Eating Healthy on a Budget
2010 presented me with a nice reality check. As my husband and I were re-budgeting for the new year (he’s been out of a job for the past nine months and we were operating under the assumption he would have a job by now. Mental note for future: assume nothing) — I discovered that we spent a stupid amount of our budget on food. Like probably close to $150 A WEEK. Ridiculous, right?
Granted, a lot of that consisted of going out to eat with friends, but the point remains — no more stupid food purchases.
So when you’re trying to keep yourself in check, here are some pointers I have discovered:
- Eat less. I’m not saying starve yourself, but I find myself not going back for seconds so I can have more leftover. What’s great about this is that I eat too fast for my own good. Because it takes about twenty minutes for your brain to realize your stomach is full, I’m not even hungry an hour later. It’s a win-win for your @fatroll and your pocketbook.
- Plan out your meals. I hate cooking. My husband hates cooking. But yet, when I cook/bake, I really like the finished product — usually more than eating out. Another problem I would have is I would buy food to make “a” meal, and have a bunch of leftover ingredients that would go bad after a week — what a waste of good food and money. So the new plan I’ve implemented is to either make enough of a meal to feed my husband and me two more times OR come up with three different recipes for the ingredients I’ve bought. For example, I bought 1.25 pounds of chicken breasts. With one of the breasts, I added it to an organic “Hamburger Helper” like meal from Annie’s (resulting in more than 5 meals!). With another breast, I chopped it into slices, sautéed it in EVOO and have put it on top of two separate salads, and the other breast I marinated in barbeque sauce, which my husband downed for dinner. The all-natural chicken breasts (so no hormones added) costs right under $7. I have managed to get eight meals out of it, which puts it under a $1 a meal. That’s better than the McD’s $1 menu — and healthier.
- Avoid the middle section of the grocery store. Right now, I’m trying to have about 80% of my cart come from the outer ring of the grocery store. That’s where the veggies, milk, eggs, all the perishables are located. The stuff in the middle is usually the expensive, preservative-filled crap. Bad for the wallet/bad for the @fatroll. Yeah, you can get the instant potatoes there, but they taste so gross that you can just do it yourself with a little extra time and effort.
- Commit a day to cooking. Speaking of time and effort, one of the reasons I hated to cook is that I never had “time” to do it. Solution — make an activity out of it. Justin and my new plan of action is Sunday mid-day (when we used to go out for brunch) is now spent helping each other plan and cook our meals for the week. Yes, it does take three or four hours, but I have refrigerated fresh ingredients to last me most of the week — and there is nothing better than heating up a home-cooked meal when you get home from work and it looking awesome. Plus, I also made some freakin’ sick oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that are going to last us awhile. Make sure you reward that @fatroll!
Okay, so here is my plan in action. Because I hate eating breakfast by myself at home, I usually do it at work. AND because I love fresh salads at work, I usually make one for lunch. Here’s an example of how typical work week looks for me.
Grocery List:
- Breakfast: Organic cottage cheese (feeds me four times) @ $4
- Snack: 2 Mangos (feeds me four times) @ $.50 – $1 each
- Lunch: One bag of organic spinach @$4, one bag of organic lettuce @$4; two avocados @ $.50- $1 each (feeds me at least five lunches); organic goat cheese @ $4 (I can make it last for 8+ salads!); organic salad dressing @ $4 (That can last for 10+ salads if you use sparingly); two types of organic soup @ $2.50 each (makes about five bowls of soup); smoked salmon @ $7 (feeds about three meals); 1 chicken breast @ $2.50 (feeds for two salads)
- Total for at least ten meals and then snacks: $29 or $3.85 each (with food like salad dressing, cheese left over for the next week, so this number actually ends up being a little less)
This gives me a healthy, almost fully organic option that is cheaper than a salad at McDonalds (which runs about $4-5)
And doesn’t it look yummy?
So what do you do to keep costs down each week?
