How to eat healthy on a tight budget?

Do you have a bulk foods store near by? We have "The Coop" which is a store serving the organic/healthy/green community. They have a great bulk section where you can get all sorts of excellent staple foods very cheaply. I love to cook with dried beans and whole grains. I can make a pot of very healthy bean/squash soup that will feed me for several days for $5-$6. I purchase my produce from the regular grocer as The Green tax at the Coop is too high for me. In a nut shell, you can do quite well on a low budget as long as you are willing to cook for yourself. Oh, and red meat is darned expensive - I use beef as a "treat" meal.

What MalibuBeth just said. Plan your meals and cook them yourself, and you can go healthy and cheap.

Fresh meat has a "sell-by" date and needs to be sold by that date or thrown out. Many stores discount meat if it is shortly before that date, marking them as "Manager's Specials" and the like. The discounts can be pretty steep. Buy them, take them home, cook them right away into healthy meals, and freeze portions for homemade "fast food".

Frozen skinless chicken breasts are a staple of my diet when my wife travels. Grab one, cube it up, sautee it in a little olive oil, throw on some cheap frozen vegetables (get "fresh frozen", not the kind with sauces or butter), serve over rice or pasta, eat.

There are so many relatively inexpensive and convenient ways to prepare healthy meals.

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Cooking your own food from bulk ingredients is the way to be frugal! Buy rice, lentils, beans, oatmeal etc. by the bulk... you can use them to make soups/salads/eat them on their own. Buy your meat on sale and freeze what you don't immediately need! Stick with whole grain pastas and breads- maybe not cheaper, but definitely more filling in the long run.

I cut down on a lot of money when I started buying produce for what I only needed immediately... meal planning helps with this :-)

With meat and whole poultry save and freeze the bones after you eat the meat... you can boil the bones down to make a mean stock!

I can't say I'm the healthiest eater, but my biweekly grocery total usually comes to $50-75. But that's with extras and fun stuff!

Staples for me (aka things I actually will eat and use) are wheat tortillas, chicken breasts, lentils, peanut butter, kidney beans, whole grain bread/pasta, tomato sauce, oatmeal, milk/soy milk, honey, eggs, flax seeds, cereal, mozzarella cheese, coffee, hot sauce... limes/banana/avocados.... for just those staples, which is enough for solid meals for two weeks or so, you are probably looking at $50-70, depending on sales!

I'm going to be real here, I'm pretty broke lol. And I know I'm not the only one on a budget! I was watching some of the movie Food Inc today, and in one part they were talking about how cheap bad food is, and how much more expensive good food is! It's a conspiracy! Hahaha, anyway, I would really just love if I could get some tips on how to eat healthy without spending what I don't have.

Do you have an Aldi's in your area? Their "Fit & Active" brand is REALLY good and very inexpensive!!! I highly suggest that... For fruits and veggies, if you have a farmers market close, you could try there. Or even look for your grocery store's generic brand of name brand foods.

Wal-Mart is GREAT about price matching, you should try that. Look at your sales ads, and when you go to check out, let them know a specific store has that certain item for a cheaper price. They usually know, already, but you have to tell them.

its really not that hard, but I guess it is if you arnt used to it. i grew up eating rice and beans like every nightttt ughhh.
now i live with my boyfriend and im in college. money is so tight that we only spend 150 a MONTH on food for the both of us. mind you i live in a large city where the cost of living is high (my studio apartment is 709 dollars a month to rent w/o utilities) right now i only have a glass of milk in my fridge, but thats beside the point haha.

i have shopped at aldis on the same budget, it does NOT go as far as woodmans. though most of you probably have no idea what that is. woodmans has almost all of the things (minus meat and fruit) for around a dollar.

we normally dont eat meat, which saves us a lot of money
but i buy eggs.
rice
pasta
canned sauce
frozen chicken
canned tuna in water
wheat bread (lots, like a loave a week)
nutella
pb
bananas
cutie oranges
frozen veggies (they are only 80 cents a bag!)
string cheese
nutri grain bars
block cheese
milk, lots of milk.
archer farms items are my fav. at 2$ a box i can afford organic fruit leather. love ittt
big tub of oatmeal (not instant)
i make a lot of my own soups too.

yepp. thats what i live off. its not glamourous, but i dont mind :]

I keep a memo in my phone of "cheap healthy foods" that I took from a Shape magazine article. Here's what's on it:

Brown rice
Multigrain pasta
Whole wheat tortillas
Frozen veggies
Bagged salad
Canned refried beans
Jarred marinara sauce
Eggs, egg substitutes
Frozen edamame
Asparagus
Bananas
Broccoli
Green beans
Black beans
Kale
Canned tuna

As others have mentioned, try to buy what is in season and on sale. You can always get produce on sale and freeze it for later use. Also, I am vegetarian, and things like beans, eggs, nuts and nut butters are much less expensive than meat, so that helps! Never underestimate the power of coupons, too.

OH, another suggestion. Alot of grocery stores will mark their meats down to pretty cheap for quick sale before they expire. Try looking for that meat. Be careful though, check the coloring and such to make sure it's not already bad. My hubby used to do that when we first got married and he wasn't working. We'd get almost $100 in meats and pay like 1/3 of that!!! :-D

As simple as this may sound, the easiest way for me is to write a list of all my meals for the week and stick strictly to it when I go to the store.

It starts with a plan. Make a weekly schedule of meals. Look at coupons not just in the weekly papers, but online too. And note any suitable substiutions. Also look at your schedule for the week to determine if there is a night you'll need to eat out, and on that day prepare your dinner too. Preapre and make as much of your own food as possible. I spend Sunday evening making breakfasts & lunches for the week.

Once you have your base plan established your ears will perk up when stuff you use goes on sale. You'll eventually find your way to Aldi, Farmer's Markets, and sometimes Walgreens.