11 Tips to Eat Healthy on a Budget

​A lot of people want to start eating healthily, but they are worried about how to make it budget-friendly. Affordable fit food can sometimes seem hard to find and high-quality veg, fruit, and meat may look hard to find. But it’s not as hard to eat healthy on a budget as you think.

1. Plan Your Shopping

Instead of simply buying what looks good, buy a set of planned ingredients. Make a meal plan, starting with the ingredients you already have. You can select recipes that use some of the same ingredients, as well, so you can cut down the overall length of the list.

2. Only Buy What You Eat

By the end of the month, the average family with kids is likely to throw away enough edible food to fill a whole shopping list. Plan your meals and get only get the ingredients you need so you don’t throw away anything. If you do have unused food, freeze it in food storage bags for later.

3. Buy More Frozen Food

So long as they don’t have any added fat, salt, or sugar, frozen vegetables can be just as good for you as the fresh kind, and are both cheaper and easier to cook with. Consider using them more often.

4. Try Cheaper Brands

Brand name recognition can foster trust, but often there’s very little real difference between brands and value ranges. Try going cheaper occasionally, you might be surprised how similar it is.

5. Don’t Throw Away Leftover Bread

When you’re worried bread might be about to go stale, don’t throw it out. If you have too much bread, freeze what you don’t think you’re going to use in a freezer bag. If you freeze it at its freshest, it will keep most of its taste when defrosted.

6. Know What You Already Have

​Before going shopping, check your cupboard, fridge, and freezer. Keeping an inventory of what’s in can help you avoid buying duplicate groceries. What’s more, you may even find you have enough ingredients in stock to make a meal, so you can buy one less.

7. Exercise Portion Control

You will use a lot fewer ingredients if you start to learn how to portion your foods properly. Most of us eat larger portions than we should, so get used to weighing out single services of staples such as rice and pasta.

8. Cook More Often

The fewer takeaways and ready meals, the more money you stand to save. What’s more, you will end up using more whole ingredients, making for healthier meals.

9. Use the Whole Chicken

As well as a good roast chicken dinner, a whole chicken can offer you breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings, and plenty of stock material, making for plenty of meals from one purchase.

10. Eat Fewer Luxuries

​For the sake of the family’s health, as well as the budget, trimming away luxuries such as sweets, crisps, carbonated drinks, and biscuits will also save you a lot of money.

11. All Family Members Eat the Same Meals

​Toddlers can eat whole food meals just as easily as grown-ups, providing you blend or chop up their portion to suit their age. Creating a habit of eating the same food at the dinner table will also help with family bonds and cost you less at the grocery check-out. 
 
With the tips above, you can reduce the costs of eating healthy by a significant margin. Turn the tips into habits and you could end up spending less on your shopping than you used to, as well.

You may even find that you can save enough to have more in your budget for yourself and your fitness plans that you can hire an online fitness coach to teach you how to make the most out of your workouts and your meals.