Staying Healthy on a Budget
It sucks to be on a tight budget. You have to pick and choose what you buy at the grocery store and the room for error is slim.
It can feel impossible sometimes to be able to afford meals at all, let alone healthy foods. However, if done correctly, eating healthy is not only possible on a budget but easier than dealing with prepackaged and processed meals.
Whether you are considering your eligibility for Social Security benefits, need to cut back on the grocery spending, or just want to eat healthy for cheap, you’ll find the following advice to be valuable.
Meal Plan
It may seem shocking at first to discover how many people avoid meal planning because it intimidates them. You sit down one day, decide what you’re going to eat all week, get the recipes, buy the ingredients and cook them.
On the face of it, it does sound intimidating but there’s one important thing to remember: you’re not cooking all of these meals on the same day. Each will be cooked before you eat it and cleaned up after, so usually one decently sized cooked meal for dinner and maybe one smaller one if you’re able to cook breakfast in the mornings. That’s not so bad.
Meal plans also don’t have to be very strict. They can be, of course, based on personal needs, preferences and expiration dates, but if you need a more flexible meal plan then create it with that in mind. Don’t be afraid to change what meal gets cooked on which day or even for what meal.
If you have leftovers then maybe replace a dinner or lunch meal with a leftover day instead. Meal plans are meant to save you money; how you choose to make that happen is up to you.
Utilize the Freezer
Cooking with completely fresh ingredients has its benefits, from being quick and easy to gather and use ingredients to being easy to re-store any left unused.
However, ingredients such as vegetables or meat stored in the refrigerator will not last forever. Most go bad in a few days. If you’re on a budget and need to save money, you need to learn to freeze meat and vegetables.
Freezing allows for the desired food to last for months and therefore saves you money since you won’t have to buy fresh every few days. There are still downsides, such as not packing the food properly and allowing it to get freezer burnt and having to wait somewhere between a few hours and a few days for it to thaw again.
But, so long as you’re careful these won’t be major problems. Place raw meat into freezer bags or wrap them in wax-lined freezer paper, label them with the type of food and date they’ll be frozen and pop them into the freezer and you’ll be fine.
Buy and Cook in Bulk
Once you’ve become comfortable with freezing your produce, you can start saving money by buying in bulk. There are a lot of benefits to bulk buying, from lower prices to decreasing grocery trips and impulse buying by association.
Buying meat in bulk, saving what you’re going to cook and freezing the rest will not only save your wallet but will also prevent future headaches when you go to the store and find they’re out of your favorite cuts of meat.
However, buying products in bulk may not be the best decision unless you’ve discovered and plan to begin another cost-saving measure: cooking in bulk. Set one day a week aside and start cooking yourself some extra meals.
So long as you remember that pre-cooked measles may not stay as good for as long when frozen compared to the raw ingredients then you’ll be able to get the most out of freezing meal components such as cooked ground beef or taco meat or even fully-fledged meals like breakfast sandwiches or burritos.
Appreciate the Freezer Section
The prices of fresh produce may make your heart sink. You’ll have to make careful choices about what you eat for a while and may be left wanting as a result. There is a way around this, though it is unfairly stigmatized. Head to the frozen section and consider the frozen vegetables.
It may seem like frozen veggies are less healthy than fresh but this often isn’t the case. Frozen vegetables were frozen at the peak of their freshness and might be even more nutritious than their fresh counterparts because of this.
On top of this, frozen vegetables can save you time since they’ve likely already been chopped. The best part about frozen vegetables is the same reason why you freeze meat: it lasts for a longer time.
Just read the back of the package and make sure the only ingredients in the frozen veggies are the vegetables themselves because sauces and dressings can increase the unhealthy fat content and defeat the purpose of buying them.
There is a misconception that you can eat frozen vegetables straight out of the bag. While you may enjoy the cool temperature and crisp crunch of this snack, don’t do this.
The vegetables have usually not been cooked before freezing and may still have bacteria and other undesired contaminants that are removed by heat during cooking.
Watch for Sales
You’ve probably already thought about this but watch for sales. It’s not uncommon for meat that’s close to the expiration date or out of season to go on sale.
These sales can provide extra security by allowing more room in your budget for other foods and putting more meat in the freezer. However, as mentioned, meat that’s close to expiring is put on sale so make sure you either cook and eat it or freeze it before that date because failing to do so can make you sick.
Fruits and vegetables get good sales as well though there are a few more things to consider here. For example, if a watermelon goes on sale in January, it may not be as large or tasty as one you get in May due to them being out of season.
Also, check the condition of the vegetables or fruits on sale before making a purchase. Some may be bad or on the verge of being inedible. So long as you’re cautious, sales are a lifesaver for people on a budget.
