Price inflation in the United States, as in the rest of the world, is making food more expensive. If you have limited money to spend per month, you should know that you need to be organized so you don’t spend more money than you have available. But that doesn’t mean you should stop eating healthy. You can have healthy food at home without the obligation to spend a lot of money.
In order to have healthy food at home and save money per month, you can follow a series of tips that will make your wallet and your health happy. These tricks are very easy to follow and you don’t need anything more than a little time. In addition to time, you will need a little bit of energy to be able to organize everything and learn these tricks. Luckily, both of these things are free, so your Social Security benefit won’t see a decrease.
Save money and eat healthy food
The tricks we are going to give you below are very useful for saving money while eating healthy food. These tricks will save you up to $50 a week if you are able to follow them and organize your weekly shopping and menu very well. Let’s take a look at these tricks.
- Forget Iceberg lettuce: this type of lettuce is very common in the shopping basket, but nowadays it has a much higher price than usual. Therefore, switch to another type such as butterleaf or green cabbage. By doing this, you will be able to save on average about $3 per week, depending on the local price and the vegetable you finally choose.
- Buy frozen fruit: frozen fruit can be a great ally when it comes to saving money on food. For example, raspberries and blueberries are priced higher if you buy them fresh. The difference is huge, with a kilogram of fresh raspberries costing around $48 and this frozen fruit costing $11.
- Frozen vegetables are your friend: Just like frozen fruit, frozen vegetables are a very healthy food option. Plus, you can buy frozen vegetables of different types and then mix them as you like. And you will be able to use it for a longer period of time, since it won’t rot quickly because it is frozen.
- Swap ham for tuna: Or also for boiled egg. Ham is usually expensive, so buying eggs and boiling them can be a great option. In addition to this, you can also save money with food if you buy cans of tuna. These cans last a long time, so that’s another great advantage.
Cook your own meals
To save money every month, you can also prepare your own meals, no matter if it’s a simple coffee, a soda or the meal of the week. All this will save you a lot of money on a weekly basis.
- Brew your own coffee: it is very common to buy coffee made in coffee shops, but that makes our food budget increase a lot. Nowadays, there are many options to make exquisite coffee at home. These methods are very cheap and for the price of a coffee in a coffee shop (4’50$) we can make coffee for the whole week.
- Forget the soft drinks: The price of a liter of soft drink is $3.55 dollars. At home you can prepare some homemade soda with some fruit and water. Another option is to add lemon juice and baking soda to the water to give it flavor. This will save you more than $2.50 per liter of beverage. That’s a big difference in your food budget. Plus, it’s a much healthier drink.
- No takeout: If you have to eat out, forget takeout. It’s easy and quick, yes, but it’s less healthy and more expensive. Preparing your own food at home can save you up to $30 a week. If you’re organized, you’ll have time to prepare all your food at home.