Hey guys!
Welcome to healthy on a budget, I was feeling a little feisty while writing today, so that *may* have made it’s way into the post 🙂
I get this question a lot, and figured it was time it got an awesome answer, “How can I stay healthy/organic while on a budget?”
I come at this from two sides: 1. I’m a Holistic Nutritionist, so food quality is one of my top financial priorities. And 2. My fiance Christopher is in Finance, and he’s spent the last few years figuring out budgeting, why we spend, why we over-blow our budgets (mindset), and how to stop doing it.
So, here are our top tips for staying healthy on a budget:
1. Meal Plan the F Out Of Your Grocery Shops:
This is so important. I can tell you that Christopher and I can head to the grocery store with a meal plan, and head home with everything we need AND budget money left over. Flip-side, we can head to the grocery store lost, hungry and without a list, spend all of our money, and come home looking clueless, scratching our heads wondering what all those great, half-meal ideas were in the store.
The way I’ve come to meal plan is to choose 2-3 meals for the week, that can make a few days worth. I really love the meals we make, so I know I can eat them a few times in the week before getting tired of them. So go for your favourites, try one could-crash-or-soar (new) recipe every once in a while, have some fun, and soon you’ll have a bunch of rotating favourite healthy meals to shop for that will keep your diet varied yet totally palatable to you.
2. Know Your Budget, To The Cent.
Don’t be vague. The best I’ve ever been on a budget came when I was SUPER aware of exactly, to the cent how much we had going out the door each time we went shopping, and I was in a stubborn mood about not going over-budget.
Vaguely add up the cost of the food you’re putting into your cart/basket as you go (you could calculator this, but I can’t stand having that slow me down so I just massively over-estimate costs as I go, that way when I’m nearing my budget I stop, and when I’m all rung up I know how much I have left for the next shop – so far my over-estimations haven’t left me without cash at the checkout). For example, if something is $3.12, I’ll usually round to $5 in my head. And then when I check out, I realize I’ve got the excess leftover because $3.12 even with tax doesn’t end up at $5. Make sense?
3. Don’t Shop Around The Perimeter.
I always heard this budgeting piece of advice and I never understood it, ‘shop around the perimeter’. It’s weird and doesn’t sit well with me. What I always see in the perimeter of the store, health food or regular, are the cookies (or organic cookies), chocolates, chips and pop on display, hoping you’ll remember these weakness-inducing foods. While I guess they’re all pretty cheap foods, you’ll be left totally nutrient-depleted, and feeling greasy, if that’s all you’re eating, and you’ll run into some health problems pretty quick. So shop inside the aisles based on what’s on your list, and try to stay away from the perimeter.
Shop in the produce section first, get what you need. Produce is the healthiest food you’ll be eating all week, so make sure you don’t limit it by using up your budget elsewhere first. Then check your list and find out what other things you need. Go get them, and only them, and if you see something else you want, write it on a list for next time.
4. Be Proud Of Your Budgeting-Prowess!
Cut out the ideas of skimping, or saving as ‘bad’ or otherwise ‘not awesome’ traits. Anyone that says anything dumb to you about it probably wishes they had better control of their money. So seriously, rock that all-cash checkout, Babe! You nailed it. And pull out those coupons with pride. Whatever you’re doing, it’s awesome, and there’s no need to rush because somebody’s behind you, be scared because people might judge you, or hide your face in case somebody’s around that you know.
You, now, are simply in your own league of grocery store rock star. Let em’ hate. 🙂
5. Celebrate Your Budgeting Wins.
One of my favourite tips for entrepreneurs is to think of yourself as the boss and the employee. When you, as the employee, do awesome things, and then you, as the boss, just yells, “do more!” – you’re being a pretty crappy boss of yourself. Flip-side, don’t you love to get credit for a job well done? Have a party to celebrate your hard work?
Find some free things you love doing (so you’re not tempted into “I did well on my budget, let’s go out for dinner to celebrate and negate the good I just did!”) by either having a bubble bath, going for a walk in nature, listening to some happy music, whatever makes your soul feel new again, celebrate yourself by treating YOU with awesome, free but invaluable things.
6. Cut Down On Dinners Out, Or Cut Down On Grocery Shops.
Find your priorities. If you love eating out, eat cheap things at home (hello, split pea soup!) so that you can do that more often at healthy restaurants that take care of your bod. If you love healthy dinners at home, spend most of your food money on groceries, and either budget up (once this savings account hits x dollars, we’ll go out to dinner) to dinners out, or go for the cheapy options if that’s what makes you happy (and use it as a treat – cheap food isn’t healthy food).
7. Know Where To Save.
My top priorities if I ate them to buy organic would be meat and dairy products because non-organic animals are fed GMO’s and store contaminants from the environment, from gmo’s (and their sprays) and from wastes in their fat cells. So eating something that had the ability to store excess chemicals in fat, always makes me want to turn to the least chemical-infested option: organics.
Then I’d shop via the Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists, a list comprised by The Environmental Working Group to let consumers know which fruits and veggies had the highest pesticide-residues vs. the lowest. That way, when you are spending for organic, you know it’s worth it. And if you need to because of budget constraints, you can opt for the conventional least-residued (Clean 15) fruits and veggies and know that they’re better than the super pesticide-residued dirty dozen.
And lastly, try not to freak out if you can’t get something from the dirty dozen organic. This was a big hurtle for my perfectionism, but it’s one I’ve come to the other side of now. There are studies being done all the time on the benefits of fruits and veggies on human health, and certainly not all of those studies are using strictly organic produce, yet there are STILL health benefits to eating the produce. So, opt for something else with less residues, or grab the thing you wanted (and will actually eat), knowing that it will still benefit your body.
8. Find Your Cheap Meal.
My favourite is split pea soup for this. A couple cups of dried split peas boiled until soft, a couple of veggie bouillon cubes and a lot of water (and some boiled carrots if I have them) makes for a large amount of a super cheap meal. Find something you like, that you can use as your ‘get you through the rest of the week’ meal, until your budget is renewed.
9. Start Seeing Wasted Food as Money Hitting The Trash.
This one’s pretty obvious, but any food you waste, you traded to gain it with money. So if it goes bad, that was money you wasted. Of course, we could also go global hunger all over this, so use whatever reason gives you strength and stubbornness not to waste your food.
10. Plan Ahead for Gatherings, Holidays or Parties.Â
What can you buy with this week’s budget money to help spread the cost of a big event that’s coming up over a few weeks, instead of hitting you all at once. Or, how can you save extra this week to help you out at the next high-cost Holiday party? Do it, Gorgeous.
