Eating healthy on a slim budget
I spend almost as much on groceries as I do on my mortgage.
Now, before you spit your coffee all over your keyboard, you should know that my mortgage is pretty low, lower than what some of my friends pay in rent. And for me, “groceries” includes all of the extras one buys at grocery stores, like paper towels and soap and the latest issue of the weekly tabloid.
(Kidding! I have zero interest in the tabloids. Especially now that none of them cover the bat boy or alien baby adoptions.)
Anyway, non-food expenses aside, I still spend a lot of money on groceries. Part of it is need. We do need to eat. Part of it is want, since food and cooking is a hobby of mine. I make cuts in other places in order to afford things like fresh-pressed olive oil. And part of it I view as a health expense — things like antibiotic-free meat and organic strawberries.
The thing is, I know I’m lucky to be in a position to afford it. Yes, I prioritize food and health in my spending, so that helps. But not everyone can do that. You can’t prioritize organic avocados over, say, paying the rent or paying for childcare.
For instance, check out this post by TomInTexas on the PaleoHacks message board:
“The wife and I are having to cut costs as I’m quitting my job to go back to school. I’ll still have some income, but less than half of what I make right now. As such, cuts have to be made, and it looks like the ‘unnecessarily high’ cost of my paleo diet is in the crosshairs. (I’ve recently gone paleo, she didn’t.)
“After more than two months … I feel great. But today I had my first non-paleo meal in a while: Lentils and some chicken. 15 minutes later I was bent over the commode revisiting my lunch. Now I feel horrible. And I’m hungry again, 1.5 hours after I ate.
“Moral is at a bit of a low. Any ideas on how I can keep the cost … on the low end? I live in a small apartment, so buying half a cow, etc. is not an option. Based on my stomach’s response to lunch, neither is rice and beans.”
Traditional advice isn’t practical
Now, this post isn’t about the paleo diet per se. I don’t personally follow any diet plan. I chose TomInTexas’s quote because it gets to the heart of the financial aspects of trying to eat a “clean diet,” whatever that means to you. These aspects are often disregarded by people who espouse these special diets.
Usually when you’re talking to a health nut about the expense of eating healthy, they say things like “cut other expenses to afford it” or “consider it a medical expense.” Or they offer the advice TominTexas mentions: “Buy half a cow.”
But TomInTexas is on a very restricted budget. He can care about his health until the grassfed cows come home, but that won’t magically put food dollars in his bank account. And he can’t buy in bulk because he lives in an apartment.
Plus, his significant other isn’t on board. She doesn’t share his views on diet, and that’s a difficult situation when his food expenses have increased and his income has decreased. She has a right to be concerned about their finances.
So what can Tom do to keep eating in a way that makes him feel better while keeping to a tight budget?
Decide what matters most
The solution is to prioritize. You may not be able to afford a “perfect” diet, whatever that means to you, but you can make choices where it matters most.
Here’s a round-up of some of the best advice I’ve read about what to prioritize and how to stretch your budget.
Cut the fancy supplements, powders, and special drinks. If you have to watch your budget, think about cutting the $50 protein powder and have some eggs for breakfast instead. Ditto the special drinks. “Don’t drink your calories,” writes Anthony Vennare at Hybrid Athlete. “Avoid soda, juice, and energy drinks. Stick to water, tea, and coffee.” (Cheaper and healthier!)
Don’t throw your food budget in the trash. If your produce often goes bad before you get a chance to eat it, buy some frozen vegetables. “Sure, I love fresh veggies,” writes Steve Kamb of NerdFitness, “but since frozen veggies are picked and then frozen at peak ripeness (and thus most nutritionally dense), they are often a better value while being edible for months longer.”
Get the most nutritional bang for your buck. “Target nutrient dense foods, but understand that we’re looking for the most economical choices,” writes Kamb. “If food A costs $10 and has 50 of nutrient X, we’ll pick food B instead, which only provides 45 of X but costs just $2.” High on his list? Dark leafy greens, broccoli, eggs, meat, canned tuna, legumes, bananas, and plums.
Cook like your grandma. “After…ditching my go-to Pam cooking spray, I began to research other cooking oils,” Rachael Adams, The Freckled Foodie, tells Abel James, the Fat Burning Man. “My favorite early discovery … is to save all the excess grease from cooked bacon, ground pork, and any other meat, and use it to cook your veggies or side-dishes.”
Another way to use up everything you buy? Eat the perfectly healthy parts of produce that most people throw out. For instance, you can sauté beet greens and you can steam broccoli stalks.
It’s okay to buy less expensive meat. If you want the highest quality of meat but can’t afford it, don’t sweat it. “If I can’t eat grassfed meat, I look for the cleanest meat I can find (no hormones, no antibiotics, etc.),” writes Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint. Another way to save is by buying the cheaper cuts of meat. For instance, dark meat is cheaper than white meat. Skirt steak is cheaper than ribeye. There’s nothing wrong with those cuts, they’re just less desirable to the majority of consumers.
Shop sales. Okay, this one is a bit obvious, but it had to be included because sales are hard to come by for non-processed food. Places to look: grocery stores clearing out nearly-but-not-yet expired food, coupons for frozen produce, weekly sales on select cuts of meat, and end-of-day deals at the farmers markets, when vendors are packing up to go home.
As for specific advice for TomInTexas, I would tell him to sit down with his wife and come up with a food budget that works for both of them. Then, he could offer to do the grocery shopping using the tips above to stick to his diet as much as possible, while keeping in mind his wife’s food preferences too. If he can find coupons for some of the foods she likes to eat, that would also help him stick to their budget.
What advice would you give TomInTexas? And whatever your diet of choice, what are some ways you eat healthy on a budget?
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There are 72 comments to "Eating healthy on a slim budget".
My advice to anyone who thinks they “need” a special diet is to talk to an allergist (holistic or otherwise) and pinpoint the source of the issues. Sometimes people who have an intolerance to one food “throw the baby out with the bath water” by avoiding an entire food group.
For instance, I know people who are sensitive to wheat who can enjoy other whole grains such as spelt and kamut — they don’t need to go gluten free or paleo. Sometimes people feel better and lose weight when they eliminate grains because they stop eating so much refined grains and added sugars. If they were eating whole grains and minimal sweets in the first place, that’s a different story. Sometimes a change in diet is accompanied by a change in exercise routine, so people are working with too many variables to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of one.
I’m not saying this to be critical of anyone’s diet choices, rather, I found getting some help was more effective than experimenting on my own. Special diets are expensive, so it’s worth knowing what is hype versus what your body actually needs if you’re having reactions to food.
Hmm. I disagree with the skipping the powders part. It’s an affordable way to get on average 20-25g of protein per scoop. In the long run it’s cheaper than going with meat, poultry, eggs, or some other animal food source. If you’re not an athlete you may not have a need for it but if you are, it’s definitely a more affordable way. Plus there’s also a lot of other benefits from a powder pre/post-workout that include a healthy dose of electrolytes that you would otherwise have to replace via food (and it takes about 8 bananas just to get a daily dose of potassium).
If by “powders” you mean “whey” then I agree with you. It’s a huge protein bang for the buck.
All the other stuff seems like quite a waste of money to me though, often full of chemical preparations (e.g. aspartame, colorings, etc), and I’ve looked hard.
As for “electrolytes” (“It’s what plants crave!”)– nearly everything has potassium in it. E.g.: http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-potassium.php
(I usually eat an orange after my whey shake)
However, I’m not trying to be dogmatic here– I’m still looking. if you have a good suggestion for good powders with good value, I’m all ears.
Your “Idiocracy” shout out made my day!
True most plants do have potassium; however to get the recommended 4700mg/day takes quite a bit – which is why I personally prefer a little supplementation. It may not work for everyone but it works for me especially since this is about cost saving techniques.
Hi again Matt,
Well, all living things have potassium, since the Na+/K+ pump is universal, no? (The plant thing was a movie quote/joke, as Meredith noticed.) There’s plenty of potassium in beef, pork, fish, poultry, game, milk, etc.
I think our culture’s dietary problem is that we put too much sodium on everything, not that we can’t get enough potassium. I honestly think electrolytes are a bit of a marketing scam, but I can see how taking them would be a time/money saver in some circumstances.
Any powders you’d recommend? I get Gold Standard Natural Whey, which at $60/can (I think that’s what I pay), has 71 servings of 24g protein, doesn’t spoil at room temperature, makes for great emergency rations, goes great in a smoothie, is easy to digest, and has no artificial sweeteners/colorings.
@El Nerdo – I’m not the biggest expert on all the brands of Whey out there. I’ve used Gold Standard before and I’ve liked it. I get my whey from Costco made by Muscle Milk and it’s about $45 for 6 pounds of whey. It’s primarily protein (about 25g with very little carbohydrates which I like). I tolerate it well. There are others who probably wouldn’t stick with a brand like that and opt to have something more pure but it works for me.
I’m big on electrolytes – in my field I’m constantly seeing the effects of a lack of either potassium or magnesium so I’m pretty big on them.
@ Matt
I hear you on the Mg, people’s diets are deficient in a big way– which is why I eat sunflower/pumpkin seeds every day.
Just a tip on getting your whey another way. I hang a quart of “organic” yogurt made from grassfed cow’s milk in cheesecloth to drain off about a pint of real whey. This leaves a very tart form of cream cheese in the now whey-less yogurt, which I do a number of things with, my favorite being to mix garlic, ginger and green onion in it and use it to stuff mushrooms or add it as a layer in omelettes. Salt and/or melted butter cuts the tartness, if you don’t like it, and you can freeze it for later use.
You can add the liquid whey to your smoothies, and make any number of fermented foods with it. You don’t get the convenience of a pre-processed powder, and I’m not sure if it’s more or less expensive looking purely at the protein components of both wheys, but I am rather sure that you’d be eating a lot healthier with real whey and it’s natural byproducts.
@ Deborah
Yes! When I make… what’s the name… paneer… requesón… don’t know the name in english (boil milk, add lemon, strain the curdled protein) I’ll also save the whey & use it to cook, make smoothies, etc.
But the whey powder is definitely for the convenience added to the nutrition– either for post-workout drinks or for emergency rations or for breakfasts in a hurry or for immune boosts when under the weather, etc. I think of it as one of the components of my emergency fund.
The real Soylent has me curious. It’s supposedly everything you need. It may not taste good but keeps you filled up and is cheap-ish. This can definitely supplement solid foods in future.
I have a friend who is a vegetarian who told me that after a while on that diet, your body quits producing the digestive enzymes necessary to process meats. No idea if that’s actually true or not, as I’ve never given up my omnivorous habits.
It sounds like TomInTexas may have lost the ability to digest non-meats.
Our local grocery store will often red-tag items on the meat shelves are at or approaching their sell-by date.
Tougher cuts of meat can be made more tender by slow cooking them on low in a crockpot with plenty of broth while you’re away at work, as well.
Rather than buying half a cow, see if you can go in with another family or two on it. We used to get four families together to split a side of or whole beef.
Chicken still seems to be the cheapest per pound of the major meat groups. Does paleo include only red meats? I usually buy whole fryers and cut them into smaller pieces to freeze for later meals, or sometimes stew up a whole fryer for making bulk meals of enchiladas and great soup stock.
That’s something of what I thought. He went from one extreme to the other and gave his body a nasty shock. Of course it reacted. If you are going to make a change, do it gradually.
I agree. And even with chicken there are cheaper ways to do things. I buy a 5 lb bird for $6.00, roaster it up and get a ton of meat from it. I can eat it for about 8 meals. It’s way cheaper than buying cut up or breast-only meat. And I like the mixture of cuts.
Paleo is not just red meats. It’s all kinds of natural meats and seafoods and eggs and plenty of vegetables and fruits and nuts and seaweed and even insects . There are different schools of thoughts regarding oils and certain dairies, etc.
I love Paleo, I would eat that way 100% if I could afford it, but I have to modify it to fit the budget since bla bla long story.
I’ll have to say though– some people don’t know how to cook beans and won’t soak them overnight, will leave them undercooked, will add salt too early which will make them tough, etc., and then blame the beans. Even lentils, which aren’t usually soaked, can be soaked and drained and be made more digestible.
Another thing to add is that with the prices of beef as they are right now I prefer pork. Industrial chicken not so much because it’s washed with bleach and other chemicals, more so since last year because of a change in FDA regulations, but you can get good pork at Costco for slightly over $2/lb (in my area anyway). Yes yes, it’s not pastured, shoot me for my crimes, but everything in life is a tradeoff.
Oh, Costco carries organic/pastured eggs (Kirkland) and they taste pretty good for a supermarket egg.
Costco is also carrying big bags of organic greens. I stuff them right into the freezer and cook them in the morning (with eggs, with meat, with black beans, etc). But I’m working on a garden so I no longer have to buy greens.
@El Nerdo: I buy New Zealand Whey Pro-Series manufactured by Ergogenics Nutrition for my son. I like the fact that the protein comes from pasture-fed cows. It’s undenatured, whey protein, hormone and antibiotic free.
I personally spend more money on food than on any other aspect of my budget, except for savings. We eat mostly organic, and tons of greens which we whip up in smoothies and large batches of soup. I am allergic to gluten, and eat limited carbs because I don’t feel well when I eat lots of them. Many, many people have a carb intolerance which translates into fatique, bloating and all kinds of gastro-intestinal problems. Many things can alter our gut flora, antibiotics come to mind, but stress, malnutrition affect our bellies too. I don’t want to generalize, but everyone in my family feels much better on a gluten free, or gluten reduced, carb reduced diet.
If I had to budget food, I would let go of my committment to buying organic and would focus on buying meat and lots and lots of greens. I would buy nuts in bulk and good oils to add calorties to the mix.
Unfortunately these items still remain expensive per calorie compared to grains and legumes.
@Marie-Josée – YES! That’s pretty much what we do. Meats (& eggs & greek yogurt) + greens + bulk nuts + fruits (seasonal+frozen) + good oils (olive/ pastured butter/ macadamia).
But– since some days I’m doing heavy manual labor, and the other days I have a morning workout, I have to add a touch of carbs (like a scoop of beans, or a cup of oats) to my morning meal, to speed up recovery.
I was doing this with sweet potatoes, but they are not available/ in season right now where I shop. So this morning for breakfast I had meat, kale, and a scoop of black beans, with a sprinkle of dulse and a splash of good olive oil. Eggs with avocado for lunch; roasted almonds for one snack; a small rye cracker *thick* with irish butter for another; and dinner is wild berries on greek yogurt with pumpkin seeds and bee pollen.
I could spend infinite money on food, so I have to budget, and this system is working well for us so far. With a little more money I’ll buy a cow and/or raise chickens (we’ve decided to postpone raising chickens till next season).
Anyway, thanks also for the whey recommendation–I’ll check it out. Thanks to their volcanic soils and extensive pastures, New Zealand cattle is awesome.
Yes, from my experience it’s true that if you drop something from your diet for a length of time, you’ll have difficulty digesting it if you re-introduce it suddenly. I eat red meat infrequently (maybe 1-2 hamburgers per month), so now I find myself unable to eat beef unless it is finely ground. Steak or beef stew will make me bloated and slow down my digestion for up to a week now. Even stacked pastrami sandwiches give me trouble.
Paleo carb starves you, and forces your body to process proteins rather than carbs. You feel sick for the first while on it – and then they’re surprised they feel sick going off it!
We only go out on occasions and never throw away leftovers, all this has helped us to slash our budgets. Great post. Thanks for sharing.
I say to eat healthy on a budget, start with macro-healthful stuff (basic fruits and veggies), before moving on to the micro-healthful (organic, non-GMO, grass fed etc).
Organic and non-GMO, while I’m sure preferable to most, is not the only versions of healthful food.
My method is pretty straight forward. I eat a 90% whole foods diet (and because I don’t normally have time to cook it’s easy on the go foods that are raw or lightly steamed and quartered for the week). I try to eat at least 10 – 15 different fruits veggies per day for variety since I don’t take vitamins, so I just buy one of each item (one apple, one pear, one avocado…etc) and cut it up for the week. Or get a bag of greens, kale, spinach, and cook it all at once, taking 1/2 – 1 cup per serving.
I get whatever is cheapest or on sale. I buy nuts in bulk to save money. I still spend a lot on food because unfortunately I still am in the habit of buying lunch at my weekend job (they have awesome chicken breast kabobs!), and I don’t tend to shop at the cheapest store always…just what is convenient. I also have an expensive tea habit and drink 3-6 cups per day (1st cup and last cup is usually matcha).
A typical breakfast for me is a plate of:
– 1/4 pear
– 1/4 nectarine
– 1 small tangerine
– a few spears of asparagus
– 1/2 sweet potato
– either 1/2 cali avocado or 1/4 avocado with eggwhites scrambled in olive oil with veggies
Snack is usually 1/2 a large banana and a handful of raw nuts or seeds…whichever I have on hand.
It keeps me full and it’s a no-brainer. And it’s all whole food.
I too have a low mortgage and also spend as much (sometimes more) than my entire house payment..taxes and insurance included!
I didn’t always used to eat like this, but aside from the health factor it’s just EASIER. I don’t have to think, I don’t have to plan, I don’t have to cook, I don’t have to read labels or count calories and can pretty much eat as much as I want of anything so I’m never starving. I indulge once in a while…usually when offered free food…I never say no, so I’m not some health nut or anything. I have enjoyed the healthful benefits though…just found out my HDL jumped from 92 to 98 in 6 months when my employer offered a free-metabolic testing panel (163 total chol and 57 triglyceride). I was pretty stoked because I do still eat not so good for me stuff. Even then though I do try to keep it whole…like my addiction to Waffle House t-bone steaks with fried egg whites and sliced raw tomato mmmmmm!
We’ve discovered that going “semi-vegetarian” saves a surprising amount of money. Cutting out meat of any kind two or three times a week costs less, and you never have a sense of deprivation.
We also discovered that there’s a direct trade-off between eating cheaper and time. Cooking an entire chicken and using different parts for different meals is a lot cheaper than buying just chicken breasts, but it takes more time to plan and execute.
Definitely agree on money savings after cutting cutting meat/dairy – but for a slightly different reason…
Tofu and Tempeh last longer in the fridge. If something comes up and ruins your dinner plans you’re not stuck figuring out if the meat is bad. Ditto with almond milk (not a fan of soy)over cow’s milk – I only tend to use it for baking or cereal, and I was throwing away a good portion of the gallon/half gallon I purchased every week.
Should you think Tofu is too expensive, check out your local Asian foods market (if you live in a city, HMart and GreatWall are Wal-Mart sized options with incredible savings). You can pick it up at a better quality for less, along with quite a few veggie options as well.
Great point, William!
We’re vegetarian and not buying meat frees up money to buy organic produce and specialty foods. We eat a lot healthier and for the same amount of money that we used to spend before.
I agree. We eat meat for various health reasons, but I am pretty picky and buy organic/grass-fed for ethical reasons. As such, we can’t afford to eat meat daily. We mostly eat cheap cuts of meat, too, and stretch them over multiple meals as a seasoning rather than main dish. (A whole chicken lasts us several meals, including homemade stock for the week.) Still, several days a week are vegetarian because beans and grains are cheap.
My best advice for Tom is to prep his meals and lunches at the beginning of the day and to eat the same thing every single day for those meals. Cook two to three dinners a week and make sure they generate enough leftovers you can eat on the other nights. I boil a dozen eggs at the start of every week and eat them for breakfast every day with half an avocado and a Trader Joe’s chicken sausage. So, less than $3.00 a day for a high protein, high fat breakfast that keeps me full for six hours or more.
If one of those dinners is a roast chicken (cheap ones cost less than $5.00, though I usually upgrade to “all natural” chickens in the $8-$10 range), you can get at least one dinner for two out of it, plus a couple lunches, plus turn the bones into stock you can use for soup. We make one chicken a week on average.
One of my favorite blogs is Budget Bytes, specifically about eating on a budget (and her recipes are DELICIOUS).
http://www.budgetbytes.com/
Holy crap, thank you so much! This website is the best thing I’ve discovered in a while.
We do a lot of our own cooking, but have been in a recipe slump for a while. I sent the site to my boyfriend and we’ve spent the last 20 minutes excitedly freaking out about all of the recipes we want to try. I love the organization of the site, that there’s a budget breakdown, and almost everything makes leftovers!
Thanks for that link!
What Valerie said.
Former daughter-in-law and I had this conversation last week. Her husband has been complaining that she spends waaaaaaaay too much on food, and that she should be like the wives of his friends who get $100 worth of food for $3 through couponing. *sigh* I told her to tell him that THEY DON’T GIVE OUT COUPONS FOR STALKS OF BROCCOLI! They do, however, give out coupons for processed foods like macaroni and cheese or canned soups, which they do not eat.
That’s what I’ve noticed too – coupons and sales are mostly available for highly processed foods and factory farmed produce and meat, which are the very worst choices for your health and usually taste terrible too. I guess if you only want the first half of your life to be good, and don’t mind the risk of going rapidly downhill after that, then coupons and the foods they buy are a bargain.
You can always grow some of your own food, even if you don’t consider yourself much of a gardener. My backyard is very shady, but I have a large deck and grow carrots, green beans, cherry and heirloom tomatoes, and about six different types of herbs in container gardens. I find that growing herbs is great at saving money, because they are quite expensive at the grocery store, and they encourage me to experiment more with my cooking. I also bought one-quarter of a grass-fed cow with a group of friends this year, which was a great purchase. Finally, I have belonged to a CSA for the past three years. The upfront investment is high, but I get produce from May to October and freeze and can much of it. I also make my own preserves, salsa and tomato sauce from what I get.
That’s a good way too. I have an apartment in the city so my space is limited but I do grow things I use frequently such as herbs (cilantro, parsley, rosemary, basil, oregano), cherry tomatoes (they produce fruit year round here in San Diego), jalapeno and serrano peppers, and green beans. I’ll use one plant to produce seeds so I won’t have to buy seeds for planting.
This is a real interest of mine, because I can never understand why people think it is more expensive to eat a healthy diet than a “normal” one. My husband is a Type 1 diabetic – this is the kind where your pancreas basically has given up and has nothing to do with overweight. We have been on the diabetic diet for the last 40 years as a consequence and I have always been very concerned to get high quality food for our family. When we were in graduate school (the 1970s, so consider inflation) I fed the two of us on $ 25.00/week. The trick is to make good food a priority and PORTION CONTROL. There is a big difference between a 10 oz steak (normal American expectation) and a 3 oz steak (normal diabetic serving). Cut out store-bought sweets and snacks. Eat fruit – a bag of apples doesn’t cost much more than a bag of chips. And it lasts longer and is healthier for you. Cook with lots of spices and vary your menus.
Does it take effort? Yes. Does it take time? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes. After 40 years, my husband has no diabetic retinopathy at all, a good indication of the health of his vascular system in general, and was told by his endocrinologist that he could be the poster boy for diabetic control. Eating like this is not an effort – just another habit.
YES. I can never understand people who say it’s so hard to eat healthfully on a budget (I’m talking generally speaking, yes some have very specific needs that might make it harder). A bag of brown rice (vs the processed box noodle/rice crap) is so much cheaper! Once I stopped eating pretty much all processed stuff (a real bag of carrots costs exactly half as much as processed baby carrots in my area) I was surprised at how much I was saving. I think, for some, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding about what it means to eat real food.
A bag of apples costs the same as 5 bags of chips, but yeah. 😉
I lost my job over the winter9now gainfully employed again thankfully) and had similar budgetary restrictions. I found a few folks in similar circumstance that still wanted to eat well – we pooled our resources and bought 1/2 a grass-fed cow. We all got quality food and no one had to deal with a chest freezer!
>> “After…ditching my go-to Pam cooking spray, I began to research other cooking oils”<<
The active ingredient for Pam is lecithin.
Get yourself a clean pickle jar with a lid, or if you wanna go upscale, a GoodSeasons Salad Dressing Cruet. Pour *liquid* lecithin (don't use the dry granules) up to the -V- mark on the Cruet (about 5-6 T).
Then pour Vodka up to the -O- line (about a cup) The Vodka acts as a solvent and dilutes the lecithin. It also burns off in cooking.
If you want to stay away from alcohol, dilute the lecithin with any oil – I use peanut oil. Stir well with a spoon.
To use, pour a quarter/half dollar sized dribble of home made non-stick pan coating into a pan. Wipe around the pan interior with a paper towel. It will leave a bare smear, which is all you need, just like using Pam. Proceed with recipe.
Been using this for a couple of decades.
I’ve been gluten free since 2005 due to intolerance and I tell people all the time to skip most of the “gluten free” substitutes if they want to save money. Gluten free bread, cookies, pasta, etc can break a food budget and its not necessary. Once I substituted with extra veggies instead of starches I started to save money (and my waistline).
Unfortunately because I have insulin resistance most fruit is out but vegetables, even organic vegetables are relatively inexpensive but it does on depend where you live.
My diet is pretty unconventional (veg, soy, dairy, grain, sugar, starch doesn’t work for me) so my advice would not work for the majority of the population avoiding packaged and processed foods is a no-brainer.
I live with a bunch of picky eaters. I can count on one hand the number of combined fruits and veggies my husband will eat. My 7yo daughter eats veggies but no fruit; my 3yo son eats fruit but not veggies; and my 16 mo daughter doesn’t eat much at all. I will eat almost anything as long as it’s not raw meat and there’s not mayonnaise or tapioca in it.
To save, I coupon. A few weeks ago, Target had a $10/50 grocery purchase that could be combined with their Cartwheel savings program, store coupons and manufacturer coupons. I stocked up on frozen veggies and fruit; fish fillets; ground turkey; eggs; coffee; beans; tortillas; and canned tomatoes.
We rarely eat out- maybe once a month at a Vietnamese noodles restaurant.
For my family of 5 in Ohio, we’re currently averaging $118 per week on anything bought at a grocery, which includes toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, diapers for 2 kids, wipes, OTC medications, hygiene, cat food, cat litter, beauty care and people food.
SAHAMAMA,
Maybe your kids just have pretty normal picky food habits, but since all 3 of them seem to have some “pickiness”, I’m just wondering if you’ve ever heard of eosinophilic esophagitis, a/k/a EoE. Google it and see if they have other symptoms. It’s hard to diagnose in kids and it’s pretty rare, but my grand daughter has it. Just a thought.
The “picky eating” issue is extremely confusing to me. I understand allergies, but I don’t get how kids have earned the power to bend meals to their whims. When I was a kid, you ate what was served, or you didn’t eat. My son has his favorites and requests them often, but he knows there will be no alternate option if he refuses to eat something.
Yes, as a picky eater myself I do understand the children’s side of it. I don’t like certain textures or certain foods touching each other. I also have a strong gag reflex when it comes to cheese – I dislike it that much. I grew up in a “eat or die” household and decades later I’m still healing from ED that was born out of food fear and shame.
Wow, that’s definitely another topic on another blog!
I cater more to my children’s limited palates than I ever thought I would. Before I had kids, I imagined that I would take the “old school” approach you lay out here, but it’s just not something I prioritize. If you have strong willed children, this approach means that the dinner table quickly becomes a daily, unpleasant battlefield. I rather choose to enjoy my nightly time with my kids. Plus I think the “eat what you’re given or go hungry” approach can definitely backfire and create life long food issues or relationship problems between parent and child. Just my two cents. (note: this does not mean that I allow my kids to eat brownies with ice cream for dinner every night or whatever else my sweet tooth son would choose, but I choose healthy options that I know they will eat).
We don’t do alternate options. They eat what I make or they don’t eat but I don’t force them to. They won’t starve themselves. Today we had fish, macaroni and cheese, broccoli and carrots for dinner. My 7yo didn’t eat any carrots, my 3yo didn’t eat the fish and the 16 month old, only ate the macaroni and cheese. She did lick the broccoli.
Consider your local grocery store’s cycles- most cycle through sales at some interval, so realizing 1) how often staples go on sale and 2) what the bottom prices will be can help you know when to buy a few extra. I buy no means track everything, but just the more expensive ones or ones I use a lot. Also, most people shop on certain days, such as Sunday. I find if I shop on Tuesday, I am most likely to find marked down produce and meat nearing sell by dates. Cooking it or chopping it up and freezing it immediately prevents the waste.
Haha – you got me with that weekly tabloid joke. I almost spit my drink out over that 🙂
I think you raise a great point around balancing saving money and general diet/health. You aren’t doing yourself much good if you save money on the front end but end up malnourished and sick on the back end!
We spend a lot on groceries, too. We don’t eat out much though. Food prices are going up. I have some strategies to get good quality at a better price.
1) buy seasonal produce at the store
2) buy from the farmers markets
3) shop at Aldi.
My local Aldi has some organic selections (like fresh spinach) & grass fed, hormone free, choice beef in cryovac. If TomInTexas had had spinach instead of the lentils he probably would have been OK.
Why eating healthy will cost anything more? Just eating right, cooking your own food from fresh vegetables and animal products, just what our grandma used to do. Constraint of time forces us to have tinned foods and ready made ones but they are simply not healthy. I generally avoid those kinds of foods and resort to healthy cooking with good cooking oils.
I live on a fixed income, and I too spend more on food than I do on housing. Partly that’s due to very low housing costs, but it’s also a choice. The nature of my illness is such that the only way I’ll get completely well is by eating right, so I look at my food budget as a medical expense. And since the doctors and drugs can’t help me, I don’t have to pay them anything!
I’ve found a number of ways to eat superlatively well within the bounds of what I can spend, because even though I spend more on food than anything else, half of not much is still not very much.
Among the things I do is buy grassfed stew meat or “trimmings” for stir fries. I also buy whole roasts and carve them into steaks. You don’t get steaks that are as pretty as the fancier cuts, but they’re every bit as tasty and good for you, plus you can select the portion size, smaller when money is tight, or larger when I have a little breathing room. This gets me steak dinners for half to a quarter the cost of steak cuts. I also roast whole chickens, as other people have mentioned, and I roast beef, pork and bison to make many fairly cheap meals. I also got a vintage Griswold meat grinder on ebay for about $20, and this is a great way to get organ meats into your diet, and they’re much cheaper than muscle meats. Also burger can be cheaper to grind yourself, if you get very cheap cuts of meat to grind – and mix the organ meats with it to make it even cheaper and healthier!
Granted, I live without many things that most contemporary Americans consider necessary, and I’m absolutely spartan with electricity and water, but the payoff is seeing my health steadily improve.
Bulk bins are a huge help for us. I make bulk orders for things like oatmeal through the bulk foods section. Also, if you eat bread learn how to bake your own. I am wheat-intolerant (but am okay with other gluten grains), and bake with spelt, rye, and emmer flour I get in bulk. It’s FAR less expensive to make your own bread, and there are tons of good resources out there for doing so with little effort. (No-knead bread is great and doesn’t require a bread machine, or you can go with the machine method.) I get high quality (organic, whole grain) flour that way, and still keep overall budget down.
Incidentally, if you shop places like Whole Foods and buy a “case” you get a discount… usually around 10%. For most of the bulk foods it’s about 25 lbs. We get most of our grains, flour, and beans that way, and store them in 5 gal food-grade buckets from Home Depot. I would guess other stores will do that for you, too.
Finally, gardening and CSAs for vegetables is how we keep costs down. I have a bad habit of buying [expensive] out-of-season vegetables I like better if I go to a grocery store, so the CSA box and my garden keep my cooking cheaper and in-season.
*For bulk budget, I usually sock away some of each week’s budget in a savings account for quarterly purchases.
Well I agree that Tom should probably gradually shift back to non-paleo foods if that’s his choice – but I think a more important point is to sit down with his wife and discuss a food budget. Who’s shopping and cooking? She may not feel comfortable supporting his paleo choices for some reason – whatever it is it should be discussed. They obviously are not on the same page on this.
As for buying a cow – well of course not an option but sharing would be – however I find that I can get grass fed local ground beef/pork for about the price it is at the local grocery store through a farm in my state that is far less in price than the steaks or roasts but is better to me than eating stuff full of antibiotics etc. Even a regular refrigerator freezer can hold a lot of meat.
One thing that helped me a lot in my dieting but also has a role in food budgets is tracking your fullness. If a bag of chips cost $1 per serving but you’re hungry 30 minutes later but a serving of kale costs $2 per serving but you’re full for 3 hours, the kale is the better budget (and waistline) bet.
The other thing that has helped a lot is buying a bunch of proteins when they are on sale and freeze them. I live in an apartment also, but even with just my standard freezer I currently have 2 pounds of ground turkey, 10 chicken breasts, and 2 pounds of pork chops…and it only takes up about 1/4 of my freezer space and will become about 3 weeks of meals for my fiancee and I. I know that those are three proteins that I use all the time and that freeze well, so I stock up when they are on sale. I haven’t bought full price proteins in months.
Maybe the first step for Tom should be to figure out which food categories increased the most in cost by going Paleo. If buying more & fresher vegetables is costing them $15 more a month but buying 20 lbs of nuts is costing $100 more, then keep the kale and nix the nuts. If the dinner ‘filler’ is the choice of lettuce for $1 a serving, white-flour rolls for $0.40, or whole-wheat rolls for $0.50 (which is the most filling), then going with the WW rolls will be the best balance of health, price, and bang-for-buck nutrition. Life is full of trade-offs, but a little analysis will help when you’re deciding which health foods to squeeze into a limited budget.
@El Nerdo,
“But the whey powder is definitely for the convenience added to the nutrition— either for post-workout drinks or for emergency rations or for breakfasts in a hurry or for immune boosts when under the weather, etc. I think of it as one of the components of my emergency fund.”
Yes, I looked hard at powdered whey when it first appeared at my source for grassfed and pastured animal products. I decided then that despite its convenience and concentrated protein, that my money would be wiser spent elsewise, but these are highly personal decisions.
But, the powdered whey I was looking at, http://www.grasslandbeef.com/Categories.bok?category=Grass-Fed+Dairy%3AWhey+Protein
is pretty close to twice as expensive as yours: “$60/can (I think that’s what I pay), has 71 servings of 24g protein”, and USWM’s is $45 for 30 servings – 20 grams per serving. (Is that about twice as expensive? might be closer to 3 times more.) But I wouldn’t waste money on whey that’s not from humanely raised grassfed cows, and I’ll bet that’s where the difference in cost comes from.
I grow as much as I can in my back yard and pots. Leafy greens are a must ,such as kale,spinach, parsley, I also have a trellis on whic I grow peas and beans at the same time.it doesnt grow alot but enough for just myself.I let my crops go to seed at the end of season so the following season I have my own seeds to replant.On heavy rainy days I will put a clean bucket out side and catch rain water,as I dont have space for a tank.
To save money, move toward a more plant-based diet. I’m not saying everyone should go vegetarian or vegan (I’m certainly not), but you’d be hard pressed to find any plant that is as expensive per pound than meat. Just tilt the balance from 60/40 meat to 60/40 plants. Or do meatless Mondays.
My mom likes to tell me that in her day, you only ate meat maybe once a month, because that’s how much a family could afford. Today, this country slaughters 41 MILLION chickens per week. That’s a lot of meat, which may not necessarily be making us any healthier.
Well, plants definitely won’t make you healthier, despite all the governmental and media propaganda saying otherwise. Certainly not plants grown in North America, where even the USDA has documented a radical decline in nutrients over the past half century. They cite soil erosion as a prime culprit, and I imagine the failure of factory farms to rotate their crops and let fields lie fallow also contributes.
Granted, I’m a very seriously ill person, but I’ve made more progress towards health in the past 2 years than I had in the 9+ years before that. What changed in this past 2 years was that I bit the bullet and switched to a meat-heavy diet, and only grassfed or pastured meat at that. I eat plenty of vegetables too, but it’s quite obvious that meat is what’s helping my body to heal.
Perhaps in your mom’s day, produce was rich enough in nutrients that a healthy person needed very little meat, but today’s produce is a very poor choice for nutrient dense food.
There are multiple health issues in my family, and eating minimally processed foods has been the only effective way to accommodate everyone’s needs. Since some of the issues directly contradict each other (i.e., one person must avoid soy and nuts, while another must avoid red meat) I was going crazy trying to make meals that fit everyone. Now I make several steamed and raw vegetables with a side of lean meat, and everyone picks and chooses from the bowls to create their own custom plate, with the ratio of meat-to-veg that they desire.
Very interesting topic. My mom is particular about living a healthy lifestyle to stay away from diseases. One tip that I can share to eat healthy on a slim budget is to grow your garden. She grows some herbs and uses them to cook healthy meals. Organic foods may be expensive but not if you will get it from your own backyard. 🙂
That’s assuming you have a backyard. 🙂
Cost of house with yard so I can grow some of my own vegetables a few months of the year versus buying my groceries at the grocery store and farmer’s market… It’s a no brainer for me.
If you have a house, land with good soil, and the free time, go for it 🙂 Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to DIY though. Whatever works!
I only have a small balcony (10’x3′) and I grow cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, beans, basil, parsley, rosemary, and oregano. If you use your space well, you don’t need a ton of it to grow some awesome produce. I’m planting next weekend and I can’t wait!
Sounds lovely! Our apartment is very small (I work from home) without a balcony or yard so there is really no room for anything to grow. I had sprouts at one time but even our kitchen is too small for that now. Having a yard is definitely a long-term goal.
We practice the paleo diet at our household. We stick with our Costco visits once a month for meat, eating as many veggies as possible(frozen and organic), and making sure to cook as much as possible.
Can I add 1 thing to your list?
Its…
Don’t buy luxury food, giving in to hype will cost you alot.
There are grocery items in the market today that does that.
A balance between meat, veggies, and fruits will make a person healthy. Our body needs it and will benefit from it as long as you’re taking the proper amount of it.
I think you can still eat healthy on a slim budget by growing your own veggies at home. If you don’t have a backyard, there are vegetables that you can plant on vases and it will work because I’ve tried.
You can also buy poultry and meat wholesale during market sale, you can buy wholesale and just store it in the comfort of your own home.
I’m totally using grease instead of cooking spray now. We already do frozen veggies. Wish we could be more awesome and use the fresh before they went bad, but that’s just not our reality
Hello-
I didn’t get thru all the comments- so it is possible that someone covered this already- but here are some ideas to have a nutrient dense diet at low cost and also some resources that I have found helpful.
Bone Broth is a real extender and work-horse for our family. We can boxes of bones from the local butcher for free or cheap- generally from animals that were very well cared for and in the fall even from game. I keep a slow cooker going pretty much all of the time with bone broth going- adding our veggie scraps for extra nutrition. The broth gets added to lots of stuff- cooking grains, making veggie based soups, and in meat dishes like sauces and stews etc…
It makes quick meals faster and tastier to prepare and acts as a base for many slow-cooked meals.
I think that boasting our ability to digest and assimilate the food that we do eat is super important. Using bone broth can really help to repair any gut damage and the minerals etc.. that are included help us to assimilate the other foods that we are eating with it.
Two other techniques that really help are soaking and sprouting nuts and grains and also eating lots of fermented foods ( lacto-fermented veggies, kraut, miso, yogurt, kefir, homemade sodas etc…)
All these methods allow us to take inexpensive, basic foods and boast our ability to take them in.
It is a bit of a transition to org your kitchen time to prep things in advance- but it is possible.
Resources that I have found helpful are Shannon Hayes- Long Way on a Little about using less well know cuts of meats ( lots of grain free recipes here), Nourishing traditions– has a chapter on how to eat well with little time and at a low(er) cost.
Finally- since it is spring I want to put a plug in for foraged greens- dandelion, violet, nipplewort, chickweed are all nutition power houses/ super foods and are free for the taking on our doorsteps.
Food- is something that is personal, culturally based and tied into so many of the aspects of our lives and I think generally the item that comes in second for expense for many people after shelter. I often wonder- when will I ahve this figured out? and so far it has been a lifelong journey of discovery and exploration, adaptation.
Its all about moderation when eating healty verses fatning or sugar. Foods. Your body actually needs some sugar. Its okay to splurge. Not benging. Drink plenty of water exercise sleep friut and vegg and you dont have to eat everything organic. Only porus skin foods not thick skin friuts and veg and meditate yoga and practice good laughter and take 10 long deep breaths counting to five when breathing in and out avoid stress. Your life is what you make it. You can only feel how you let people make you feel. ; be positive. Pray daily and your on the road to good health and dont forget regular check ups from doctor sylvia
After do lots of research (for my blog) and reviewing books, it seems to me that food is of critical importance to a good life. Food Matters – you seem to really know that. To pay less and eat healthy, make your own food. Eat more raw (instead of fast food), raw was the first fast food! Make a garden, there is probably a community garden nearby or help a friend grow food. When I was in Grad school I helped a caterer,she didn’t pay me, but sent me home with lots of great food / better quality than I could afford. I loved getting away from my books too. Good Luck!
I believe that we can combine healthy eating with saving on groceries. Many posters have already commented on some of the strategies. I prepare lunch & dinner six days a week for my husband and I. (There are just 2 of us here). Some of my strategies:
1) I use coupons sparingly because I don’t buy much processed or canned food at all. However, there aren’t generics for things like hair color so that’s what I coupon for
2) I love frozen fruit and vegetables (where ingredient list is just the fruit or Veg.
3) Large portions of salad and vegetables and smaller amounts of protein.
4) I don’t bake and we don’t buy cakes, pies or pastries. That saves a lot.
5) Milk at the drugstore is often the best deal
6) I do love our Southern Savers site that helps us find the coupons we need and the best prices on certain items.
7) Walmart is really starting to come up with some very good private label (Great Value) offerings.
8) The most important thing of all: don’t shop based on what you need to cook for the week. Know what your staples are from chicken to cooking oil, etc. Approach shopping as ‘building your inventory’ for your refrigerator and pantry. If you cook a lot of boneless chicken breast, buy it when it is on sale. Wholesale clubs can be useful if you know how to control your spending there. Right now boneless chicken breast is 1.99 a pound. Can’t buy it any cheaper than that.