Share Your Tips For Staying Healthy on a Budget

Get creative with leftovers- don’t let them go bad. Think leftover veggies or salad into soups. Meat and veg in to omelettes, fried rice, sushi.

Make your own oatmeal mix with bulk rolled oats and add ins like chia seeds. So much cheaper.

Buy frozen berries in bulk when they are on sale. As others have said, shop what’s in season.

Meal plan. Visit the shops less and make sure your plan has some treats built in or you won’t stick to it. Plan for one or two meals to be whatever is on special and plan meals that will use the previous nights leftovers.

LeslieAWagner wrote: »

These days meat is so expensive! I bought two large racks of boneless pork ribs and made 3 different meals! The first was carnitas tacos (after slow cooking you fry the pork in its own juice and create caramelized bits in with the juicy parts.) I had some carnitas left over and it went into the fridge. (3 cups) The other half that I didn’t cook up in a pan was placed into the freezer. I used it for BBQ pork sandwiches for 8 people! Finally today, We used the leftover carnitas with shredded red cabbage and a teeny bit of bacon to create a delicious one pan meal! This was all fairly keto and fed a fam of 8 for the carnitas and sandwiches. The pork and cabbage fed four of us.

All in all $26 dollars for the meat. Not bad! A slow cooker was used on the ribs to cook them after a rub and seasoning.

Leslie in the Ozark´s

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Generally buy in bulk where possible - rice, pasta, grains - things you regularly use and are dry. Often you save a lot on these deals, including later trips to the supermarket.

When going to the supermarket, often foods are put on discount towards the end of the day. This is useful for when you know you're gonna use a product soon. Very often, even branded items are reduced by 50% which can make a big difference throughout the week.

For vegetables you use often, in my case peas and corn, I buy frozen bags and store them in the freezer. Similar to the bulk buy argument, you get more for less. When buying fresh, try to buy local and in season.

There are a few apps that help save money buy offering discounts on certain food items. TooGoodToGo comes to mind where restaurants and supermarkets both offer up leftover produce at a reduced price. For example, at my local Morrisons I received a whole bag full of fresh fruit and veg for only £3! Such a bargain! But you can't choose what you get. I think Olio is another one, depending on region where people can share foods within their neighbourhood.

Otherwise, plan what you eat and make sure you waste little.

We plan our meals ahead of time and do our shopping on the weekend. This helps us to only buy what we need. It is also helpful when planning our meals to plan around certain ingredients being used in more than one meal to avoid spoilage...ie if I need cilantro because I'm making carne asada tacos on Tuesday, my wife will usually find a recipe for one of her cooking nights where she also needs cilantro...that way we use the whole bunch and don't waste anything.

To that end, we've also started an herb garden this year with most of our most commonly used herbs and that has saved us a ton as we use a lot of fresh herbs and they're kind of stupid expensive in the store for a little tiny container. Cilantro will be put in next year...I don't know why we didn't think of it for this year, but it fell through the cracks...we use it a lot. At least it's pretty cheap in the store.

Most of our staple foods are bulk buy from Costco as well as our meat, poultry, and fish. We are avoiding most beef products at the moment except for ground beef. For my tacos I use flap meat or flap steak which is a cheap cut and I get it from one of the numerous carnecerias around here. The carnecerias are also good in general if you want a specific cut of something for a special occasion or whatever...their prices are cheaper than most grocery stores. Most of them also have a good selection of fresh produce as well and other Mexican specialty items.

Given the season, we're getting most of our produce at the farmer's markets and farm stores in our area which are cheaper and fresher than the grocery store. Those will only run through late Sept/early Oct though.

Since I (and the rest of the household) changed to a vegan diet we spend so much less money on food. I buy dried lentils/pulses etc in bulk. I will shop for vegetables more than once a week to ensure they are fresh but I try and always go to Lidl for those as they cost much less. I batch cook for myself (on a specific meal plan) and that saves money in both ingredients (no Waste) and electricity to cook. I don't buy any junk foods like chocolate or cakes as they are usually not vegan anyway so it's a win win!

A day or two before grocery shopping I plan meals for the week by using the weekly grocery store ads to see what is on sale, after checking my freezer/pantry to see what I already have on hand.

Once every 3 to 4 weeks I shop at a warehouse club for items that I can buy in bulk then store or freeze to use throughout the month. I use my vacuum sealer whenever possible to keep food fresh.

With a few exceptions, I usually buy store brands rather than name brands.

I have a small garden but, outside of growing season and for produce that I do not grow, I try to buy in season/on-sale as much as possible. When I need or want produce that is not in season I buy frozen whenever it is less expensive than fresh.

Since my household is only 2 people, I scale recipes down to avoid waste or try to make recipes that freeze and reheat well. We have leftover night at least once per week, usually twice.

When possible I substitute lower cost ingredients for more expensive ones in recipes.

Recently I found the Cosco fish that is individually packed very helpful (offer of cod, flounder and salmon). These work great to cook straight from freezer to eat the same day. I love the individual packaging with no waste. I've been experimenting with new recipes and meal planning helps to lower both costs and waste.

IAmTheGlue wrote: »

Eat less meat. Plant based protein sources tend to be more budget friendly than meat.

IAmTheGlue wrote: »

Eat less meat. Plant based protein sources tend to be more budget friendly than meat.

This !! I try and feed the family Whole Food Plant Based most of the time. I use a lot id dried beans and lentils - which I can buy in bulk at the refill store ( which also reduces unnecessary packaging and plastic waste). I buy frozen veggies for soups and cooking with. However i find that as a standalone veg they aren’t as good as fresh so I keep an eye out on which shops are doing the best deals on my most used such as broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

We don’t have milk, cheese or egg - all items which have a limited shelf life.

Overall as well as saving our health, and the environment we are saving money too

Yeah, I am running into this road block now. Money is extremely tight. My husband starts a new job on October 4th so that is a huge relief. As it is, we haven't had consistent basics in the house for a little while. We don't have bread. I have been using Nido powered milk because we can't afford milk. We stocked up on powdered milk for lean times. We are eating a lot of rice and beans (I know that sounds cliche but we are!). We do have home canned foods...lots of it and are able to make soups. For instance, we have smoked turkey canned up from the sales turkeys last year....turkey and rice soup. I make a quick unleavened bread recipe every few days. Once my husband's job money comes in, we are going to Sam's club and replenishing. We have 5 gallon buckets that we store foods in in our basement...pasta, oatmeal, sugar, flour, rice, bean soup mixes, those desert muffin packets, coffee bricks. I also get malto meal, grits, jiffy corn bread mix.... and store them in half gallon mason jars. We also have a big garden so we grow a lot and can it. We have salsa, a years supply of green beans, cowboy candy (not really candy lol), jams and jelly we made from fruit around the property. A couple years ago we bought 800 pounds of apples for $120 and we made applesauce, apple butter, apple scrap jelly, apple pie filling, apple chips....we are still eating off of that. When we do buy food we buy sales meats, fresh veggies, sales fruit, pasta, condiments.... when we can't grow salad stuff, we buy that too. But the biggest thing we do is stock up when money is coming in and live off of stocks when money is tight. I doubt we would have made it this far if we didn't have this habit. I do need to get around to making real bread. The process is intimidating to me sometimes. Is used to make it but it has been a while. Oh and, if I have to eat stuff that isn't ideal for weight loss, I eat a small portion. I will literally measure out a one cup meal. 1/3 cup cooked carrots, 1/3 cup mashed potatoes, 1/3 cup chicken....just eat smaller meals.

One of the best tips I've found is the one that says "don't buy what you don't need" ... and what I don't need is a lot of prepackaged convenience produce, and snack/dessert type foods. Staying away from more expensive but time saving meal prep items is easy for me as I am retired and spend a lot of time alone in my kitchen. The snack/dessert type foods just get me into the over-eating category when they are in the house. So it's a weight loss tactic to not have those hanging around.

I make a pot of stew or soup or chili each week that tides me over for most of the week for light suppers or lunches. After a couple of days of it being in the fridge, I generally divide it up and freeze some for another week so that I don't have to eat it too often any given week. And, I reuse cottage cheese and yogurt tubs to freeze those chilled soups/stews/chilis. It's easy to pop them out of the container into a saucepan to reheat ... just bring back to a boil and simmer for a couple of minutes!

You don't need a gym to work out. Bodyweight exercises, if done correctly can be extremely efficient. Plus running, hiking, cycling if you have a good bike outside. Find a reason to go outside, like geocaching, a 10 minutes from home photo blog, whatever.

My breakfast and lunch tend to be fairly affordable: house brand oats, skyr (gone up in price by 50% though), raisins and whatever fruit is on offer for breakfast. Other meals during daytime are basically bread with stuff to put on. Not too expensive either.

As I live alone I usually cook for 2 days, if it's a stew, soup or similar usually for more days and then I freeze the leftovers. As many kitchens in northern/western/central Europe mine isn't big and only has a small freezer. Thus I can freeze a few meal portions but not much. Also requires lots of planning for bigger portions of meat or fish (often a lot cheaper).

I'm currently looking whether the 5kg veggy box I used to get for 22 Euro can be had cheaper from a supermarket. There are lots of small arab shops around, but they rarely display the price, thus you might be off cheaper or more expensive. Oh, and I do too good to go every now and then, but only one supermarket does a fruit and veggie box, and it's usually been offered at different times. So need a lot of luck.

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How to eat in $10 for a week- a month ago, I posted this query on YouTube and got to see very helpful videos. The most helpful tip I learned was, buy only as much as you can eat in a week. I followed that advice and suddenly, my sky-rocketing food & grocery bills fell to earth, and I found myself eating healthy (and felt wealthy and wise )
Since then, I'm spending at the most $12 for a week and have never eaten such healthy food before!
It also inspired me to come back to this website and lose some weight that I had put on while eating outside food.
I suffer from Celiac disease so my food intake is restricted. Still, I am able to eat tasty, healthy and inexpensive meals 3 times a day, plus snacks in between.

1. My day starts with 2 cups of black coffee, with brown sugar
2. I eat cornflakes, with juice and half a banana for breakfast.
3. An hour after my breakfast, I have one mug (200 ml) of carrot soup. (best for eliminating water retention and losing weight).
4. In lunch I eat boiled black gram, which is seasoned with herbs, and a small cucumber salad.
5. Coffee in the evening. An hour after that, pumpkin or yam soup.
6.] Dinner is made of protein. Since I'm a total vegetarian, I use mung bean sprouts, with soaked almonds, small pieces of dried fig and 1/4 cucumber pieces.

Sometimes, I eat small pizza for dinner, or tangy "curd chaat" with a salad of cucumber, canned olives, jalapeno pepper, and small gherkins. This is the only luxury I have allowed myself after eating a month within $10 weekly budget.

With every passing week, I was able to save more money on fresh produce that I needed, and I used that money to buy herbs, dry fruits and dry lentils which last me a month and save me recurring expenses.

So currently, my fridge has a one-week supply of bananas, fresh carrots, cucumbers, a small box of cut-pumpkins, cut yams, a box of grated coconut, and two one-liter tetra packs of pomegranate juice. And a small coffee bottle.

I have 500gms of mung beans, black grams, and white peas. All these I use to soak or sprout and make lunch and dinner. There are 200gm packs of almonds and dried fig to use with salads.

I have 900 gm packet of cornflakes, a small bottle of paprika, a 200-gm jar of mixed herbs, small bottles of canned jalapeno peppers, olives, and gherkins. (For salads).

All these give me 19 types of different food items, which I eat through the day, through the week.

All these within a weekly budget of $12 a week, which at times drops to $10 a week, because I don't buy all these things every week.

I don't eat dairy, no gluten, no meat, no boxed food for me because of a severe food allergy. But thanks to that, I eat a very healthy, inexpensive diet and am healthy overall.