Most people believe that eating healthy is a very expensive affair. However, if you put some thought to what foods you want to have in your diet as a necessity, then you can easily find a way to afford it.
Below are some ideas that you should consider if you want to keep down your food bill but eat healthy every day.
Determine how much you can Afford to Spend on Food
Your first step should be to determine how much money you have to spend on food every month or week. If you already know how much you spend on food or if you begin to track how much you spend, you will easily know what leeway you have for your new healthy meals budget.
A good idea is to use an app or a spreadsheet to keep daily track of what you spend on food, in order to cut back or prioritize the same cash towards a healthy diet.
Prioritize what you Buy and choose where to Buy from
- Create a list of all the foods that you must have in your diet and then prioritize what’s most important and healthy to you. Once you do this, it will be much easier to prioritize your available resources.
- You should also ensure that you apportion a budget to fruits and vegetables. Getting the fruits and vegetables as fresh as possible every day or every other day is a good idea.
- If you avoid eating out and stick to a strict eating regimen, you will find that you can afford to eat very healthy food.
- Choosing where to buy your food can also go a long way in saving you some money to afford more healthy food. Buying food from the local farmers market that sells local organic food will be much cheaper than purchasing organic food shipped from abroad.
- It may also be a good calculated move only to purchase food in season. This choice alone could save you a lot of money and make healthy eating more affordable.
Eat Less Meat
Let’s face it, most people love meat. However, if you are to eat organic meat often, you will pay a pretty penny to maintain the habit. It may be time to look at other alternatives and eat less meat.
Apart from the cost savings that you will make, eating less meat will make you less susceptible to diabetes and high blood pressure.
If you absolutely have to eat meat, you could opt for small healthy meat snacks like organic beef jerky.
Buy Grains in Bulk
Purchasing grains in bulk is a great way to afford healthy foods. Bulk purchases of brown rice, millet rice, oats and quinoa can save you a lot of money.
For example, purchasing oats in bulk can save you more than five times what you would spend on a processed and packaged box of oats per meal.
There are several other tips and ideas to spend less but eat healthy meals. Hopefully, the ideas above will spark your imagination and open you up to the possibility that eating healthy does not have to be expensive.