Category Archives: budget

Eat Well For Less: 5 Tips And Tricks For Healthy Eating On A Budget

Like everyone else you've probably noticed that your grocery dollars aren't stretching as far as they used to. These days it seems like more dollars buys less food. And if you're someone who's mindful about the quality of what you're eating that's definitely gotten your attention: Healthy Eating On A Budget.

I’ve written about this topic a number of times recently. In today's post I'm going to pull my most popular posts on this topic together. I’ll share what you need to know to avoid grocery store manipulation. You'll also learn some strategies to help you deal with rising grocery prices and shrinkflation -- you know, same price, package looks the same, but it turns out there's a lot less in the box! Plus some great ideas to add easy strategies for clean eating.

1. Grocery Store Tricks

Grocery stores are really good at finding ways to convince you to buy more than you need. One, it helps them make more money because you’re spending more. Two, it helps them save money because if they pass food waste onto you, the consumer, they don’t have to pay for it.

It’s a sad fact that approximately 40% of what is sold at the supermarket winds up as food waste in one way or another.

This post shares some of the top tricks grocery stores use to convince you to buy more than you actually need.

2. Realistic Food Budget Tips

With the rising cost of groceries many people are beginning to look more closely at their grocery budget. Unfortunately costs are probably going to continue for a while due to supply chain shortages and reduced resources.

Although you want to save money on groceries this is not the time to revert to buying poor quality food solely to reduce your costs. You still want to make sure you are nourishing your body and eating as well as possible.

This post helps you get a handle on how to reduce your food budget. It starts with knowing where you are and what you’re actually spending.

3. Healthy Budget Friendly Ideas If You Hate To Cook

One great budget-friendly solution for feeding your family is to cook more at home. But even I have days when I’m just not in the mood to cook. I know, shocker right? You probably thought that because I’m The Ingredient Guru I just spend massive amounts of time playing in the kitchen.

Well, actually, I do.

But sometimes you need a day off.

Plus for a lot of people, real life doesn’t always cooperate with the idea of making a recipe that requires a lot of time. Yes everyone needs to be fed. And…kids need to get to sports or there’s a meeting you want to attend. Maybe you’d rather read a book. Whatever it is in your life that you’d rather be doing life is too short to spend most of it in the kitchen.

The good news is that if you want to eat healthier but don’t like cooking you can still create affordable and nourishing meals. And no, it doesn’t mean relying on convenience foods, pre-packaged meals, and it also doesn’t have to blow your budget.

Read this post for my five favorite ways to make “fast” food that’s good for you.

4. Three Top Tips for Clean Eating

There’s a lot of media exposure and talk about “clean eating” but what is it exactly? The widely accepted definition is that clean eating means avoiding highly processed foods, refined sugars, and eating a diet rich in whole foods in their most natural state. For fruits and vegetables that means buying organic for The Dirty Dozen. When it comes to animal products, it means buying free-range or pastured with no antibiotics, pesticides, or added hormones.

For some people a clean eating diet also means no gluten. The challenge with going gluten-free (whether on a clean eating diet or not) is that you need to avoid the gluten-free crutch foods that are

scattered all over the grocery store shelves. These highly processed gluten alternatives are not a healthy choice.

This post shares three simple tips that don’t need to cost an arm and a leg.

5. Clean Eating On A Budget

My clean eating post got so many comments I wound up creating this post. Mostly because these days a lot more people are paying attention to what’s in what they eat. That’s a great choice and a point of view I’m in favor of.

But while people are paying attention to what’s in what they eat, they’re also paying attention to their grocery bills. Because the cost of food is going up quite sharply.

You might think that clean eating and budgeting on your groceries don’t go together. But actually they can. If you’re focused on nourishing your body you’re going to want to avoid the packaged and processed foods. You’ll be making real food choices instead. I’m here to tell you it is possible to do that while also being budget minded when it comes to your groceries.

Conclusion

These are my top 5 posts for Healthy Eating On A Budget. By making just a few simple changes you can add delicious, clean (i.e., no added artificial ingredients) foods without breaking the bank. Remember, as I always say, Eat Well To Be Well!.

Let me know which one was your favorite and why in the comments!

Groceries – What Can I Get For A Dollar

by Mirabudget, grocery

As more and more people learn to chose whole foods, real food, to feed their family the market share for processed foods is dropping. Groceries are a necessary part of living, we all need to eat. But there are no guarantees about how well we eat. Given that their mission is not to sell food but to make a profit, many food manufacturers are looking to reverse the decline in profits. Their primary tactic is to go after lower socio-economic consumers. Unfortunately these are the ones who have the tightest budgets for food and who may not stop to consider nutritional value per dollar spent.

The cost of groceries

To tempt consumers to by their highly processed foods producers use the following tactics:

available at lower cost grocery stores
available at discount stores (such as The Dollar Store)
offer multiple purchase coupons
offer smaller packages at what appears to be a low price
offer single serving size options
create discount menu pricing (at fast food locations)

Unfortunately those options not only offer incentive to purchase junky foods, they are also more expensive when you price out the actual cost per weight or volume. Sadly it’s a recipe for a health disaster.

Yes, that burger may only be a dollar, same with those fries. But it’s nutritionally deficient food which is high in calories, fats, and chemicals. It may fill you up but it won’t nourish you. That cereal package may seem like a deal but there’s no real nutrition in the package and it often comes with a lot of sugar. Your belly may be full but your body is depleted.

Eating healthy for less

It is possible to eat healthy for less, it simply means making different choices. A recent trip to the grocery store* highlighted a few foods which are healthy and available for $1 or less per serving.

Apples: Nature’s perfect 100 calorie snack pack, the average apple contains about 100 calories. They are a good source of fiber, including pectin (a type of fiber that may be good for reducing cholesterol). Apples also provide vitamin C and healthy phytonutrients which can help moderate blood sugar. At $1.15 per pound with three medium apples in a pound it comes to just under three apples for a dollar. This was the price for organic apples which represent the best choice as there are no pesticides on them. Obviously conventional apples are less expensive but come with a chemical coating.

Beans: Lentils, chickpeas, black beans, are all good nutritional choices for fiber, folate, iron, and protein. Their high levels of fiber make them an excellent choice for helping to reduce cholesterol and manage blood sugar. $0.79 per pound for lentils means 12 servings per pound, all for less than a buck.

Broccoli: Contains calcium, vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, folate and fiber. Low in calories it’s delicious raw, steamed, or stir-fried. One bunch will set you back $0.99 for around three 1⁄2 C. servings.

Collard Greens: This dark, leafy green and others such as kale, spinach, or mustard greens are loaded with vitamin C, carotenoids, and calcium. This week at my grocery store organic collards were $0.99 per bunch with one bunch providing 2-3 servings cooked. It’s delicious when cooked with onions and fresh herbs.

Eggs: A great source of protein, lutein, and zeaxanthin (good for eye health) as well as selenium, B2, B5 and B12 eggs are a nutrition powerhouse. They are versatile, easy to prepare and can be served for any meal. At $2.39 per dozen for large, cage free, grain fed eggs that’s 5 eggs, and five servings, for $1.00.

Oats (old fashioned rolled): high in fiber and a good source of manganese, selenium, vitamin B1, magnesium; a 1⁄2 C. serving even provides 6 g. of protein, they are also scientifically proven to reduce cholesterol (whole oats are best). $0.15 per ounce means that whole oats come out to 6 1⁄2 ounces for $1.00 or a little over 4 servings. note: for those who need to eat gluten free the cost for oats would be different.

Sweet Potatoes: An excellent source of beta carotene, vitamin C and provide a moderate amount of fiber. A 5” long sweet potato weighs about 4.5 ounces, for $0.89 that’s a little more than one serving (3.5 ounces per serving) for less than a buck.

Admittedly it takes a little more effort to eat for less when you include time for shopping and cooking. But if you’re willing to focus on health and spend the time, it is possible to get a lot of nutrition for just a dollar.

*These prices reflect a trip to my grocery store in my local area in Texas. Prices may differ depending on location.

Food And Money

by Mirabudget, garden, grocery, pantry, preserving, produce, shopping guides, USDA

The USDA is predicting an increase in all foods for 2011; depending on the item it is expected to range from 2% for things like sugars and cereals to as high as 5.5% for dairy products. If you are interested you can see the chart here. Part of the increase is due to the higher costs for corn and soybeans. Remember, it’s a cycle, what we eat needs to eat. I actually anticipate that the costs for meat will be much higher than currently predicted due to more people deciding to purchase meat and dairy that is organic to avoid the GMO contamination of corn and soy. These are two of the most heavily GMO crops but our government doesn’t identify that so the only way to avoid it is to purchase organic.

There are a number of ways that you can save money on your food bill in the upcoming year:

Plant a vegetable garden. Using your space for edible gardening can be attractive and save you food dollar costs. During both World Wars Victory Gardens were planted in every yard and public park all across the United States. It’s a concept that I think many people are rediscovering.

Even if you buy a tomato plant at the garden center and plant it in a pot you will still get far more produce than if you purchase your tomatoes at the grocery store. And believe me, they’ll taste better. We’ve just re-arranged our side yard and brought in a load of organic dirt, working on creating a better vegetable garden. We’ve also put in herbs and a few fruits in the yard.

Here are a couple of books that I think are great for backyard vegetable gardening

Mel Bartholomew is the authority on getting the most out of the smallest space. If you have any gardening space available, even just one square foot, you’d be amazed at what you can grow.

Rosalind Creasy shows you how to incorporate beauty and function in your garden by making your landscape edible.

If you live in an apartment or don’t have access to a plot of ground you can consider container gardening. Even one reasonable size container can grow a lot of tomatoes and basil or peas and mint or…read the book.

And there seems to be an increase in folks growing food on rooftops and terraces.

If you shop at warehouse stores frequently the prices are good but the quantities are huge. Don’t buy more than you need, after all 50 pounds of potatoes is a lot, especially in a family like ours with just three people in the house. Just because the price per pound is low, if you wind up throwing out rotten potatoes (or anything else) you’ve just lost money. If you really want the item consider saving money by asking family, friends and/or neighbors if they want to share these items with you. This way you’ll both save money and there will be less waste.

And speaking of waste…

According to Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland, Americans, on average, throw away half of their food. Half! That’s a mind-boggling concept. Knowing, really knowing exactly what is in your pantry is a great start, learning how to be mindful of it is the next step. Jonathan has a lot of great information on his blog to help you avoid food waste. Don’t want to read the book (although I highly recommend it)? There’s an app for that — yup, a company called UniByte has created an app to help you better manage your food purchases so you will waste less.

If you do wind up with food waste, and some of it is inevitable such as potato peelings, egg shells, coffee grounds, and the like, consider composting. This is also environmentally friendly in that the food scraps become usable dirt instead of going to the landfill where they cannot be used to grow more food.

A little off the beaten path but for those who have access, inclination, and a sharp eye there is always the idea of foraging. According to my friend Merriweather it is important to remember a couple of key points:

1. Know what you are foraging. Many edibles have an inedible counterpart that looks almost the same. He points out that these inedibles wind up in either the “kill your kid dead” or “keep you on the toilet sick” category so it’s important to be very sure of your identifications.

2. Forage responsibly using appropriate tools to cut and dig rather than ripping and shredding. This allows the plants to continue to grow and is the best way to forage.

3. Make sure you have permission. Here in Texas, and probably elsewhere, plant rustling is against the law. Getting a huge fine for public trespassing or theft is not going to help your grocery bill any.

While Merriweather sadly does not yet have a published book there are some great foraging books out there:

And last, but certainly not least, another way to save money at the grocery store is to learn to make your own. One of my favorites is making my own granola which definitely saves money over the store-bought versions. You can make your own pudding, soups, muffins, snacks, spice mixes, beverages, pickles, jams and much much more. Currently I am fermenting kimchi on my kitchen counter, starting another batch of kefir and have just finished making another batch of bean sprouts. These require very little hands on time and save quite a few dollars while providing healthful foods for my family. Making your own has a number of benefits:

1. It will save you money

2. You will avoid extra packaging and commercial waste

3. You will avoid additives, preservatives and chemicals (which you don’t need in your diet anyway)

4. Often when you make your own you make smaller batches so you are less likely to waste it

So here’s to a new year, a new grocery budget, and new possibilities for your health.