Eating Healthy on a Budget

As a student, I basically live on fajitas! Just half a pepper, half an onion, a carrot, Half a teaspoon of oil for the pan, quorn chicken (or normal, but I'm veggie) and 6g of spice from the packet, and you're done! Throw it all into a pan. I don't bother with the wrap bits, but put 15ml of sour cream on, and it's really healthy- about 300 calories, 20-30 carbs, 10-20 fat... Very easy too! And yummy. Sometimes I eat it 4 or 5 nights running

Try lots of vegetables, fresh vegetables can be expensive, but frozen vegetables are good to use. Simple meals of brown rice, vegetables and a lean meat will not break a budget most of the time.

if you have an Aldi's near you , their produce and everything is so much cheaper! they have a brand called fit and active too. they offer a lot of healthy stuff, and for a family of 4 I can usually walk out with a week's worth of groceries for around $80.

Try going to a bulk food store if you have one locally-I have found our bulk heath food store is awesome-and alot of the healthy stuff is cheaper than in the regular supermarket too...you can get the amount out of the bulk bins that you need so you don't have tons of something-and its cheaper since you don't have to pay for packaging...there are tons of varieties of beans, lentils, brown rice, 7 grain oatmeal mixes, bean soup mixes, etc...I can get what I need for a week for about 10.00 and then I get my produce to go with it...which I go to a local farm market for-and its usually way cheaper than the store too!

Stay out of the middle isles. Eat real whole food. Processed food (especially "health food") is expensive.

If you're on Facebook look up my friend's page, Surviving and Thriving on Pennies. She feeds her family of 4 a mostly organic diet for about $50/week. Some of the ideas she uses are difficult if you aren't a stay at home mom but, many of them work for anyone.

Food prices vary so much according to where you live. Having a freezer really helps. We shop the lost leaders, and load up the freezer. Have a garden in the summer and freeze what we can. We have a great green grocer who stocks several grades of fruits and veggies. We cook everything from scratch and stay away from the prepared foods. And we buy beans and grains in bulk from a great little East Indian shop that has extra low prices.

Fresh is best, but if not possible frozen is a close second place.
Watch out for added sugars and sodium and instead of buying prepackaged sides (Rice a Roni, for one) buy regular rice and add your own spices. Even the "low sodium" is insane.
Be sure to always have high fiber and protein foods at hand. They keep you full longer. Look for almonds, granola bars that don't look like candy bars, and those 100 calorie packs can be imitated for MUCH less by buying a regular bag of chips/pretzels/etc and spending a little time making your own snack bags with zip bags.
On top of that, portions are going to be a huge changer for you. I know, used to get all of my "meals" from the Dollar General. Hard to be healthy that way. So long as you are cooking it from step one, you know what is in it and you know how much you can eat.

It is possible, if not a touch harder, to do this on a budget and still get all of your nutrients and make your tummy happy. It'll take some research in the beginning, but you'll get it figured out!

Best of luck!
Meg

BUMP

One thing we do is roast a chicken on the weekend. We pay $10 for a large plump chicken, which will make several meals for a family of 3 (and lunches too!) Another thing we do is buy black beans and other beans dry, which are pretty cheap and they are both healthy and cheap. We buy some fresh produce,like apples, but for the most part we buy frozen vegetables. With frozen veggies we can portion out what we'll eat for each meal and save the rest. I buy whole grain or whole wheat bread when it's on sale and it goes in the freezer.

If I were single I could easily live on $25 a week for groceries. For the 3 of us I spend between 50-75 a week.

I just got back from the grocery stores-Yep, three stores today, but this is what I got-
Aldi- 2 3packs of kiwi .99 each
Anjou Pears about 7 in a bag for $1.39 (2lb. bag) bought 2
Honey Wheat Pretzels, large container $3.99
Neufchatel $1.19 each
Romaine Hearts $1.89 (3 pack)
Spinach $.99

Now their sales change during the week, so I know the produce prices will change.

I went to Kroger and got their cottage cheese (it's my favorite) $1.99, bought three containers (ok, I'm feeding three kids and a hubby too)
1/2 gallons of 1% that were marked down to .99, Sell by date 2/20
Luna bar that I got free (catalina coupon)
1 doz. eggs that I got free (coupon that Kroger sent me in the mail for shopping so much with them)

Meijer-
Unbleached all purpose flour $1.59, I do a lot of baking
Clearance orange & yellow peppers,a bag of four peppers for less that $1.50 It seems their clearance produce is out on Sunday/Monday.
I will also get strawberries there tomorrow when I return a Redbox movie.

I watch sales, go to several stores and plan my meals around sales. Above is mainly dairy and produce that I got on sale for the week. I still need to plan meals around what I've already got in the freezer. If I find bananas on clearance, I will freeze them for muffins & smoothies and I've also chopped up peppers before for fajitas & other cooked items (you can't use them as if you were going to fresh if you freeze them.)

Blue Diamond, Kashi, Morningstar, Cascadian, Annies and several others always have coupons. I print tons of coupons to help cut the cost. Kroger doubles coupons for even more savings. And as mentioned, Aldi's has great prices on produce. I price match Aldi's at WalMart since WM is closer to me. I also stockpile and have a year supply of HBA stuffs that my only shopping expense for the month really is only food and since we have stopped eating out so much that has helped with the grocery budget too! And dont forget to buy store brands too. Just as good at a fraction of the cost. I LOVE Kroger brand CARBmaster yogurt. Yummy and low in sugar and cheaper than Dannon, Yoplait or Chobani. I put Kashi Go Lean Crunch in mine every morning!

I am always on a budget. I find that frozen vegetables are just as good. I also incorporate alot of rice and beans into my meals as those go so far and are very inexpensive. I also shop at a Safeway and they have a lot of the BOGO's so I get a lot of the fish and the chicken that they have on sale. I also do the same with the bagged lettuces. Good luck though, it isn't easy.