Thursday, April 16, 2015

Tips For Eating Healthy On A Budget

Vegetarian Option of Food
I think two of the largest misconceptions around eating healthy are:
1. You're stuck only eating salads and/or raw fruits and vegetables.
2. It's nearly impossible to do on a budget.

While I admit number 2 can be a challenge, number 1 couldn't be farther from the truth!  There is a world of food out there beyond salads that are healthy for you!  And no, I'm not talking about smoothies.

Before we even get into buying food on a budget we're going to look at some advice from the USDA.  Yes, the government.  Wait!  Come back!  I swear to you, it's sound AND helpful advice!  You still here?  Sweet, then let's get started.

Get a budget sorted out.  I know this sounds like it's obvious but it's the foundation of purchasing anything.  Some amazing places to help you get a budget together are:

  • Mint.com:  FREE and allows you to manage your finances digitally.  You import your bank account(s) and it will give you a break down on what you spend your money on AND walk you through making a budget.  The downside: You have to give them your account information.
  • Use free budgeting templates that can be found online.  A quick Google search led me to the Creative Savings Blog's budget workout sheet post (http://creativesavingsblog.com/money-saving-tips/building-your-first-budget/).  
  • Dave Ramsey's free Guide to Budgeting and online tools :  This PDF may give you more information than you know what to deal with so I recommend you take your time and go through it a few times.  For example, I first skimmed through it looking at the headers for phases that match my current situation, "Biweekly" and "Irregular Income" were two major ones.(http://www.daveramsey.com/media/broadcast/mytmmo/pdf/guide-to-budgeting.pdf)

Prepare BEFORE you go to the grocery store.
  • Take an inventory of what you have at home AND what healthy meals, if any, you can make from those foods.
  • Next, decide what HEALTHY foods you need. (e.g. fruit, vegetable, whole grain bread/rice/pasta, beans, etc)
  • Hit the internet and find coupons!  Manufacturers often provide free coupons on their websites and grocery stores have digital coupons you can print on their websites. 
  • Come up with menus and purchase food off of those menus.  A great resource to come up with menus is SparkPeople.com.  They have plenty of user entered recipes and they all have their nutrition information in them.  Feel free to leave a message if you need help coming up with menus for the week!
  • Make a grocery list and STICK WITH IT!  
  • Don't forget to add some "treat" foods for you.  My treat foods are fresh oranges, fresh bananas, Dove dark chocolate, and dark chocolate snack size ice cream bars.  A girl has to have her sweets!
At the grocery store
  • If you can't afford fresh then consider frozen!  Frozen vegetables are amazing options and just as healthful as fresh.  
  • Buy the store brand!  In more cases than not, the store brand is packaged in the same factories as some of the name brand.  I buy store brand as much as possible, unless I have a coupon that makes a name brand cheaper.  
  • Consider canned vegetables and fruit.  I would suggest rinsing them off before eating them.  For vegetables it will lower the amount of salt you're eating and for fruit it will lower the amount of added sugars.
  • Stick to the grocery list!  You'll be tempted to get something off of it but, if you've made your menu for the week, what you're tempted to buy is NOT in the budget.
Back at home
  • To prevent food from spoiling, I've gotten into the habit of cooking up most of my food in one day, sectioning it out, and then freezing it!  Don't forget to write dates on what you freeze if you have a large freezer.
  • Keep fresh fruits and vegetables in dry, cool places OR in the fridge.
  • Depending on how often you eat bread, take half of the loaf out and freeze it or put it in the fridge.  Make sure you use a plastic bag rated for the freezer.  
Various Tips/Strategies I use 
  • Stretch low sodium soup by adding canned or frozen vegetables, cooked whole grain rice, and/or cooked beans.  
  • When possible, buy in bulk packages.  Normally, they're cheaper in the long run.  Use the price divided by the weight of the packages to see if there really is any savings.
  • Freeze your left overs!  
  • Check out the "We Made Too Much" carts at grocery store bakeries.  The sell by date isn't the expiration date.  Nothing on that cart is stale.  
  • Loose salad greens are normally cheaper than packaged greens.
Well, there you have it!  Some tips for eating health.  Below you'll find some resources that have helped me with making sure I eat healthily while on a college student's income.  There's a lot of information out there on this topic.  I hope I have helped start to narrow it down!


Resources:
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)