You can eat healthy and save money. Here are 7 practical tips on how to do that, from ways to save money on groceries to how to use leftovers. The most important thing to remember is to try what works for you and leave the rest. It may take time to get into a rhythm of cooking and planning your meals, but it is so worth it!
- Meal Plan and make a list. This seems obvious and possibly overwhelming at the same time. Be realistic when you are planning your meals. You can cook simple meals like seasoned chicken and vegetables with rice. Experimenting one or 2 days a week with something more complicated, if you want, is better. You can add the new meals to your rotation if you like them. Make a grocery list, be sure to add things for breakfast, lunch, and snacks so you aren't making multiple trips to the store each week.
- Learn to cook from scratch. Learn to cook what you like. Of course don't try to do this all at once, start with something easy like soup or salad dressing and add to it when you are ready. If there is something you hate making then buy those items and make the things you like better that you make yourself.
- Make extra when you do cook and eat the leftovers for lunch the next day or dinner on a day you don't want to cook instead of eating out. A lot of recipes also lend themselves well to being frozen for a later date also. Here is a great resource on freezer meals https://pinchofyum.com/freezer-meals. Just make sure you use what you cook.
- Buy shelf stable ingredients in bulk. This is where having a meal plan and go-to meals helps you figure out what to buy. If you don't eat beans then buying them is wasting your money. You want to take into account how much you are reasonably going to eat in a given time. If you are single you will need way less than if you have a family. You also want to consider how much space you have to store things. Saving a few dollars, to me, is not worth cluttering up your space.
- Use a coupon app such as Ibotta. You can get rebates on Ibotta on healthy food and sometimes even meat, vegetables and fruit. While I am not going to tell you to use coupons, because I don't find it practical. It takes a lot of time to find them AND you have to remember to use them! If coupons are something you do want to look into here is a coupon resource if you want to go that route https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/save-money/best-coupon-sites/ I find that if you buy things that are on sale most of the time you will save enough money without spending any extra time to do so.
- Grow your own food! It can be something super simple like a few herbs that you really like to use or a tomato plant. Greens are also really easy to grow when it is a little on the colder side, go grab a salad from your yard! Or you can grow a full garden. Greens are really easy to grow when it is a little on the cooler side. There are tons of great YouTubers about gardening, you can find some for small spaces to entire homesteads.
- Stop wasting food. This is one of the most important things you can do . According to the USDA Americans waste 30-40% of the food produced each year. One easy way to help with this is to learn to use leftover ingredients. Some of the easiest things you can do are make soup, omelets, fried rice or pasta dishes, you can also put leftovers on salads or make a bowl of random leftovers you have laying around. Here is a post with some great recipes to use to clean out your fridge https://www.delicious.com.au/recipes/collections/gallery/38-recipes-to-clean-out-your-fridge-of-leftovers/wy62h5cv?page=6. Also remember you can always swap out similar ingredients, if a recipe calls for green beans and you have asparagus it's just fine to substitute. You can also use different spices in place of others. Use recipes as guides not as hardcore guidelines.