. I am on a very tight budget as I am retired. My husband has issues with chicken, but I love chicken. We usually live on hamburger, tuna, eggs, breads etc. I need some easy cheap recipes to help me lose weight. Also we both love snacks, but I can go without them, but he won't. Any suggestions?

mer55

This time of year veggies are pretty cheap and will fill a good portion of your plate! Granted, organic anything is costly! There are some great sites with recipies for healthy eating on a budget google them. For snacks, keep fruit ready to go, sliced veggies with hummus, and one of my favorite snacks is to take turkey pepperoni, place one layer on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 until they curl up and crisp. ( watch them- there is a small window before the burn!) Maybe 10-15 minutes. But watch them! Once they look brown and crispy, set them on a paper towel and let them air dry. They will taste like exrta crisp bacon. Popcorn is another cheap alternative for snacking, but it must be without the oil and butter! Either microwave lite of investing in an air popper.

Gypsywort

It is fall and I love apples so for me a great snack is a med apple with BelGioioso Cheese ( 3 small balls of cheese at 70 calories. Puts me at 200 calorie snack with protein. Will cook brown rice and also a pot of beans and build my meals around that. A taco salad with black beans, brown rice and bean salad over a bed of greens. Whole wheat tortillas with black beans, onions, pepper and what ever vegs you like with cheese can be a healthy quesadilla if you go heavy on the vegs and light on the cheese.

PollanDP

If you have an Aldis in your area you can get some really good deals. I don't have one near me anymore. Miss those cheap prices. Eggs seem to be cheap right now. And you can always get BLSL chicken breasts near me for about $1.88 pound. And for some reason I can get pork loin for $1.77 per pound at least once a month. We live on that. You can do quite a bit with a pork loin.

hroderick

Aldi is best for the budget. Sprouts sale prices are good but get there on first day because they sell out.

Ask butcher what time of day they mark down and follow them around while they do it. Chat with them a a bit and they may make you some special markdowns. Sometimes you can do the same with the produce guys and I like very ripe fruits and veggies. Use online ads from local groceries and get walmart to price match their bait prices.

They may not fit everyone's interpretation of clean, but storage type foods can be obtained at better than wholesale from LDS Home Storage Centers.
https://providentliving.lds.org/self-reliance/home-storage-centers?lang=eng
They also have financial tools for frugal living and great volunteer opportunities.

hroderick

for the losing weight part, splurge and get a kitchen scale for about $20 and learn to log calories very accurately.
This will help you figure out how many calories you are eating
You have to eat and for losing weight it doesn't matter much what you eat as how many calories you eat vs burn.
You can look for alternatives like tuna in water or mustard instead of mayo or vinegar instead of salad dressing.

For me, so I could eat enough quantity without going over the calories, I've cut out most bread, potato, rice, dressings, mayo and eating a lot more tomato, onion, garlic, eggs, fish, and shrimp.

Laurahenson29

I am on an organic farm share program. Every Saturday I get a box full of fresh, organic produce. For a family size (lasts me till Thursday usually) I pay $32/week. I'm not sure if you have something like that available where you are, but it's surprisingly cheap and right from my local farm!