Eating healthy is expensive!
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I have a family of 5 to feed. If I was doing the bio thing, I'd be bankrupt. As do most, I buy the best quality I can and make almost everything from scratch. I also live in Italy, and there is a culture of quality food. Living in the city, I cannot have a garden. I think we manage to eat healthily without exagerating on our grocery bills.
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shop the sales? and buying F&V that aren't pre-prepared. i.e. bagged lettuce v. whole lettuce head.
buy in bulk, a lot up front but its nice to have staples like oatmeal that you don't need to buy all the time.0 -
i spend $100-$130/week on groceries for my family of 5. thats breakfast & lunch items fruit & veggies and whole nutritious dinners for the week. we eat meat 4 nights a week.0
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:glasses: soo true!! I look at it this way, you are paying a little more at the counter to avoid some MAJOR health issues caused by fake "foods!" I cut cost by buying in bulk, coupons, and by being vegan, meat is really expensive, and studies have shown eating more than a total of 5% meat in your overall diet can start turning on cancer triggers, and other health ailments, like colon problems, cholestoral and many other health issues.0
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All depends on where you live too! Where I live, there is no competition for grocery shopping. Publix or Walmart! Frozen and canned items purchased at Walmart. Scan the receipt into Walmart Savings Checker for money back on items that were actually cheaper elsewhere within a certain radius. I purchase only in season fresh produce. You have to be flexible according to what is affordable.0
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My low cost eating health tips
Buy in bulk and divide it into portions
Prep your own food (instead of buying a bag of salad, buy a head of lettuce and make your own salad)
Look for sales at your local store or shop at discount grocery stores like Aldi or save a lot ( discount stores in my area) This week in my area Aldi's has acorn squash and butternut for 0.69 each. I will buy about 8 of these and prep and freeze them.
Use coupons when you can ( I use coupons to buy my household supplies and have a small stock pile of these things , so I can use the money that I would have spent on these items to use in my grocery budget.)0 -
Low cost eating tips:
Buy vegetables.
Buy meat.
Buy oil.
Cook for yourself.
don't buy boxed ****. Done.0 -
It also depends on where you live.I live in wv and we dont have places like costco,whole foods,trader joes,etc(none in the whole state). In my area we just have a kroger and foodland. I have to travel 35 miles one way to get to a walmart supercenter or a foodlion. to get to aldi's its 60 miles one way.Our farmers markets are only open in the summer and again you have to travel a little ways to get to one and then they want more than what some of the items in the store cost. steel cut oatmeal here is over $6 a container so I have to go with the old fashioned oatmeal because its cheaper.
I do buy a lot of frozen veggies but the fruits here are outrageous. close to $2 a lb for plums or necatrines, $5-6 for a bag of apples and these are NOT organic.lettuce is close to $2 a head and it seems when it is on sale its either nasty looking or not worth it.I will buy a bag salad once in awhile when kroger marks them down to 1.49 a bag but I try to avoid them.It seems like if you live in bigger cities/states then you have more stores and cheaper options and when you are on a limited budget for groceries it makes it harder.
I do buy healthier foods , cook from scratch and shop the sales.I avoid processed foods because I have lost the taste for most processed foods anyway. But where I live sometimes the bagged lettuce IS cheaper compared to a head. The farther the groceries have to be shipped to your local store the more they cost.I have seen local sale ads for other other states and cant believe how much cheaper some things are there compared to here especially meats.0 -
What are you buying that is expensive? What's your definition of healthy?
Lower costs things I consider healthy:
Canned veggies. Lettuce by the head instead of bags of salad. Whole carrots instead of baby. Sale fruits instead of full price blue berries or whatever. Rice, dried beans. Watch for sales on chicken breasts and thighs (often cheaper and yummier). Frozen fish fillets. Higher fat ground beef is cheaper, a little harder to fit into your calories but cheaper. Old fashioned oats.
shop at the dollar store, buy store brands, preplan your meals, have a meatless day, buy regular oatmeal or quick cooking oats, buy a bag of potatoes, grow your own food in a planter or garden like green onions and herbs (you only have to buy green onions once and then plant the white bulb then just clip as they grow, its the plant that keeps on giving, you can do this with romaine lettuce too), buy what is on sale or discounted in the meat section, buy bulk meats and then use freezer bags to have it separated out, eating healthy means eating basic not processed, eating healthy means balancing out your meals with proteins and vitamins and minerals that your body needs, eating basic is actually much cheaper to do than buying prepackaged junk, bake your own breads : get you a big box of bisquick and you can make lots of stuff with it, freeze any leftovers so it can be used as a second meal at a later date, go find your local farmers market and shop there or a local farm or like I already said you can grow your own in a planter or garden, canned veg and fruits are fine to eat and pretty cheap, do not impulse buy at the store- go with a shopping list and a meal plan in mind before you go and do not deviate from that list, make your own everything if you can, look for coupons and buy one get one sales,
I get sick of someone saying its too expensive. I am actually eating way better than I ever had and saving so much more money now just from keeping it basic and smart. You know what is expensive: cancer, diabetes, an early unplanned death, taking time off of work too many times from a horrible immune system due to not being healthy.. that is way more expensive.0 -
I have a family of 5 to feed. If I was doing the bio thing, I'd be bankrupt. As do most, I buy the best quality I can and make almost everything from scratch. I also live in Italy, and there is a culture of quality food. Living in the city, I cannot have a garden. I think we manage to eat healthily without exagerating on our grocery bills.
I live in a condo and I disageree with you. you have windows and they sell planters and dirt. if there is a will, there is a way. they make those upside down tomatoe plants and you can grow your own lettuce, onions, herbs and even start an avocado plant in water to start the roots then transplant to a planter. it can be done. bet you can grow beans too or anything else you think of. you just need a planter, you can probably use an old milk container if you want the diy effect.0 -
My grocery bills have decreased a lot... Less than $180 a week for a family of 4 (granted, the kids are only 6 and don't eat that much), and that includes random cleaning stuff too...
I stock up on frozen veggies when they are on sale, only buy big packages of meat (even better when it's on sale), but heck even a $5 package of chicken sausage will be enough for dinner for us and lunch for my husband the next day... now that we actually eat a reasonable amount of them... Only buy fruit in season when it's cheap, buy the big cans of store brand oatmeal... I still buy some boxed drinks and packaged foods for my kids, but I stock up when it's on sale too. Buy cheaper bread (the smaller slices, a loaf of whole grains is $2). We have a garden but obviously that's not going to help us in the next few months, and we didn't get that much (except tomatoes... we're drowning in tomatoes).
But yeah, basically, sales are your friend. Couponing too I'm sure but I can hardly find coupons for what I buy as I don't really buy that much packaged stuff anyway. I live in NJ so food isn't exactly cheap either. But just my shopping trip for half the week yesterday... $107, $46 saved, and that's with buying $18 of toilet paper.0 -
I have a family of 5 to feed. If I was doing the bio thing, I'd be bankrupt. As do most, I buy the best quality I can and make almost everything from scratch. I also live in Italy, and there is a culture of quality food. Living in the city, I cannot have a garden. I think we manage to eat healthily without exagerating on our grocery bills.
I live in a condo and I disageree with you. you have windows and they sell planters and dirt. if there is a will, there is a way. they make those upside down tomatoe plants and you can grow your own lettuce, onions, herbs and even start an avocado plant in water to start the roots then transplant to a planter. it can be done. bet you can grow beans too or anything else you think of. you just need a planter, you can probably use an old milk container if you want the diy effect.
Hey----I live in Rome, Italy on the 5th floor (10 min from the Colloseum), with no balconies. Our windows are such----big shutters---that I CANNOT hook anything on them without risking killing someone below on the sidewalk. Trust me, I'm a Minnesota farmgirl, and if I could raise my own vegetables I surely would. Just sayin'
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well some of us who live in BFE are screwed when it comes to an aldi's or an asian market/grocery store. I dont think there is one in my whole state to be honest(the asian market that is) there are only like 3 aldi's in my whole state.0
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well some of us who live in BFE are screwed when it comes to an aldi's or an asian market/grocery store. I dont think there is one in my whole state to be honest(the asian market that is) there are only like 3 aldi's in my whole state.
^ This!!!! So many people just don't understand, that gas money is a major expense, when it comes to fresh grocery shopping. Like it or not, processed food or even junk food can be cheaper, just for the simple reason that you don't have go out every other day and get fresh stuff....
I'm trying to buy in bulk as much as I can, portion meats for the freezer, but the prices are out of this world. The family raises a few heads of cattle, and usually, one or 2 are butchered each winter. Other than that, hunting season is coming soon, and that's about as cheap as you can get around here.
Dairy is getting ridiculously expensive, and I only buy butter on sale, freeze it, and use very little, actually. Going out for fresh bread (or the crappy, sawdust-filled, yoga-mat-rubber-laced stuff that they call bread in this country...) isn't an option for me. I have my own sourdoug, and I bake my own bread. I bake several on my bake days, and I freeze them.
And there is another thing most posters don't seem to consider: If someone is already on a budget....how in the world can this person 'buy in bulk'... What are you going to eat until you have saved up money to save money....
I'm also living in an area, where having the freezer filled with valuable groceries can actually be a large risk...and even more expensive, when you need to run the thing on a generator, because some idiot tried to steal the copper cable right from the power pole in the middle of nowhere, and the power company can't get to it for several days....O NO, I'm not making this up....and yes, I live in the US, not in some 3.world country....0 -
I've gone from eating rubbish and buyng in every day to making weekly meal planners and shopping for just what I need for the week. Costs us £80 a week for a family of 4 and that includes the kids snacks. Mind you I dont buy stuff like quinoa etc. I'm just as happy with rice0
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What a nonsense....healthy food and veggies are cheaper than processed crap..you are looking for excuses. I spend 50£ a week on my food shopping.0
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Grocery shopping in England is expensive no matter what you buy, but I don't find buying healthy food any more expensive than convenience foods. It's a lot cheaper to make your own curry/casserole/chilli etc than to buy a pre-packaged one, especially if you're feeding a family.
Obviously if you buy organic food, and fruit that's out of season, then it'll cost more.
We buy frozen veggies, as it's cheaper and you don't waste any, and also some frozen fruit for smoothies and I like it in porridge.
Things like stews are cheap to make...bit of meat, loads of veggies, some stock, maybe some lentils.0 -
For frozen foods I now shop at iceland, I find they way cheaper and their food is much nicer than the other super markets
If aldi's did online shopping I'd probably do all my other shopping with them as they tend to have much better quality and cheaper foods than main stores, in my opinion, obviously everyone thinks different.
But since they don't, I do a lot of general shopping at asda, and sometimes a bit at tesco's.
I love new potatoes, so can get the big tins of new spuds from both, super super cheap, and rice too and spices,
bit of rice, bit of spuds, spices, bit of meat, and can make a nice big meal to last a day or 2.
Add some oatmeal pita bread and ya got a home made healthy taco
And really filling too.
Which reminds me, need to order more lol...0 -
In my area we have Kroger, Publix, Aldi and Walmart. I am very attentive to the weekly sales papers. I try to plan out meals for the week and buy what is needed. I keep tons of Kroger Frozen veggies they are usually 1.00 a pack and go on sale from time to time as low as .88 a pack. Currently apples are in season, so my go to fruit for snacks will pretty much be apples.
Publix has lots of great buy one get one free sales, those are the times I stock up on Natural peanut butter and stuff like that. I also coupon on as much as I can to round out the costs. For example sure you may not find many coupons for fresh produce, but if you find coupons for say laundry detergent then that's more money available for groceries.
I also signed up with kroger to receive coupons and they sometimes send coupons like $2 off a $10 purchase from the produce department, $2 off a $10 purchase in the meat department etc.....
Aldi is great for veggies and fruits they have whole pineapples for .99 sometimes. Baby carrots .69 for a 1lb bag. etc
It's just my daughter and I but I am also getting her into eating healthier, and trust me my budget is tighter than tight.0 -
Try buying frozen vegetables so you are not throwing out stuff that is out of date from your fridge every week. Frozen berries as well are a great idea and perfect for smoothies they are much cheaper than fresh berries. When I started I bought way too much fresh food for the week and half of it would go to waste as I didnt plan my meals well enough in advance and bought too much of certain foods.
Now I only buy frozen spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and berries and that brings the bill down a bit. Try planning what you are going to eat for the week before you go shopping and have a list. prep is key for good food choices.0 -
Understood. The cost of real food sucks.
But diabetes and other chronic diseases may be more expensive depending on your health care coverage.0
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