Eating healthy for less

I posted to facebook the other day that I am a firm believer that you can eat healthy on the cheap.  Not only do I believe it, I live it!  However, I will not tell you it is easy, or quick because neither would be true. It takes commitment, organization and dedication.  But can be done!

For one,  I coupon.  This has reduced my out of pocket expenses by at least 75% over the past 5 months or so. Secondly, on items I don't have coupons for, I look for great pricing and then stock up a bit. For example, this week I can buy red, orange and yellow bell peppers for $1 a piece. That is a good price for me, so I buy a few of each, clean, cut and freeze them.  I now have a supply to cook with for a couple months.  I have also made stuffed peppers and froze them.  This is but one example of how I do it.  Another example is on meat and seafood, which again I don't usually get coupons for. A few weeks ago our local store had whole pork loins on sale. The entire loin was $10 or so, we bought it, asked the butcher to cut it into 1 roast and the rest pork chops.  That one loin will make 4 meals in my house, feeding 3 adults and 1 child. I do the same as with veggies.

By getting ahead of the game, I am shopping for items on sale and not items I need right now.  My last example is buying in bulk when I can.  Now, I am not talking about 50 lbs of flour here, who has room for that. I go to wholefoods or the Amish store and buy small quantities of bulk items. Like couscous, it is much more expensive by the box and you also avoid the preservatives in the powdered flavoring.  Grains, pastas and spices are great items to buy in bulk.

Shopping for my family has become pretty easy now that I have figured out what we like to eat, what I can cook with and what I have stocked up on.  We are pretty basic at my house, meaning we eat lean protein, fresh or frozen veggies and a rice or grain a couple times a week.  In the summer we eat a lot of fresh veggies from the farmers market, but in the winter when things are more expensive we are ok with eating frozen.  I use lot's of spices and herbs to change up the flavors and mix up the cooking technique a lot to keep things from getting boring.

Because the bulk of our diet is fresh/frozen and coupons are hard to find. I save on everything else!

This has been a very long process to get to this point.  But now that I am here, I am staying!