This is the first in a four-part weekly series on Ways to be Healthy Without Breaking your Budget. This series is written by Victoria Carlson. This series will have a ton of great content, so hope you enjoy it!
You probably hear every day about how expensive it is to be healthy. Eating right, exercising, natural cleaning products and other healthy everyday activities are not exactly things people consider to be inexpensive. However, there are tons of ways to stay healthy without pouring every penny into specific sections of your budget to do so.
Typically in a household budget a lot of money will be spent on groceries. While it may seem as though it is impossible to eat healthy and still have money left over for other things, this is simply not true. It is possible to buy all-natural, organic, chemical-free foods on a budget.
There are four main things that David and I have done in order to keep the doctor away and our bank account full:
1) Couponing
Couponing has been our primary way in which we save money on groceries. While many of the coupons in the weekly newspaper are foods with preservatives, there are tons of coupons for healthy choices online or even in store ads.
Products go on sale every week and coupon websites are updated frequently. By paying attention to these sales and coupon matchups, you can save. For example, a few weeks ago, Cub had a coupon for 1 free pound of red grapes in their Sunday ad. Even if you do not get a newspaper on Sundays, you can benefit from this coupon just by walking in the door.
2) Farmer’s Market or Aldi
Living in the city has an added advantage of easily accessible farmer’s markets. These are great places to not only support local farmers, but to buy fruits, vegetables, and herbs at a low cost. Even if Farmer’s markets are not in your area, or are simply too busy or chaotic for your personality, supermarkets such as Aldi, are being built constantly.
There are a variety of products at Aldi that are healthy- no added preservations that people are allergic to (e.g. MSG) in many of their products, and they have a variety of fruits and vegetables, all at a conveniently low price. Just make sure you bring your own shopping bags as they are not provided when you check-out at the store.
3) Food From Scratch
In March of this year, we did the Daniel Fast, which was a diet that was all natural, preservative and sugar-free, and vegan. For the 8 days that we did this fast we spent as much as we would have in a typical month on groceries. I clearly made a lot of mistakes while shopping for this kind of diet and lifestyle, as I did not use coupons and I bought expensive items instead of price comparing. However, I did realize that making food from scratch does not have to cost a lot, depending on the foods you choose to use.
While making food from scratch does take a lot of time and planning, it is definitely worth it if you are trying to be healthy. No one will deny that spices and herbs are expensive, but once you buy the main ones, they will last you for a long time (depending on how much you use them). Also, you can substitute many of the things called for in a recipe for things that are already in your cupboard or purchase items that can be used for multiple recipes, such as various types of oils, including coconut or olive oil.
4) Smoothies
This may seem like a silly thing to set apart as its own category, but for David and I, it is a must. We make smoothies at least 3 times a week. Not only are they super tasty, they are a great way for us to stay healthy by getting enough of our daily fruit in.
By buying large bags of frozen fruit (with coupons of course), and all-natural fruit juice (also with coupons), we have enough of our daily fruit each day and the amount we buy lasts us for two or so weeks (depending on the amount we get at one time).
Just for your added convenience, here is one of the many recipes that I have used to create a delicious treat at the end of the day:
-2 cups apple juice
-1 banana (frozen)
-1 16oz. bag of frozen fruit (usually we use strawberries which cost $2.40 at Target without a coupon).
Blend these three ingredients together first on pulse (to break up the fruit), then on liquefy for about 1 minute. This makes about 24 total oz. of a blended smoothie.
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As you can see it IS possible to eat right and have a balanced diet that can be preservative free without your grocery bill going through the roof.
What do you do to stay healthy when shopping for groceries without spending doubling your budgeted amount?
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These are great tips! We are currently working on making things from scratch, I’m just so inpatient :)
@SenseofCents I’m much more impatient than Victoria :0 When I make dinner it’s those steamer veggie bags + something that I can toss in the oven quick (or stove top noodles!)
This is especially true when you travel. Our first stop at a fly-in destination is the grocery store, where we load up on bagels, bananas and OJ to see us through any peckish moments. (Or as a dietician friend calls it, tungry – tongue hungry). We usually pack a collapsible cool bag (one with a layer of insulation to keep things cold) and we make a point to never eat out more than once a day.
On road trips, the big old Igloo cooler is a standard item.
Subway used to have an ad slogan a few years back: fat is cheap. It’s true when you eat out, but when you do your own buying, not necessarily.
@William_Drop_Dead_Money Great idea! When we went to Hawaii, one of our firsts stops was Costco to stock up on some food essentials for the week. Given how expensive things are on the islands, it saved us a ton of money.
@TravelWhimsy @William_Drop_Dead_Money Same here, when we went to Hawaii we went to Wal-Mart the very first day and loaded up. Helped save quite a bit of money.
A friend recently told me about “Bountiful Baskets”, a not-for-profit co-op where you sign up for a weekly fruits and veggies basket. For about $15 a basket, you’re supposed to get about $50 worth of fruits and veggies. They keep costs down by buying in bulk and having the distribution provided by a network of volunteers. I haven’t tried it myself, but it might be something fun to try out if it’s offered in your city.
@TravelWhimsy Wow that sounds like a cool program. Having lots of fruits and veggies on hand is the best way to eat healthy imo
These are great tips! I think that we use all of these. As you mention in your couponing section, sales can also be a great way to save. We usually plan our meals around the sales, which saves us a ton. Also, we’ve started eating less meat, which also helps the budget…and arguably our health!
@GregatClubThrifty Victoria actually gets migraines from beef/pork because of the nitrates so we have cut back on our red meat quite a bit. We primarily eat chicken and turkey, but we have started to include other foods since we eat less meat overall.
I have yet to embrace couponing. I typically just throw the coupons right into the trash because I get so many! Plus, my favorite store – Trader Joe’s doesn’t send me coupons :( Mmm a smoothie does sound good, but do they really fill you up?
@Veronica @ Pelican on Money I agree, you really need to find a system to organize all those coupons or it becomes an inefficient time-suck. Smoothies are not meals for us, just snacks, so it fills us up.
I purchased a side of 100% grassfed, antibiotic free beef and split it with 2 siblings. The cost was 3.49/lb, which is great for the quality beef it is. We also split a CSA share with my mom. It equals roughly $11 per week for a weeks worth of veggies(sometimes more depending on the week so we freeze or preserve these.) Lastly, we buy our coconut oil and tuna off Amazon and a few other things that have long shelf life when it is on sale.
Making things from scratch is something I need to get back into.
@Em23 When we have more freezer space we will probably consider going in on a cow like you described. We don’t eat processed meat really, so it would make sense for us to stock up on the healthy grass fed stuff.
We save a ton on food costs just by avoiding restaurants and instead cooking from home… We can feed the whole family for five bucks, instead of for thirty.. and the food is usually better too!
We really need to start eating healthier. I don’t even mind if it costs a bit more because it’ll be worth it in the long run.
@Money Life and More I wish I could say the same. I’m on a pretty right budget. Broke ass college kids. =(
We use coupons every week that we shop and our goal this year was to get back to basics. Although we saved near 6k using coupons we haven’t used as much this year. This year we focused on eating from the garden and local markets, cooking home-made meals from scratch and not eating as much meat. We also post our weekly grocery shop on my blog in our weekly grocery game challenge post to help keep us accountable to our budget of $190 for 2 ppl a month and to motivate us to stick to it. We have motivated many others to post their shops and saving money in their budget. Contrary to belief you can eat very well on a budget if you plan your meals and your shops using coupons and weekly flyers and savings. Great Post. Mr.CBB
I’m a smoothie junkie as well! If I see a fruit on sale (today they’re raspberries – yay!), I buy a bunch of them and freeze them. Usually they turn out to be a lot cheaper than buying them frozen.
My mom is the most savvy food buyer I know and as a diabetic is very sensitive to her healthy foods. Even while on vacation she is able to find a “scratch and dent” store in the community where she purchases meats, can foods and sometimes even fresh veggies at huge discounts. Per Mom, there is always one in your community but it may take a little effort to find – may not have the environment as the nicer fancier chain grocery stores or trendy markets…but she finds food to all kinds of non perishable items at these stores.
This was a good read. I have been talking about this to my friends the past few weeks. I’m really trying to get on a health kick and make some better tasting cheap food for dinner and such. But I have noticed that all the heathy and fresh products are just more expensive. I need to pay attention to coupons and look at the ads in the stores when i go in there.
it would have been nice if you had some specific sites listed that linked to cheap healthy recipes. That’s what I need!