When it comes to eating healthy on a budget, let’s get one thing straight from the beginning. It’s not about clipping coupons. Yes, there is some of that, but in general, that isn’t the key to success when it comes to eating healthy in a way that fits your budget. If you’re truly serious about wanting to eat healthier but you need or want to keep costs low, it is possible, but you may have to rethink not only what you eat, but how you eat. As someone who has always kept my family’s food budget low, even with different dietary needs; has been caught by many of the “low-cost” food traps out there; and has managed to figure out how to keep costs low and nutritional value high, I’m happy to share these tips with you.  

My Family’s Food Budget

First, in the spirit of transparency, I want to share what my family’s food budget is with you. Overall, we currently keep our food expenses to the USDA’s Low-Cost monthly food budget of $456 for my husband and I and about $300 a month for my 15-year-old still growing, eat everything in the house son. His cost is between the Low- and Moderate-Cost budgets. 

That’s a total food budget of $756 a month for my husband and I to eat healthy, nutritious food and for my son to eat like a growing, athletic, ravenous teenager with somewhat healthy eating habits. A family of four with very young children should cost about the same on the Low-Cost budget and about $125 more a month with slightly older children. (But not teenage boys. They are different beasts altogether.)

Now, onto my tips for how we do this…

Develop a Budget and Stick with It

First and foremost, you need to know what your food budget is for the month. 

How to do this

1. Do this as part of developing a general budget that takes into account all other fixed and discretionary expenses.
2. To get a good idea of what to expect your food budget to realistically be, you can use the Official USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food at Home at Four Levels for 2021 as a guide. 
3. Consider your food budget as an exercise in abundance, not lack. It’s a tool that allows you to take control of your health and your finances, do the things that you want to do and make sure that the way you’re spending your money aligns with your values.
4. Look at your food budget as both an adjective and a verb. While budget as an adjective means inexpensive, budget as a verb means that you’re allowing for a specific amount of money to go toward something. This is a big difference in meaning, and I look at budgeting for food as a combination of the two. 

Change Your Mindset

Unless you have unlimited funds to put toward your food, there is going to be a trade-off. Eating healthy on a budget is going to require some time, effort and planning.

How to do this

1. Decide that putting your food dollars toward healthy options is a priority. 
2. Recognize that pre-prepared and ultra-processed food is going to be the exception rather than the rule. Your grocery cart and bags are going to be filled with healthy ingredients, not the snacks or meals that you’re going to eat in their final form.

Cook at Home 

One of the easiest ways to eat healthy on a budget is to cook at home the majority of the time. The pandemic forced this on many people, but the pull of the convenience of eating out can easily creep back into our routines. Cooking at home gives you more control over the food that you eat, and it simply costs less. 

How to do this

1. Don’t eat out more than once a week. ***This is being liberal. I strongly recommend no more than twice a month.
2. Cook from whole foods as much as possible. While ultra-processed food is often cheaper than whole foods, the effects that it has on our health carry a heavy price both for the short- and long-term. In many cases, you also get more servings and uses from starting with whole foods than you do with ultra-processed food. This ends up costing less in the long run. 
3. Batch cook. Make most of your meals for the week in one or two cooking sessions. 
4. Make homemade snacks. Rather than spend $7-$10 a week or more on chips, snack cakes and other packaged snacks, use that money or less to make homemade granola or protein bars or any of the other snack ideas here.
5. Make ingredients such as seasoning mixes, sauces and soups from scratch. 
6. Make cooking a family affair. Get the entire family involved, and it becomes more of a fun activity than a chore.
7. Find 2-3 healthy recipe websites that reliably offer plenty of options that fit your family’s needs. Check out my suggestions for getting started here. 

Plan Meals

Meal planning is one of the critical first steps to getting your health and food budget under control. I go into much more detail on why and how you should do this as well as great tools to help you along the way, but here are some quick tips to get you started. 

How to do this

1. Plan your meals for the entire week or even the month. 
2. Do this with your calendar so that you know which nights will be busier and on which nights you’ll have more time. 
3. Include breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and drinks. 
4. Plan your meals around the sales being offered at your grocery store. Most stores offer a weekly online sales circular, as well as some type of benefits program with special discounts for people who sign up. Use the deals on meat, produce and canned or frozen vegetables to plan your meals. 

Plan for How to Use Leftover Ingredients

Planning for how to use leftover ingredients goes hand in hand with planning your meals.

How to do this

1. If you know that you’re cooking a dish that only uses half of a can of diced tomatoes, be sure and plan to fix another recipe that uses the other half. Or double your recipe and freeze it for another week.
2. Mapping out what you’re eating for the entire week allows you to know where leftover ingredients can be used for another dish. 

Make a Shopping List

Making a shopping list will keep you focused in the store or at the farmers’ market. It will keep you from buying things that you don’t need as well as make sure that you get everything that you do. Let’s face it, when it comes time to cook, it’s much easier to get motivated to do it if you know that you have everything you need on hand as opposed to having to go to the store first.

How to do this

1. Once you’ve planned your meals, make sure that you have every ingredient that you’ll need. If you don’t, add them to your shopping list. 
2. Do one larger shopping trip a month where you stock up on staples based on a list of the standard items that you use. Feel free to access my free Food Inventory and Shopping List template here.
3. Have a general idea of the price of each item before you shop. You can keep a record of it in your shopping list so that it’s always there for you to reference. Knowing the prices gives you an idea of how much the entire trip will cost ahead of time. If you see that it’s going over your budget, you can make adjustments before you even enter the store. 

Buy in Bulk

Items that are good for buying in bulk when you’re eating healthy on a budget include the following. 

• Whole grains (oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa)
• Legumes
• Frozen vegetables
• Healthy flours
• Nuts
• Seeds

Know What to Buy Organic

While it’s good to buy organic as much as possible, it may not always make the most sense financially. That’s why it’s important to know which produce is and isn’t the most heavily sprayed with chemicals. 

How to do this

1. The Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen List helps to take the guess work out of trying to figure what’s worth the extra cost of organic. If it’s on the list, buy organic.  
2. On the flip side, the Clean 15 List lets you know which conventionally grown produce is probably okay to eat.

Reduce the Amount of Meat That You Eat

If you eat meat, chances are that you could and should reduce the amount that you eat. This is both for financial reasons and for your health. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends eating 3.5 to 4 ounces of meat, poultry and eggs a day. That is not for every meal. That is a day. Or you can look at it as 26 ounces a week for a 2,000 calorie a day healthy eating pattern. Whichever way you look at it, you could probably do with a lot less meat, which in turn, will benefit your bank account. If you need suggestions for how to prepare more plant-based meals, I offer a look at what I consider to be the best vegan recipe blogs and websites here.

How to do this

1. If you currently eat meat 2-3 meals a day, cut back to one. 
2. If you currently eat meat every day, have 3 days a week that are meatless. 
3. Eat more legumes.
4. Eat high-protein pasta made from legumes such as lentil, edamame and mung bean. 
5. Use the money that you save to buy meat that has been sustainably and humanely raised. 

Eat with the Seasons

Whether you buy your food from the farmers’ market or the grocery store, eating what’s in season is going to be the least expensive way to buy fresh produce. If you want to go more in-depth on why this is so important and how to do it, be sure and read my post on eating seasonally. 

How to do this

1. Look at the sales ads for your grocery store. The foods that are in season will usually be on sale or at least will be cheaper than other produce. 
2. Go to the farmers’ market. Everything there is in season. It’s also important to learn which of the vendors grow their items conventionally and which are only organic. Again, not everything has to be organic. 

Keep it Simple

Our taste buds have become so accustomed to artificial and intense flavors that it’s easy to think of a simply prepared meat, vegetable and whole grain meal as being bland. It’s not though! You don’t have to use a bunch of exotic ingredients or artificial flavors to make a meal taste delicious. Keep it simple – the way nature intended it, and your taste buds will adjust. 

How to do this

1. Learn to use spices to flavor your food. 
2. Learn to grow and use herbs to flavor your food. 

Buy Frozen

The term “frozen food” takes on a whole new meaning when we’re talking about eating healthy on a budget. In this sense, you’re going to bypass the frozen “TV dinners” and head straight for the good stuff.  

How to do this

1. Buy frozen produce. While buying fresh produce seems like it would be far superior to frozen, there’s probably not as much difference in the nutritional value as you may think. Dietician Kim Barrier says that fresh fruits and vegetables start losing some of their nutrients once picked, so the longer they’re in transport to the grocery and/or sit in the produce section the more they lose. “Frozen fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, are picked at peak season and immediately processed, which locks in the nutrients.”  In addition to being less expensive, frozen produce can also be more accessible than fresh. 
2. Buy meat that’s already frozen. This is also often cheaper than buying fresh. 

Freeze Leftovers and Use Them

Wasted food is wasted money.  Freezing leftovers is by far one of the easiest ways to eat healthy on a budget. 

How to do this

1. Freeze leftovers in individual portion sizes so that you only thaw what you need. 
2. Have one week a month where you eat frozen leftovers at least once or twice. This will keep your freezer cleaned out and give you one or two “free” meals at the same time. 

Buy Generic or Store Brand

If you’re eating healthier, you’re automatically eliminating most ultra-processed foods. That means that what you’re buying from a store is primarily whole foods. In these cases, you’re usually not going to notice a taste difference if you buy generic or a store brand. 

How to do this

1. Look for whether the store offers organic options for store brand items where that’s needed. 
2. Test store brand items out in small quantities before stocking up on them to make sure that you’re satisfied with the taste and quality. 

Use Coupons

See how far down the list this is when it comes to eating healthy on a budget? That’s because, for the most part, coupons are for ultra-processed food. 

How to do this

1. Eliminating all ultra-processed food can be difficult. For those few items that you do buy in this category, keep an eye out for coupons.
2. Use coupons to buy quality household products made with healthier ingredients and materials. 

Bottom Line on Eating Healthy on a Budget

While you may not be able to incorporate all of these tips, implementing even a few of them will go a long way toward making eating healthy on a budget a possibility. The suggestions here were intended to give a quick and easy high-level glimpse at how to do each of these things. For many of them, I go into more depth and detail in other posts. Be sure and check those out by clicking on the associated links included throughout this post. 

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Healthy Eating Isn’t a Diet, It’s a Lifestyle

When I completely changed how I was eating, my mom kept asking me, “What do you call your diet?” My answer to her was always “It’s not a diet. It’s a lifestyle.” I just woke up one day, decided I didn’t like the way I had been feeling and that I wanted to do something about it. Up until then, I was fully addicted to caffeine, loved sugar and carbs and could easily down an entire bag of pita chips in one sitting if I was stressed.

Having a child with multiple food allergies, I considered what I ate to be moderately healthy. I had learned to keep it fairly basic, cook most of our meals at home and do most of our shopping at the farmers market. It wasn’t until I realized how dependent I was on the sugar and simple carbs in my diet and how little of anything green I was actually eating that I decided I was going to try to do better for myself. I went cold turkey off caffeine, started drinking green smoothies in the morning, learned what kale actually looked like and came to love quinoa. By focusing primarily on what I ate, I started feeling better and, as a bonus, dropped 35 pounds without counting a calorie.

Not Perfect, Just Real

While I’m the first to admit that my diet isn’t perfect, and I’m always eager to learn about new foods and the science behind what we eat, one thing has become clear to me. Food is key to our overall wellness. What we eat can make us feel good, it can make us feel “icky” or it can even contribute to many of the diseases and health issues that many of us assume just happen.

In his book, Food: What the Heck Should I Eat?, Dr. Mark Hyman says, “Food exists specifically to energize, heal, repair and uplift us. Every bite you take is a powerful opportunity to create health or promote disease.” The quality of what we eat is everything, and yet, we’ve relegated eating to one of the most automatic and thoughtless things we do. We “throw something together” or “squeeze it in” on the way from one activity to another. While thinking about and preparing our food doesn’t need to be all-consuming, it should be one of the most intentional things we do so that we can be proactive and take charge of our health and wellness. As Dr. Hyman says, “Food is not just calories; it’s medicine.”

Eating Healthy Focuses on Whole Foods

According to nutritionist Megan Spencer from SL/M Nutrition Coaching, “Healthy depends on each person. But it’s important to focus on balance, flexibility, being kind to yourself if it doesn’t work out perfectly and also focusing on whole foods.” Whole foods are real food. Except for meat, poultry and seafood, they’re pretty much recognizable from what they would look like in nature. In fact, at its core, healthy eating is actually fairly simple. Focus on what you would find in nature, not on the inside aisles of the grocery store. While some whole foods are better for us than others, if you start there, you’re going to be on the right path.

Which Whole Foods Should We Focus On for Healthy Eating?

Even when it comes to whole foods, there are a number of different theories out there about what exactly we should be eating. To keep it simple, here are some of the top takeaways from Dr. Hyman. 

1. Grass-fed Meat, Organic Poultry and Wild Caught Seafood are “Nutritionally Superior”

This is compared to their factory-farmed counterparts. Grass-fed meat, organic poultry and wild caught seafood are eating what their bodies were designed to eat and therefore contain higher levels of nutrients and healthy fats than animals eating a diet that is foreign to them. According to Dr. Hyman, “Studies show that today’s chickens have fewer anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids, more inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, and substantially fewer vitamins and minerals.” Your local farmers market is always going to be your best bet for knowing how your meat and poultry are raised and where your seafood comes from. But, if you don’t have one nearby and don’t have a grocery store that you can rely on for this, Dr. Hyman provides a list of possible resources in his book. You can also check out Root and Revel’s list of online resources for organic, sustainable and grass-fed meat delivery options.

2. Vegetables Should Be Eaten at Every Meal

Dr. Hyman advises that “Non-starchy vegetables like spinach, asparagus, broccoli and kale should make up 50 to 75 percent of your plate with a small portion of animal protein as ‘condi-meat.” To make sure that you’re avoiding pesticides and other chemicals when eating your vegetables, try to buy organic as much as possible. If that’s not possible financially, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen List that tells you which vegetables and fruit are the worst offenders when it comes to pesticide residue.

3. We Don’t Need Added Sugar in Our Food

When it comes to sugar, Dr. Hyman reminds us that, “Sweet things in nature are always safe to eat and they are a quick source of energy that helps us store fat for times of scarcity.” But, “Sugar has become such a pervasive part of our food landscape that we’re chronically overdosing on it.” The bottom line is that we do not need added sugar in our food, and it’s causing a lot of damage in the form of diseases and ailments that we could all live without. If you are going to eat added sugar, Dr. Hyman advises no more than 5 teaspoons a day (or 21 grams). Compare that to the 22 teaspoons a day he says most adults consume and the 35 teaspoons a day that most kids consume, and you can see why we have so many sugar-related problems.

Getting Back in the Kitchen

If we’re going to be eating healthy, there’s no way around it, we’ve got to get back in the kitchen. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines from a recorded talk given by wellness guru Kris Carr, it doesn’t matter whether it’s men or women, but somebody’s got to get back into the (expletive) kitchen! Exactly! Our kitchens are where the magic happens and where good health is cultivated. As nutritionist Megan Spencer reminds us, “The best thing about cooking at home is that you have full control of the ingredients you’re using. Knowledge is power, and you have control over the decisions you make.”

Tips for Healthy Eating

Megan offers these tips for making healthy eating part of your lifestyle.

• Start with the basics. There’s no need to think you have to cook the fanciest and most difficult recipes you can find. Be realistic and master the basics first.
• Take advantage of short cuts at the grocery store. There are a lot of pre-chopped vegetables and salad mixes with all of the ingredients already included. These definitely cost more than the do-it-yourself versions, but even if you can’t sustain this for the long-term, it’s a good way to help ease yourself back into the kitchen.
• Focus on progress, not perfection. That might mean starting with dinner as a family, cooked from scratch once or twice a week and then build on that.
• Increase the good stuff before you take anything away. This means increasing things like vegetables, whole grains and lean meats. The idea is that you’re not depriving yourself of anything (far from it!) because when you eat more healthy food, then there’s simply less room for junky foods.
• If alcohol and sweets are a must have for you, cut back from what you were having before and put something healthy in their place. For example, if you’re used to having a glass of wine every night to help you relax, cut back to two or three times a week and maybe drink herbal tea the other nights.
• Planning is very important. Even if you can’t plan for a whole week, just having the right supplies in the fridge and in the pantry will set you up for success.

What We Eat Fuels Our Body

If we put junk and artificial food in, then we’re not giving it much to run on. If we put goodness in, then we’re more apt to get strength, vitality, and good health out. Healthy eating doesn’t demand perfection, but it does require being in touch with ourselves enough to understand what our body is saying it needs. Start listening, and the results may truly surprise you.

Additional Resources

If you need additional healthy lifestyle support and resources geared specifically for women over 40, I offer my Reclaim Your Energy and Revitalize Your Life workshop, membership in the Empowered Health and Wellness for Women Over 40 Facebook group, and personalized one-on-one health and nutrition coaching. If you need more information on any of these, feel free to reach out to info@peppermint-tea.com.

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This back to school time of year can be exciting for everyone, but, if your family is like mine, it can also mean that things get quite a bit busier. Afterschool, evening and weekend activities; exercise; homework; meetings; and oh yes, the regular work that pays the bills. To some degree it all has to be done (or does it? Click here for more on how to prioritize), but where does that leave eating healthy foods that give us the energy to do everything we need to do? When things get busy, it’s all too easy to throw up our hands and do drive-thru yet again. It really doesn’t have to be that way though, and while my family is by no means perfect, I wanted to share my top 5 tips for getting organized so that you can eat healthy during even the busiest of weeks.

1. Meal planning. This is the first step to take in organizing how you’re going to eat for the week. If you plan your meals and snacks in advance, you’re taking control of what you eat. That means planning out every meal, the ingredients needed for those meals and having that list at your fingertips when you head out for your weekly shopping trip. Yes, a weekly shopping trip is much more efficient than just getting enough to get through a couple of days. Besides, you never know what the week is going to throw at you and already having ingredients on hand makes it much easier when that meeting or practice run long. If you need suggestions on how to make meal planning work for you, check out Meal Planning Tips and Tools for Healthy Living.

2. Prep fruit and veggies. Once you’ve bought your groceries, it’s easiest to go ahead and carve out time before your week gets started to prep any fruit and vegetables that you may need for meals or snacks. With activities that can take up most of the weekend, I know this is easier said than done, but it is a time saver for once you get into your busy week. If I’m doing it by myself, I usually try to set aside one to two hours where I can just focus on food prep. This means washing fruit and cutting up vegetables that may be eaten by themselves or are needed as part of recipes. Even if I don’t have time to go ahead and prepare the full recipe, having the prep work done is often more than half the battle. We all know that when a recipe gives the prep time, it usually doesn’t take into account the time it takes to shred, cut up or mince whatever ingredients are needed.

Another way to get this done even faster and to start teaching your kids the skills they’ll need in the kitchen is to get the entire family involved. When I do this, I usually say that we’re going to set aside one hour, and we’re all going to pitch in and help. With everyone working, this is usually more than enough time needed for straightforward prep. Younger children can be in charge of washing fruits and vegetables, while older ones can learn to peel and cut them.

3. Cook ahead. If you can add an hour or two to your time in the kitchen on the weekend to cook ahead, you can save yourself a lot of time and frustration during the week. Some dishes can be completely cooked and just reheated in the oven or microwave when you need them. Others can be put together ahead of time and then cooked when the time comes, and still others may need to be put together when you’re ready to eat them. For those, you can at least go ahead and cook individual components such as pasta or grilled chicken or beef. You can even fire up the grill or get the water boiling while you’re prepping any fruit and vegetables.

Another advantage I’ve found to cooking ahead is that as kids grow older and are involved in more activities, eating together is a challenge. While I’m all for family dinners, it just sometimes isn’t a possibility. That doesn’t mean though that everyone has to do drive-thru or takeout. If meals are cooked ahead, everyone can get what they need when they need it.

4. Divide food into portions. If you have enough smaller containers, this tip can be a huge time, sanity and health saver. If you’ve cooked ahead and know that this is going to be a week where everyone is eating piecemeal, just quickly divide what you’ve fixed into single serving portions – complete with the main course and side if it all has to be reheated.

I love my boys, but they have been known to come in and not eat a perfectly good meal just because it wasn’t completely portioned out and ready to pop in the microwave. Yes, I am still working to teach them not to be so effort averse (ahem… lazy!), but I’ll admit that after a long day of work or running behind from getting someone somewhere, it is nice to come in and all I have to do is grab a container filled with a healthy meal and just heat it up.

This can also be done at the beginning of the week with lunches (other than sandwiches. Very few people like sandwiches that have been sitting in a refrigerator for more than a few hours.) Salads can easily be done this way as can main dishes, vegetables, applesauce, etc. Simply go ahead and divide it all into containers for the week. If you don’t have enough containers for a full week, do enough for a couple of days and then you can wash and refill them. Whether you fix lunches at night or in the morning, for yourself or for your kids, this little bit of prep work ahead of time may just change your entire outlook!

5. Invest in lunch bags, cooler bags, coolers and ice packs. If you or your kids take lunches to work or school, it’s obvious that you’ll need a lunch bag. But what about for evenings where activities are taking place during dinnertime or you need to take a quick snack or meal to your child? All of the prep in the world won’t make a difference if you don’t have a good way to transport the food when you need it.

 In the spring, my youngest son’s baseball games during the week regularly take place in the evenings, often right after he finishes another practice. Since we’re all rarely eating at the same time or places on those nights, I pack up a bag for each of us (usually in the morning) and distribute it to the appropriate person as we go through the evening. For weekend travel ball tournaments, we pack an entire cooler full of already prepared food that can easily be eaten on the go. While I can’t say that concession stand hotdogs or nachos are never eaten, I can say that healthier options that we bring with us are the norm.

I know that actually doing all of these things may sound a bit daunting, but I can attest to the fact that it is possible and that it does make a big difference. I know weekends are busy, and if they’re not, it’s hard to give up even a couple of hours of precious downtime to dedicate to food prep. But for most people, the choice is either to set aside a focused amount of time on the weekend, spend 30 minutes to an hour cooking every night or to let someone else do the cooking for us – in which case, we lose all control over how healthy it really is. Getting into the routine of being organized and preparing food ahead of time helps to make sure that you can eat healthy during even the busiest of weeks, which makes those times feel a little less crazy and a lot more enjoyable.

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