Is it truly possible to eat well and live frugally at the same time? A lot of people don't think so. I myself used to think that it was an either/or. But I've discovered that you CAN eat healthily, even in my area, where groceries are really high. I will say that you can't eat all ORGANIC here and keep it cheap though!
Here are my tips for eating healthily on a very tight budget:
*Buy grains and flour in bulk when possible. If you know someone going to a large city where there are bulk food stores, have them pick you up some stuff. A friend in town has a bulk-food home business and I discovered that I can get brown rice and yeast for a really great price in bulk! I also got some wonderful 9-grain flour from her last year that lasted me half a year!
*Buy reduced produce. Whereas the stores in our town didn't use to have many reductions, if you keep your eyes open you can find them nowadays. Occasionally I even find a great deal on organic lettuce which doesn't go bad for a long time even if it's past the freshness date. Often the reduced bananas look fine and are half the normal price.
*STOCK up! This is the number one way we eat healthily. When blueberries are at the lowest price of the year, we'll get a ton and freeze them for smoothies. When spinach is a loss leader, we buy it, cook it, puree it, and freeze it to sneak into foods. When frozen brocolli goes half price, we fill the freezer!
*Make it yourself. Making your own bread, muffins, granola bars, snacks, etc is much healthier for you and costs less unless you are getting some convenience foods on great coupon deals. Make your own crockpot yogurt and roll your batches. Make your own jams and jellies and add less sugar or use alternative sweeteners.
*Hunt! My hubby doesn't hunt but my dad is AN ADDICT and thankfully he shares a lot of elk with us. Elk and deer tags are relatively cheap. My in-laws often get a free deer from friends in MN since each person can hunt up to 5 deer and some guys and gals just like to hunt for fun but don't need the meat. In my opinion, elk is tastier than beef and is the leanest meat I've ever seen. It's also "organic."
*Grow it! I am excited to start a garden now that we have a spot for it! I want to avoid pesticides and hopefully keep the deer from eating it!
*Shop the loss leaders. I mentioned this in my frugal tips post. Every week there are deals to get people in the store. There are always certain produce items and certain meat items and certain dairy items on sale. If you make your menus from the flyers, you can always be paying the lowest prices for your food and you will have a variety as every week something different is on sale. So, if this week oranges are on sale, oranges will be your child's snack! If whole chickens are on sale, you will be making roasted chicken and chicken noodle soup!
*Try squeezing one healthy item a week into your budget. For example: one week I may buy a jar of flax seeds which will last me a month or two in smoothies and breads. The next week my healthy purchase may be a box of green tea which will last me 2 months. The next week I will buy some honey, or some wheat germ, almond butter, or some olive oil. Trying to buy it all at once can be pricey; buy it just a little bit at a time and you'll never notice. Better still, give up one unhealthy treat you are in the habit of buying and subsitute it with a healthier alternative. (Just as long as I don't substitute anything for my hubby's ice-cream! He considers ice-cream a necessity!)
*Be on the lookout for great deals. I posted last week about an amazon sale I had heard about where you could get groceries at 40% off and free shipping on many items. Sometimes a health food store goes out of business and everything is half off. This is how we got a year's supply of sucanat!
*Research! The fact that you are reading this post is a step in the right direction! The more I study my Sneaky Chef and Whole Grains cookbooks and the more I learn about Foods that Heal and Kitchen Counter Cures, the more I understand about health, nutrition, and the benefits of good eating. I follow blogs that encourage me in my healthier eating pursuits.
*If you're having trouble finding healthy foods you can afford, try starting with potatoes ($4 for a 20# bag), plain oatmeal ($1.50 per large canister), eggs ($1 a dozen), black beans (6 cups for $1 if you buy them dry), brown rice ($1-2 per #), carrots (50 cents to $1 per #), green tea (10 cents or less for a 16 ounce mug), and a loaf of 100% whole wheat bread ($2-$3). We've been fixing lots of potatoes recently because I found out that they are excellent for healing bones and contain lots of Vitamin C. We all love them and they are really cheap too! Potatoes can be baked, boiled, mashed, made into baked fries, or fried in olive oil. Onions (5# for $1 on sale) are wonderful for adding flavor to potato, rice, and bean dishes.
*Look for Pick-It-Yourself farms. They are rare in these parts but nevertheless there are farmer's markets and folks who might be willing to sell their farm produce. I know some of my MN friends enjoy picking berries in the summer and making jam!
*Learn to cook well. Knowing how to season food or experiment with recipes and flavors will help you to enjoy healthier eating. If you always burn the potatoes or make the cooked beans crunchy, you will find yourself gravitating back to Ramen.
What tips do YOU have on eating healthy on a budget?
2 comments:
For the first time this past year, we bought 1/4 cow, 1/2 pig, and a bunch of chickens from a farmer who raises all his animals on pasture - no grain feeding, no antibiotics, etc. The pig and chickens are cheap, but the beef was an excellent deal $2.99/lb and it's organic. There was a processing fee, but even with that we paid $3.30/lb. We obviously had to have an additional freezer to store all this meat, but if we do it year after year, it will quickly pay for itself. It's great knowing all your beef came from one healthy cow. I've heard one package of ground beef from a regular grocery store can have meat in it from 1000 different cows! This type of bulk purchase requires saving for the year, but the money comes off our grocery budget. The farmer we buy from is a believer, so it feels good knowing our money is going to him. And it's created a lot more variety in my cooking as I have cuts of meat that I wouldn't normally buy from the grocery store.
I meant to say the pigs and chickens were NOT cheap (the meat is excellent but I don't know if we'll buy them again.)
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