Speaker 1: how to eat healthy on a budget. A lot of you tell me that you're trying to eat healthier, trying to make healthier and better choices, but that it's really difficult for you because your budget just won't allow it. And while healthy eating can definitely be expensive, there are some pretty good tips to make it more affordable. Here are my best tips to help you eat healthy on a budget. Plan your meals. During the week, take out some time to sit down and plan the meals that you want to eat and write down all of the ingredients that you need for these meals and just make a grocery list. This way you can stick to buying things that you actually need instead of buying things that you don't need at all or things that you think you might need but you actually don't need or not getting like the quantities and ingredients right and just basically wasting money. Also make sure that you eat a full meal before you go grocery shopping because that way you're less likely to buy all of the expensive, ridiculously expensive snacks that you don't need or even want. Buy in bulk when possible. When I say buy in bulk, I don't mean that you should buy tons and tons of certain food items that you end up never using or have like huge quantities of them at the same time in stores where you're able to do that. That's not necessarily what I mean. I mean buying like without the packaging. So you can buy things like pasta, rice, beans, oats, quinoa, lentils, nuts and seeds. You can buy all of these things in bulk without any packaging. You can bring maybe your own jars or some paper bags or things like that and that will definitely be much cheaper than buying it pre-packaged and you can actually check that. You can look at the price per pound or per kilogram of product that you buy and then compare that to the pre-packaged ones and see like where you make a better deal. And it's really something to be mindful of and it's also better for the planet. So buy frozen, canned or jarred fruit and veggie. Fresh fruit and vegetables can go bad really quickly and that will result in wasting money. So you can totally go for the frozen option. This is much cheaper and frozen fruit and vegetables actually have even more nutrients in some cases than fresh fruit and vegetables because they're frozen at peak maturity. So you definitely can't go wrong with frozen fruit and veggies. Another thing you can do is buy jarred or canned vegetables. This you have to be a little bit more careful about. You have to check the label to make sure that they are adding a ton of sodium or whatever to the vegetables. But in most cases, especially with jarred vegetables, you can find really healthy with low sodium added vegetables and that way it's much cheaper. Stock up on the basics. You can eat pretty cheap if you stick to basic food items like whole wheat pasta, brown rice, oats, whole wheat bread, beans, chickpeas, lentils, and also cheap fruit and vegetables like apples, bananas, oranges, pears, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, onions, potatoes. These are just examples but take the time to research which fruit and vegetables are the cheapest at your local grocery store and this can also vary depending on the season so make sure to watch out for that as well. Skip the trendy health foods. Along those lines, there are a ton of healthy trend foods that are sure healthy but not necessarily healthier than their cheaper alternatives and it's just the marketing and the fact that you see every wellness influencer talk about them that will pressure you to buy them but you can be just as healthy with other types of foods. For instance, potatoes are a great alternative to more expensive sweet potatoes. Frozen berries are as nutritious as acai or goji berries. Peanut butter is a cheaper and more nutritious nut butter than cashew or almond butter. Plant-based protein can be beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu instead of expensive mock meats. Oat or soy milk is even better than almond milk and much cheaper. You get the idea. Basically, there's great nutrition in cheaper and simpler foods and this also goes for expensive supplements. Spice things up. So now that you're buying all of these more basic staple food items, you may get worried that things will become a little bit bland and this is where I really encourage you to season your dishes. One thing I really recommend investing in is a herbs and spice rack where you can keep a bunch of dried spices and herbs. This will help elevate even the most basic of dishes and also it will give you more recipe ideas that you can do and different like a variety in what you're eating even if it's only like one or two basic ingredients and then you can add like different spices to it and kind of change up the whole taste. For instance, you can add curry to rice and vegetables for a delicious vegetable curry or replace that with paprika and chili powder for a spicier alternative or just add some garlic powder and some dried cilantro or whatever herb you like and just make it a simple yet tasty version. You can even add vanilla, sugar, and cinnamon to rice and turn it into a dessert. Herbs and spices also boost the nutrient content of your meal so really don't hesitate to test it out and just go crazy with the herbs and spices. Buy the generic or store brand. The more expensive brand isn't always better. You can always check the label if you want to make sure but in most cases you're just paying up for the brand's reputation so don't hesitate to choose the store brand version or a more like low cost version of the brand unless of course the difference is worth it to you but just know that just because a brand is more well known doesn't automatically make it healthier. Make your own version when you can. There are a bunch of food items that you can make on your own for a much cheaper and also a much healthier. Trill mixes, granola bars, guacamole, hummus, salads, sandwiches, pancakes, pizza, smoothies, soups, sauces, all can be made on your own and can be actually much tastier, much healthier, and much cheaper. Also don't forget to swap out the baking mixes to make like any type of baked goods like cookies or cakes or muffins or brownies or pancakes or whatever. You can totally make these from scratch. Limit takeout food or eating out. So I think I'm not surprising anybody when I say this and eating out or ordering takeout is much more expensive than making your own food and oftentimes also not as healthy. And of course you can still order takeout and still eat out. They are great pleasures of life but try to view them more as a treat, not something that you do regularly, something that is kind of that you do kind of for special occasions. Instead of something that you mindlessly do out of convenience because it's like super late and you forgot to like prepare a meal and you're hungry and you just want to order takeout. And this also goes for coffee. Much cheaper to make your own than to go get an overpriced coffee somewhere every morning. The next tip is kind of a category of tips and it's to take advantage of what's on sale. First thing I recommend doing is planning your meals around any type of discounts, sales, or promotions, anything at all, any coupons that you have, anything like that that that's happening at your local grocery store. Plan your meals around that. Of course don't just go buying things just because they're on sale or just because you have a coupon for them, absolutely not, but that can give you a basis to kind of plan your meal around and if you see that you know this week like this vegetable is on sale, why not use that as a recipe? You can also check like this markdown shelf aisle that most grocery stores have and basically they put products that are going to expire soon so they make them much cheaper and if it's something that you know that you're going to be eating in the like days to come, that's a really good way to save money on it if you get it from there instead of like the normal aisle. If non-perishable items are on sale like oils or canned foods or like jarred foods, things like that, definitely go ahead and get them. Get as much as your storage space can handle and also if perishable items are on sale, if it's like fruit and vegetables, you can definitely get some and then you can freeze them and then use them later. Why not even like peel them and cut them and store them in the freezer for a quick- you can get them out quickly when you need them. Again, the key here is really planning your meals around all of these items, not just buying things just because they're on sale or whatever. If you do that, obviously you're going to have tons of food that you won't end up eating, that will end up going bad, you'll end up wasting it and so wasting money, so that's not what we're trying to do. Now I'm going to go into another kind of category of tips and this one is to limit food waste. The first thing you can do is to freeze foods whenever you realize that they may go bad before you have time to eat them and in some cases that may kind of change the texture but you can definitely switch it up and it can be fine. For instance, like spinach leaves, I freeze them all the time, they go bad so fast but instead of using them as a salad, which I won't do anymore because obviously when they're frozen the texture is kind of weird in a salad, but I can definitely still use them for smoothies or even soups. Another thing is that you don't have to throw your food away the second the expiration date is passed. Oftentimes the date up until which you can still consume that food is like much further ahead and of course this is just to give the store like a general idea and it's also for money because if you throw away the food when it's still good, you're gonna buy more. Obviously you want to be safe but you can use your senses, you can taste a little bit to see if it tastes weird to you, if the texture is off, if there's a problem with that and if you can't seem to find an issue then you can eat it as long as it's not like six months later, which I still know people who do that but you should also do regular inspections of your fridge and your pantry to make sure there's nothing that's going bad that you should be eating and if you do find something that's about to go bad, then use that right away or like in the following few days if you know you have a little time or freeze it but whatever you do make sure that it doesn't go to waste. Also when it comes to the food that you have on your plate, I definitely never would advise you to force yourself to finish your plate if you're not hungry but that doesn't mean that you have to throw your food away. You can totally store it in a container and have it for your next meal and so you're saving food, saving money, it's more convenient, saving time, it's just a win-win-win situation. And just a little side note, these are just tips on how to save money but if any of these things that bring you pleasure and lots of joy in regards to food, even if it's not the best for your wallet, it's still important to treat yourself when you can so if like getting your overpriced coffee at Starbucks every day is something that really really sparks joy for you, I would say keep on doing it. So in short, eating healthy balanced meals doesn't have to be expensive. Planning your meals, sticking to basic ingredients, making your own alternatives, and limiting food waste and all the tips that I mentioned above, they can all be helpful to lower the cost of healthy eating. Maybe on their own these little tips don't do much but if you add them together you can definitely reduce that grocery bill. That's it for this video, thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed it, don't forget to like it and subscribe and see you on my next one. Bye.