a-rinna:

aka things my broke ass has found helpful in learning how to eat healthy on a budget.

Note that

• 1) I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, and you should exercise your own discretion and common sense in making any changes to your diet.
• 2) The links + tips here are US-centric and YMMV at how helpful they are depending on your location, your budget, your own definition of what’s healthy, and what you have available for you in your area. This post might be super helpful for some and totally worthless for others. Take what’s useful for you and ignore the rest.
• 3) The point of this post is not to tell anyone what to do or that they must eat in a certain way. Your body means your choices and that includes food choices. You have the right to eat what you want, no matter what it is, and it’s no one’s business but your own. This post is not judging you for that or telling you that you have to change anything about your eating habits if you don’t want to.

And now on to the post.

Eat Cheap & Healthy Links

• r/EatCheapandHealthy on reddit – An active community of people exchanging advice and recipes
• Free Nutritional Analysis For Your Recipes
• How to Feed A Family of 4 For a Week on $25 (Includes Grocery List and Meal Plan)
• Good and Cheap by Leanne Brown (for $4 per day meals, aimed at Americans on SNAP)
• r/7dollardinners – Recipes that cost $7 or less to make.
• What Produce Is In Season Right Now?
• Budget Bytes – Queen of cheap recipes.
• BBC GoodFood Cheap and Healthy Recipes
• r/CookingForBeginners – Information, resources and easy recipes for people who are just learning how to cook.
• r/freebies – Free sample subreddit, often posts about free + discounted food deals that restaurants are having as well as freebies from grocery stores
  
• r/coupons – Find coupons to use
• r/Frugal – General cheap living advice and resources
• Guide to Cooking and Baking Substitutions
• Different Kinds of Meat and the Best Way to Cook Them
• food52 – Awesome website for learning more about cooking and food
• Restaurants That Offer Free Food on Your Birthday – Remember to sign up for these at least a month before your birthday
• How to Start Mealprepping
• Still Tasty – Site that explains the shelf-lives of food, how to store food safely, and what is still good until when

Eating Cheap & Healthy Tips

• Don’t actually know how to cook? Use Youtube. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of cooking channels on there and many of them are beginner friendly. Figure out what you want to do/make and find a tutorial for it. Watch it a few times and then try it yourself.
• Make a grocery list before you go shopping. Use your local store’s circular (that paper that lists all the prices for the week on it) to help you out. Organize your list into sections based on the direction you walk through the store (do you hit the produce first? things you plan to buy in that section go first. do you hit the meat next? that goes second) and add up the cost of what you plan to buy as you go.
• Don’t shop for single meals. Meaning: Don’t buy a bunch of ingredients that you plan on only making one thing with unless you’re buying them by the serving, because you’ll always have ingredients leftover and if you don’t know what to do with them they’ll go bad and it’ll lead to money and food waste. Pick up ingredients that you know you can use in multiple meals throughout the week instead.
• Shop seasonally. Certain fruits and veggies are cheaper certain times of the year. Figure out what’s in season in your area and make your meal plans accordingly.
• Coupon, coupon, coupon. A lot of grocery stores now have coupons available on their websites, always check those out. A lot of places also offer free newspapers that include coupons in them (these can usually be found at grocery stores, drug stores, or even the library) and if you know anyone who pays for a Sunday paper but doesn’t use the coupons in them, ask if you can have them. You can also print coupons out at home on various coupon sites but ALSO make sure to check the product manufacturer’s site as well because they usually have coupons available there, too. Don’t have a printer? Consider printing coupons out at your local library – they usually charge for printing but if you pay 10 cents to print off a $1 coupon for a product you know you’re going to buy you’re still saving 90 cents on it.
• Read the nutritional information and ingredients list on the food you buy. Pay attention to serving sizes and ask yourself if that’s really the amount YOU eat per serving, if you tend to eat more then double/triple all of the information listed on the label. A lot of packaged food lists unrealistic serving sizes that are much smaller than what the average person actually eats in an effort to make their product seem healthier than it actually is; cereal, in particular, is extremely shady about doing this.
• Check to see if there are any food pantries in your area. There’s no shame in having to ask for help and if you’re on a tight budget, getting an extra bag of food from a pantry once a week or month can make a world of difference. Also consider applying for food assistance benefits if you’re not already on them. Your pride isn’t going to feed you but your community might.
• See if any fast food places in your area take competitor coupons. Fast food may not be ‘healthy’ but sometimes it’s all people can get and eating at McDonald’s is healthier than starving. Ever get a sheet full of buy one/get one free coupons in the mail but they’re for a restaurant that’s nowhere near you? It varies from location to location but a lot of fast food places take competitor coupons (i.e. coupons for other fast food places) and you can save loads of money by using them. Also consider following your local fast food places on twitter/facebook/other social media so you can always be informed of deals they might be offering. Many fast food places even offer free food to people who sign up for their newsletters or download their apps.
• Buy a slow-cooker. The #1 appliance of low-effort, cheap as hell cooking – and not just for making soup. You can make roasts, chilli, desserts, beans, breakfasts, pretty much anything in a slow-cooker with many recipes only requiring you to throw a bunch of stuff in there and turn it on. These are cheap to buy new but think about checking local thrift shops and yard sales for them and you can get one for as little as $5 if not less.
• Remember you’re allowed to splurge on things. The world is too quick to hate people for silly shit for you to hate yourself because you don’t want to give up avocado toast. It’s okay to splurge on things even if you “can live without it” or there are cheaper options available. Eating healthy isn’t worth a shit if you’re miserable the whole time you’re doing it.
• Learn to cook the things you buy pre-packaged. Bread, soup/stock/broth, pasta dishes, and salad dressing are probably the top 4 store-bought items that are cheaper to make at home than they are to buy pre-made. Look into recipes for these things and see if making them yourself is something you might want to try doing.
• Build up a well-stocked spice rack and learn how to properly season your food. Figuring out different ways to season your food other than just salt goes a long way to eating healthier (and less boring) meals at home. Don’t feel like you have to spend a ton of money on spices, though. If you have supermarkets in your area that sell region-specific ingredients (such as a Chinese market or a Middle Eastern market), they’re a great place to find cheap spices. Otherwise, a lot of Dollar Stores have entire sections of $1 spices and seasonings available that are just as good quality as the shit you’d pay $7+ for at a grocery store.
• Keep a cooking journal. Write down recipes you frequently use, conversion charts, helpful tips, and more. Not only does this make a good reference book that’s actually relevant to your own cooking but it makes for a good keepsake that you might some day hand down to your cats and them to their grandcats.
• Don’t have time to cook every day? Think about mealprepping instead. Mealprep is when you cook all your food for a week/month/however long in a single day or in a couple of days, store it, and then take it out to use it as needed. If you have adequate fridge/freezer space, mealprepping might be a good option for you.

and that is all for this post! I hope some of y’all find the links and tips here useful! 😊🍓