How to Eat Healthy on a Budget

I love to budget.

 Literally LOVE to budget. It gives me butterflies to know I get to make a new budget when something is paid off, or we get an increase in pay, or I’ve found a way to decrease a bill. #callmecrazy

I hear time and time again, people say that it’s too expensive to eat healthy, so they just eat JUNK. Okay, this is your LIFE we’re talking about. I find because you can’t SEE the inner workings of your body, we take it for granted. We think nothing is wrong. We don’t think the food we’re eating is really screwing up our insides.

Why do you think our bodies need to EAT? They need FUEL. Our cells and our BODIES are SO complex, and it needs fuel to RUN, for our organs to function, for our digestive tract to run smoothly. Did you know that by eating junk & processed foods, our digestive tract cannot function properly? Did you also know that disease can be cultivated IN your digestive tract? Your body doesn’t know HOW to process this food. Your cells are STARVING which is why after eating junk, you STILL want to eat.

Okay, so now I’ll get into what I want this blog to actually be about. J

I don’t pay substantially more for my health right now than I did before buying junk, eating out, and buying lots of processed foods.

Here’s how I do it.

1)   Take an inventory of what’s in your pantry, and what you have for fruit and vegetables. Make sure you figure out recipes you can make using THESE and incorporating the non perishables like soups, canned tomatoes, beans, etc into your meal plan.

2)   Look at your local grocery story flyers. See what’s on sale and what is in season that will cost LESS to buy than usual. I make recipes as per the sales that are going on that week. If turkey is on sale, you can bet I am going to buy a turkey and make Turkey stir fry, turkey soup, turkey dinner, sandwiches, etc. Chicken goes on sale about once or twice a month at my grocery store, so I buy 5 packages of chicken when it does go on sale. It was $3.99/lb this week!!! That’s $5 a lb LESS! When bread is on sale, I buy something like 5-8 loaves, or wraps, and freeze them!

3) Make a meal plan. This I know, is a pain in the butt sometimes and requires a lot of Pinterest action (I am hooked on this website). It DOES get easier. Plan to only grocery shop ONCE every two weeks. Keep a running list of your favourite recipes so you can easily incorporate them in on future meal plans. :) 

4) Make sure you EAT before you get your grocery shopping done. The WORST is being HUNGRY
when you’re shopping. I spend about 50-75% MORE when I’m hungry. Yep, the bakery gets me every time.

5) When you get home, figure out what will go bad FIRST, and make sure you have those things being made right away.

6) Do a MEAL PREP day. Throw some chicken into the oven, cook some veggies so they're already made, cut up fruit, boil some eggs, and I always like to try out 1-2 new recipes. (Slow cooker recipes are my FAVORITE, or casseroles, easy to freeze!)

Here's what one of my BASIC meal preps look like. It may look like it takes a lot of time, but really, I throw chicken in the oven, quinoa in a pot, veggies in steamer, and then sit and read or have ME time while it cooks! 

7) SO many meals can be FROZEN. If you have leftovers, freeze them! Made too much? FREEZE! Intentionally make too much so you CAN freeze! Makes life a heck of a lot easier. Your future self will thank you :)

Quick Tips:

Romaine can last up to two weeks if stored properly, if not longer. That way you can eat a salad right up until it’s time to grocery shop again.

Don’t buy ANY junk food or processed food. THIS is what adds so many dollars to my grocery bill when I go. Now I go alone, with my list, and with a time limit so I don’t impulse buy!

If you want cookies, buy the ingredients for them. It is something FUN you can do with your kids, or on a rainy day. Make a bunch and FREEZE. Way better for you than processed ones anyway!

Leave things like potatoes, and sweet potatoes for the second week as they don’t go bad near as quickly. Mine last me about a month stored in a cool, dry place. (So I only have to buy them ONCE per month)

If you find you have ANY unused vegetables or fruit left, and they’re about to be expired, make something and FREEZE. Your next grocery shop & meal plan will be SO much easier with a bunch of stuff already frozen! Think banana bread, banana cookies (can you tell bananas often go bad in my house), casseroles, stir fry with every last vegetable you have, etc.

When you do your meal prep, cook DOUBLE batches of most or some of your meals. This will cost you less, as you already HAVE the ingredients, and you can freeze the one half. Again, this will flow into your next meal plan, and you’ll find you have so much frozen!

If you have ANY leftovers, adjust your meal plan. Take out something that you use non-perishables for, as those won’t go bad, and add that ALREADY into your NEXT meal plan, and substitute it with your leftovers.

NEVER WASTE ANYTHING!

This can easily take off HUNDREDS of dollars from your grocery bill! It doesn’t HAVE to cost a ton more to eat healthy!

**In order to eliminate having to purchase my greens, supplements, antioxidants and probiotics to cover deficiencies in our diets, I purchase Shakeology. This also replaces my lunch. I allot so much for my supplements and heart healthy vitamins, etc, and this covers that and BONUS, now I don’t have to cook lunch for myself.**

I hope this helps!

Krys
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