Geeks on a Budget: Healthy Eating on a Budget
Oh man, I LOVE food. That much is obvious. I love doughnuts and pie and cake and chocolate and… Well, you get the point, but I, like many others, am trying to eat healthier. This means buying more organic fruits and vegetables, cooking for myself, and having better snacks on hand. My hubby and I are buying better cuts of meat and keeping packaged processed food out of the kitchen. Of course, if you look at the prices of packaged meals, they seem to be a better buy that getting all of the ingredients, but there are ways around that. You may have to go to more than one place for your goodies, but trust me, this makes it worthwhile. I’m going to share with you the ways we have saved money as well as things you can do to get on the right track.
1. Farmers Markets
In Roseville, we have Denio’s Flea Market where there is a massive farmer’s market on the weekend. There’s also two other farmer’s markets near my home that sell seasonal local fruits and vegetables. The last time I went there, I spent fifteen dollars and left with this: six Roma tomatoes, three parsnips, a rutabaga, two butternut squashes, three cucumbers, a massive bunch of celery, two yellow onions, a half-pound of raw walnuts, three oranges, a bunch of Romaine lettuce, and a yam. I did the math, and that bunch at my local grocery store would have cost around $25. The butternut squashes on their own, at the size I bought, would have been close to $8.
2. Save Your Scraps
Remember when I told you all about Leftover Soup? You can also save the bones from chicken and beef and cook them the same way to make a rich bone broth that’s great for the joints and skin. Leftover meat scraps can be saved to also make a broth or flavor other dishes. With some vegetables, the stems leftover after trimming make fantastic flavoring (just check for toxicity in some). In this way, nothing goes to waste, and you have many more options of other dishes.
3. Invest in Storage
My hubby and I have a nice set of Rubbermaid storage containers. We like to cook up meals early in the week and leave them for lunches to take with us at work or school. This way, we’re not tempted to eat at a fast food chain and spend money on food that will do our bodies little good. It’s also good for when we’re lazy and don’t really want to prepare anything. All the convenience of a pre-packaged processed meal without the icky preservatives and excess sodium.
4. Sales and Clearance
At many grocery stores, there are options for sales on meat and other goods. We often will look at the manager special of the day. Some places will clear out meat when it’s close to the expiration date. If you’re going to take it home and cook it that day, there’s nothing wrong with getting a prime cut of meat at half the normal cost. There’s really no harm in buying things, especially canned goods, close to the sell-by date, as long as you make the plan to use them as soon as possible.
5. Invest in a Slow Cooker
This has saved me so much time and trouble. I’ve seen perfectly good ones at the thrift store, and mine was given to me by a friend who had no room for hers. It’s so easy to throw a meal together in the slow cooker and then go about your day. When you return home, there’s delicious and hot food waiting for you, and typically there’s leftovers for days.
6. Side Notes
Here are things that I’ve noticed since the hubby and I have started doing all of the above:
- We’ve lost weight/size. (My hubby went from over 440lbs to under 330lbs in a year.)
- We go through fewer trash bags. We’ve actually saved money on trash bags this way. It’s amazing.
- My skin stays clear for the most part. I’m not putting awful things in my body, and therefore I spend less on acne creams and skin lotions.
- We have more energy and don’t get sick as often. I really think this is because we’re taking better care of ourselves. It’s nice not having to go to the doctor so much.
- Eating out has become a fun occasion. We don’t eat out as often, so we’re saving money there (even cheap meals somewhere decent cost us over $35 together).
Overall, while we spend about $250 each month on groceries, we were spending over $400 each month before with normal groceries and the costs of eating out for lunch at work and for how often we’d go out to eat. Eating healthy is actually cheaper if you are wise about how you shop. You don’t need Whole Foods (though I admit, it’s pretty fun to go there sometimes) when you have the farmer’s market and your own good sense.
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