Eating Healthy on a Budget

Focus on getting your protein from beans. You can buy a bag of dried beans and cook them up to make a TON of servings for super cheap. Rice is another great source of protein. As for veggies, frozen veggies are just as healthy and often much, much cheaper than fresh. Buy veggies and fruit in season when you buy fresh - it will always be cheaper to buy in season than to buy summer fruit in the middle of February. Skip the packaged foods entirely. Buy oatmeal in bulk and cook that up for breakfasts. There is a blog called 100 Days of Real Food. They did a food challenge last year using welfare (EBT) allotments and bought all whole, real foods and lived only on the EBT amounts. Google "100 Days of Real Food" and check it out - tons of great ideas there! Good luck!

Excellent point (drive thru vs. grocery store amts/price) I just found 40 calories freeze dried Crispy mangoes by Crispy Green, 80 calorie Golden Blintzes with strawberries and light whip cream, nutella and ezekeil sesame srouted grain bread with strawberries, hard boiled eggs and grapefruit and I spent $22.00. I also buy dried apricots and raw almonds $12. I am stayin in a 900-1200 calorie range, which is 500 calories less than usual for me. I am new at this, but I am finding if I take the time, I feel better. The weight is not dropping as quickly as I want, but I try to be patient and remind myself, I did not gain it overnight and I cannot loose it that way. I am exercise 20-30 minutes a day 4 days a week, which although it does allow for a higher calorie intake, I am filling with water. There are days I am still hungry but the ezekeil bread is a big help as I think I need to increase my fiber (brown bread, skin on vegetables, fruits,..) intake.

1.whole wheat pasta with your favorite frozen vegetable, olive oil and garlic.
2.bean salad (your favorite can of beans, and be sure to rinse them), add some oil, dash of vinegar and whatever veg(s) you find that are inexpensive. I use carrot onion, and celery all chopped.
3.make some homemade lentil soup from a bag of dry lentils, carrots, celery, onions, a little oil. (make a big batch and then freeze in separate individual containers)> homemade soup is a lot cheaper, tastier and healthier than canned
4.brown rice and beans.

I can't echo the cry of 'Beans Beans Beans' any louder.

Beans and cornbread- 2.50 (1.00 for beans, 1.50 for cornbread mix that only wants water) 2+ servings
Beans and greens- 2.00 (1 for beans and 1 for greens) 2 servings or 1 big meal. Change up the beans/greens to change flavor
Lentil soup- 5.00 (1 for lentils, 1 for tomato puree, 1 for cheap mixed veggie frozen, 1 for onion, 1 for carrots) 6+ servings

Sick of 'bean flavor'? Add cinnamon, salsa, hot sauce, garlic- whatever you can think of.

I'm not sure if they have reduced areas in American Supermarkets, but in the ones here in the UK, they'll often reduce fruit and veg at the end of the day. Always check the food when you're buying of course, but never trust sell by dates/used by dates because a lot of the time the food is perfectly fine to eat. They were talking about this on British TV a while ago, we throw so much stuff out thinking it's past it's date, when it's perfectly edible. You can get food that costs £1+ for pennies like a lot of healthy things fruit, veg, stir fry mixes and coleslaw mixes. The first place I go when I shop is the reduced aisles/sections :blushing:

There is no harm in buying frozen or canned veg and beans. Of course fresh is preferred, but if you can't afford it, canned veg is better than no veg at all! Just make sure you check the sugar and salt content. You can get canned Chickpeas and Red Kidney beans and make a nice meal with them! Go to your local ethnic food stores too, they're often cheaper for a lot of things than Supermarkets are on thinks like veg and dried beans etc.

You could try online deal sites if there are any, look out for coupons for healthy food and when you shop take notice of the deals on healthy food too, there are always some in various supermarkets. Like here in the UK, Aldi do a great 6 fruit/veg for 69p each deal, I bought blueberries the other day and they cost twice that much in other supermarkets!

More often that not, it's actually comes out cheaper to buy healthy food. If that bag of potato chips is the same price as the bag of apples, go for the apples!

Don't rely on processed foods or ready meals to eat healthy, I'm on a budget too and usually make and eat home made food because it comes out cheaper and if you don't have time you can always make a big batch and freeze your food!

Also SOUPS, home-made again you can make soups out of ANYTHING, and they can be very filling and healthy and more importantly CHEAP! You can make a week's soup for lunch with the price for one subway sandwich!

I find that other "diet" foods like tuna, peanut butter, cottage cheese etc can be expensive, but my tip is look around for bargains and buy well in advance! You might have lots of cans of Tuna left, but if a store is doing a discount and it's cheap, buy buy buy!

I eat burritos (almost) every morning, I make them in bulk and freeze them,

I buy two boxes Spanish rice boxes, (it would be cheaper to buy basic rice but I have yet mastered the skill of cooking plain brown rice right from the bag) and I get one BIG can of refired beans (once again it would be cheaper to buy the uncooked beans and healthy er but I haven't got the hang of that yet to, I also buy four different colors of Bell peppers, you can get those in a package of four for like 5, if you want you can just get 4 green ones there like a dollar, but the different colored ones are good for different reasons, and one onion, and maybe corn if you like, frozen is the easiest and maybe cheaper, and get the big tortillas

cook the rice and let it cool down, saute the veggies or better yet steam, then mix it all together in a pot with the beans and rice and veggies, sprinkle spices if you like, then just start wrapping up burritos, once you hve them all made up put them in zip lock bags and freeze them,

when you want to eat one, take one out zap in Microwave for 1:20 min on both sides, and if you want it to have a nice crunch after you nuke it set in Oven at 400 for 10 minutes, I add cheese on the top and dip in hot sauce

They make 12

the calories are ~> 482 that's including the cheese

And they have about 10 grams of fiber

They are Sooo filling

I feed my daughter and I on about $250-$300 a month eating healthy. I buy lots of dried beans/lentils at the bulk foods store, go to the farmers market to get in-season produce. I often times go on Sundays as that is the day that they pull the produce that they need to get rid of and mark it down. I buy the clearance produce, take it home, chop it up and freeze it. We have a local store here that sells dented cans for super cheap, so sometimes I find a great deal on low-sodium diced tomatoes, tomato paste, etc...otherwise I get the canned food at Walmart.

Another thing that has really helped to lower my grocery bill is we now eat meat-free 3-4 days a week, have very little red meat (maybe once per month). I buy bulk chicken, cook it up, package it up for meals, and freeze it. I buy the big bags of tilapia, salmon, cod, and other salt water fish when they are on sale and freeze. It really helps to have a chest freezer so I can buy bulk.

I love summertime because my dad has this ginormous garden as does my sister. It's a "you pick it" type of system, and I go over on the weekends and help him weed. It really cuts my bill down, and during the summer we eat for about $25 a week

**for the record, when we were eating crap, I spent twice as much money. It does take extra work, but I take one day a week and prepare everything ahead of time. The crock pot can be very helpful for cook ahead meals.

Bump!!

Are you near a Dollar Tree or 99 Cents Only Store? You can find a lot of food items there and they also have a freezer section.

Also, WalMart has chicken breast for $1.79/lb. You could freeze individual portions.

We have a family of 5 and between these 2 stores, Sprouts and Aldi, I spend about $150 every 2 weeks.

Good luck!

Carbmaster is pretty awesome, and yeah Kroger has amazing deals when you know how to work the system (coupons managers specials) they also have protein bars for like 25 cents sometimes, including Luna Bars!