Dieting on a budget?

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.

Beans, beans, beans. Boil a big pot on Sunday and dress it up different ways through the week. Work in rice and eggs as a supplement. You can usually get frozen veggies, onion, garlic, and potatoes for pretty cheap.

The more you cook with basic staples, the cheaper your bill.

It is all about calories. As the father of 7 we eat as cheap as possible and try to use relatively healthy. You don't have to buy any special diet food. Try to buy what is on sale that can help your money go farther. Good Luck

Also, I know this might sound obvious, but look at your overall budget, not just your food budget. Statistically, people in the US spend the smallest proportion of their money on food compared to almost every other country in the world, at only 6.6% of annual consumer expenditures. Us Canadians spend slightly more -- 9.6% == and Europeans tend to spend between 10-15%.

ibtimes.com/us-spends-less-food-any-other-country-world-maps-1546945

This is based on statistical averages, of course, and may or may not apply to your family. But you could also find that overhauling your budget gives you a few extra pennies to spend on food every month if you can find other places to cut back.

If you're okay eating things multiple times throughout a week:

-stews/soups
-casserole... like a baked pasta dish with a bunch of veggies and turkey/chicken sausage can last 3 meals for two people each
-currys and lentil dishes are cheap and can last a while
-cook a whole chicken (upfront is pricey but freeze the meat and use if for 2+ weeks)
-eggs are cheap and a good protein. just put a fried egg on roasted veggies for a cheap and healthy meal!

Even better - buy a raw chicken and cook it yourself!

bananas 75c/lb.
eggs $3/dozen.
tuna $1/can.
oats $3/2 lb bag.
frozen veggies vary, but they're usually pretty reasonable for the amount of servings you get out of them.
breakfast cereal is also very cost-efficient, and most of it is fortified, too, making the sugary kids' stuff a slightly better choice than your usual indulgence foods. (seriously, reese puffs have saved me from actual reese cups so many times.)

buy what's in season, buy what's on sale, and buy only as much as you expect to be able to eat before it expires.

Hey there,
I see you're in Australia? I don't know about discount food stores down under but I live to quite a tight budget and I shop at Lidl/Aldi discount stores. I don't buy branded stuff just generic store's own brand.
I find that planning my meals for the week really helps me to budget and not spend unnecessarily.
Also buying meat or other slightly more expensive items when they're on offer or from the reduced section of the supermarket and freezing them.

I usually have yoghurt or cereal for breakfast. Sometimes a boiuled agg - eggs are super cheap from Lidl and actually last a lot longer than the "sell by date".

For lunch I will have soup - You can buy loads of veggies and a cheap cut of meat to make a big batch of soup. I might cook up 2 - 3 batched on a Sunday each one with about 4-6 servings and then freeze them. I'll take a tub out to defrost the night before work and that is my lunch sorted. If I don't want soup sometimes I'll eat dinner leftovers or in the summer I'll make salad with cheap veggies like cucumber/tomato and lettuce and maybe tinned tuna for some protein.

For dinner - again I'll often batch cook as I'm buy in the evenings and it's convenient to just be able to heat something up.
If you can find cheap-ish minced beef you can cook up batches of bolognese sauce, chilli, cottage pie etc and these all freeze pretty well. I also often cook veggie dishes - veggie stews made with loads of herbs and tinned tomatoes - add beans for some volume and these also freeze well.
If I find cheap stuff in the reduced section then I'll cook fresh.
This week for example I found some salmon fillets and spring greens in the reduced section - total £3.00 and this will do 2 meals for me. £1.50 a meal is pretty cheap!

So I guess my ultimate advice is plan! Also have loads of herbs and spices in your cupboard as they help make anything tasty!

I'd also recommend this website: http://agirlcalledjack.com/ - she's a single mum previously living on benefits and fed herself and her son really wholesome food on a very tight budget.

I hope this helps!
L

One idea for money savings is to filet chicken breasts in half. I noticed that no one in my family notices it is half the chicken when they get a "whole" piece. Also when buying hamburger, it really is worth it to get the lower fat content , because you cook away a lot less of what you bought, therefore it goes further. On top of that, it is healthier. Another thing I have been working on is finding good ways to use leftovers. I find that a lot of people these days don't even eat leftovers.