Dieting on a budget?

You can shop the bulk sections of the grocery store. My store sells, pasta, pop corn, rice, beans, lentil, cereals, cookies, dried fruit, etc.

Veggies and fruit can be cheaper if you shop the frozen section and purchase the store brand.

Fresh produce isn't that bad if you purchase just what you will need that day so it won't go bad.

Potatoes and yams are filling and cheap.


Here are some websites to check out.



http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes_menus/collections/healthy_budget_friendly_recipes

http://www.foodnetwork.com/healthy/packages/healthy-eating-on-a-budget.html

http://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/meal-planning/budget-friendly-foods.aspx

http://www.delish.com/recipes/cooking-recipes/budget-friendly-healthy-recipes

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/budget/sampletwoweekmenus.html

http://www.theppk.com

http://www.cookinglight.com/food/everyday-menus/healthy-budget-recipes

My Dollar tree has frozen fruit for yes just a $ .smoothies are so wonderful..Tablespoon of peanut butter for protein and bam.
Oatmeal is cost effective 2..

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bump

I just came across this thread in the recipe section.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10022306/ideas-for-big-one-pot-meals-i-can-make-at-weekend-and-eat-for-lunch-during-week-please#latest


If you do a search on MFP under "budget friendly" a bunch of other threads pop up.

I recently posted this to another thread. As a regular main dish, pasta and instant rice aren't the healthiest foods out there - but if you really load the dish with protein and veggies, it's very filling, very cheap, and actually helps me eat more vegetables. As one of the other posters suggested, I use frozen store-brand veggies. Jewel and Kroger sell their brand of veggies for anywhere between $0.99 and $1.19 here. (Bonus: if you fall off the wagon, your vegetables won't go bad.) When you're eating a lot of seasonings or canned goods, just watch your salt intake. Good luck and enjoy!

Instant rice takes about five minutes to make. I make two cups of rice on Sunday night, get one bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables or mixed veggies (I love the corn/carrots/green beans/peas mix), one can of beans (whatever kind you like), some protein (chicken, turkey, beef, fish, pork or tofu), and seasonings (Sriracha, soy sauce, sweet and sour, cheese and/or sour cream, or whatever you like). From these ingredients, I can make a week's worth of meals in a fairly short period of time:

-Rice, ground beef or chicken (fry it [no oil needed] to cook the meat faster) with beans and cheese, sour cream, or tortillas for makeshift Mexican food. **(NOTE - this is a meal you may wish to pre-log on MFP because the calories and carbs add up super fast. I sometimes eat just beans, rice, and sour cream to cut down the calories.)**

-Rice, frozen stir fry veggies or mixed veggies with salmon (or tuna) and just a touch of Sriracha is healthy and has a lot of flavor. If you're not into spicy foods, swap out the Sriracha for another sauce, or skip the sauce; it's good plain, too.

-Rice, stir fry veggies, chicken or beef, and soy sauce or sweet and sour makes an excellent stir fry that can be made even by a beginner in 20 minutes total.

-Rice, steak/ground beef/ground turkey, onions, diced baked potato, some pepper or chili powder, and canned tomatoes/tomato sauce/maybe sloppy joe sauce would probably make an excellent chili-esque stew.

You can also make a boatload of recipes with pasta. Look at Noodles and Company's menu (or whatever restaurant you like) for some ideas. Like the rice recipes, you can fill it up with veggies and protein, but watch the carbs and calories if you're trying to maintain or continue losing weight. These are just some ideas for quicker meals.

ChloeMaay96 wrote: »

Hey guys, my partner and I are a young couple with hardly any money and we're finding it hard to eat healthy on such a tight budget. Could you all share your cheap breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack secrets with us? It would be good to have cheap, easy, efficient foods we can eat. Doesn't matter whether it has meat in it or not.

Welcome to our life! We just HAD to have a two bedroom apartment with two bathrooms (I have a stomach problem and he really needed a room he could hang fifty guitars on the wall that wasn't our bedroom) so we run a little low on money once we add in all our bills, student loans and whatevers.

No matter what we always eat within our means and health budget. This is what we always buy and it all can go to making multiple meals of different types!

36 Eggs: 3 eggs per person. 6 meals. $5 (or less)
Frozen Spinach: Lasts us two weeks or more. $1-$2.
Frozen Broccoli: $2? Huge bags. Lasts us WEEKS
45 Calorie Bread: Lasts us a week or more. $2
Canned Tuna: 98 cents or LESS
Canned Chicken: $1
Flavored Rice Packets (Cheddar and Broccoli!): $1 each. Okay these aren't the "healthiest" when eaten alone but we use them as a whole meal. Cook one package, add frozen broccoli, canned tuna or canned chicken, eat as is. Or put that in a baking dish and sprinkle cheese on top of it and bake with some garlic mixed in. Heavenly and under 400 calories and FILLING.

From the eggs we eat a lot of egg bakes for dinner. Take two pieces of 45 calorie bread and tear it to medium sized chunks and set it around the bottom of a PAM sprayed pie pan. Place frozen spinach on top of this. Sprinkle with garlic or salt. Mix together 3-5 eggs (I've done this with only 3. We were running low D=) and pour mixture over the spinach/bread. Bake. Most amazing thing ever and very low in calories! There always enough leftover for him or I to take to lunch the next day.

Ever so often we splurge on a $5 raw chicken and cook it in the crock pot for dinner. There is always enough leftovers to last us a few days. Or be buy $2 turkey bacon and have egg sandwiches a few times a week.

Wheat pasta and low fat alfredo sauce last us about two meals (I eat according to servings, he drowns his in sauce). Canned chicken and frozen spinach turn it gourmet!

As for breakfast, a huge container of Quaker Oatmeal. $3, lasts weeks. I take it to work and put some salt on it. Mmm.

It might be how you worded it, but I couldn't help thinking ... "you can't eat healthy on your tight budget, are you affording eating not-healthy? And if so, then what is the non-healthy food you are eating."

Sorry, don't mean to offend ... just wondering if you are like how I used to be ... find it perfectly acceptable to spend $10.00 on a take-out or fast-food meal but not want to spend that same amount of money on the ingredients to make chili because $4.00 a pound is too much for good burger. Nuts, right?

My tip for eating healthy on a budget is to make up a meal plan and only buy what you need to make those recipes and pantry items that have run out. Plan on left-overs. Don't buy pre-packaged, pre-made, processed. You can even make your own bread, tortillas, muffins, etc. for cents on the dollar of what it costs to buy.

Here's a blog post with a link to a PDF of a cheap eats cookbook, with a nice variety of things & pretty pictures.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/MKEgal/view/2014-09-19-cheap-eats-cookbook-696460

I can second a ton of the suggestions already posted. I am in medical school currently, so time and money are generally slim. As stated above, crockpot-beans-precooked chickens. Beans are super cost effective and even better if you buy them dried versus canned. Try to cook out of a crockpot in bulk and freeze the leftovers (skinnytaste.com has great healthy crockpot recipes). Use those pre-cooked rotisserie chickens for basically anything and freeze whatever meat is leftover unless you want to eat chicken 5 times in 1 week! Take the chicken carcass and throw it in a large pot-add chopped carrot, celery, onion, herbs (you can use dry if you dont have fresh but I recommend a small window herb garden) like parsely, dill and a bay leaf- cover everything with water, add salt and pepper, and let the thing go! you can easily make 6 quarts of stock on basically scraps.

before i left for school, i froze 30 meals to take with me. some of my favorites are: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/indian-spiced-lentils-lamb
http://www.worthypause.com/2013/01/keema.html?m=1
http://www.slenderkitchen.com/frozen-breakfast-quesadillas/#
I made about 30 of those frozen quesadillas. I split a pack of ground lamb and made the other two dishes. I added 3 extra cups of water to the indian spiced lentil soup recipe. The keema is great served over potato or cauliflower.

Other easy low cost recipes I like to make using some of the broth from above:
Garlic, Broccoli, White beans, some of the Chicken from above, and broth- you can make a soup or put it with pasta
In a crockpot: chicken, broth, tons of beans, whatever seasoning you like!

Can of crushed tomato with garlic, olive oil, and throw in a few links of sausage or ground beef and serve over pasta or over zucchini noodles

Ellie Kreiger also has a ton of healthy recipes that can be made from common ingredients: http://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/healthy-appetite-with-ellie-krieger/recipes.html
Sorry for the long post!

Hey Chloe!

I was able to pay off all my student loans, credit card, and car loan debt by being vegan and cooking almost every meal in the house. It takes planning, but it's a lot easier and a lot healthier over time.

My partner does the bulk of the cooking because he's just better at it than I am, but I make a lot of quick soups with udon noodles and crock pot dinners.

You don't have to go vegan like we did, but drastically reducing your meat and dairy products REALLY saves you a ton of cash. We rarely eat frozen veggies or fruits. Really. Honestly, you don't have to. Find a local farmer's market or bulk restaurant store that the local chefs shop at. And invest in spices. Once you bulk up your spice rack you can literally cook anything under the sun and not think twice.

We cook a LOT of Indian, Thai, Chinese, and Ethiopian meals. We're never bored and always full. Even after getting full time, well paying jobs, we still eat the same way and I've amassed a very big savings account. We're also in great shape and our cholesterol is low, we can eat whatever we want and we never feel guilty about it.

I think we eat out once a week or so, so we still enjoy our lives and we're not restricted by anything.

Check out some of these recipe blogs and pick and choose what sounds good to you, and HAVE FUN!

http://ohsheglows.com/
http://minimalistbaker.com/
More prepackaged stuff: http://theveganstoner.blogspot.com/

ChloeMaay96 wrote: »

Hey guys, my partner and I are a young couple with hardly any money and we're finding it hard to eat healthy on such a tight budget. Could you all share your cheap breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack secrets with us? It would be good to have cheap, easy, efficient foods we can eat. Doesn't matter whether it has meat in it or not.

You already have a lot of great info. Cooking for 2,means I cook for 4 .....leaving left overs for a second meal.
Home made soup can save you $$.Make broth by simmering any meat you have. Use celery....onion & carrots diced. Season with what you have on hand,I like dried rosemary,bay leaf & thyme.
From there,anything goes,add sliced cabbage,canned,drained veggies,beans drained,.......Canned,fresh or frozen.
I don't use broccoli in this cause it turns gray when reheated.
You can freeze soup,add meat or not,reheat it (just gets better)........add more veggies & a can of broth 2-3 days later,simmer a while. Soup is really amazing.Good,filling & good for you.

It does seem like it adds up, doesn't it? I have found that buying things on sale (for example, when mushrooms are 'buy one get one free') helps, and we always freeze extras in large ziploc bags and add them to soups or recipes later. It helps continue the healthful eating while taking advantage of a great deal. Also, I'm not sure if you're a couponer but certain websites (www.ladysavings.com) make it SO EASY to coupon. They match up everything for you and all you have to do is get the coupon and head to the store. We have started couponing (though I'm not the type who stockpiles) and it has helped for sure! Shaved $54 off our last grocery bill, and we avoid all junk food and processed food for the most part.

I dont think eating fat food or junk food is cheaper..
I am a college student and I eat healthy for 20 a week.
Eating healthy for cheap is simple if you cook for dinner mainly.

My groceries I went and bough today 19.26

3 apples
3 bananas
3 pears

Chicken fillets (you can buy a big bag for 3 dollars at walmart
Head of brocolli (1)
Zuchini (1)
tomatos (4)
touge (1 box)
head of lettuce
1 wok sauce

Chocolate granola bar (any kind really.. 1 box for a snack or quick on the run food)
Milk
Eggs
Wheat bread
sandwhich meat (chicken)

For breakfast I usually have a glass of milk and some fruit (or yoghurt if its on sale)

Lunch a wheat sandwhich with meat tomato and lettuce

snack fruit or a bar

Dinner stir fry... veggies, chicken breast some sauce. So good and so filling.

Eating cheap can still be good and healthy goodluck

If you can afford it, save up and bulk buy meat - we buy a whole turkey crown and a large piece of mutton about once every three months, then cut the turkey into 16 pieces and the mutton into twelve and freeze it. We eat no other red meat, and we eat vegetarian every other day. I do struggle with our protein levels those days.

Befriend somebody with a Costco card. I feed 4 adults on about £40-£50 per week. Porridge is great for cheap breakfasts, eggs at the weekend.

Also, go to the store approximately 1-2 hours before closing, most stores will do huge discounts at that time of day - my other half got a whole bag of food including low cal cole slaw, broadbean dip, bananas and a whole swede for 63p the other day -that will keep us going for lunch and dinner, along with our store cupboard stuff for 3-4 days.