How to Eat Healthy on a Budget

Staying on track with your diet can be tough enough. If you’re on a tight budget, eating healthy can be even harder with overpriced health foods taking the world by storm. I mean, you have to wonder why a small salad can put a dent in your wallet compared to the fast food value menu (am I right?!). Nonetheless, eating clean and nutritious whole foods is vital for our well-being. Today, we’re covering 5 tips on how to eat healthy on a budget, so keep reading and let’s get to it!

We’ll start our tips off with general planning and money saving tips, and get to a sample grocery list at the end!

1. Plan your meals

A simple yet effective way to eat healthy on a budget, is to do the prep work required. This means: planning your meals, creating a grocery list, and staying right on track by buying only what you need.

Make a meal plan

Meal plans are a life saver when it comes to eating healthy on a tight budget. By planning out your meals ahead of time, you know exactly what groceries you need to by (so you don’t over indulge at the grocery store), and you avoid spending money by eating out.

Making a meal plan is super simple. It’s just a matter of looking at the week ahead, and writing out what meals and snacks you’re going to be eating each day. If you need some help on meal planning, you can download our free meal planning toolkit here. It comes with a template and everything you need to get started!

Create a Grocery List

Once you’ve created your meal plan, be sure to make a crisp list on what groceries you’ll be needing. Creating a grocery list can help you eat healthy on a budget for a few reasons:

Grocery lists keep you on track. Go into the store and buy exactly what you need. Nothing more!
By planning your groceries out ahead of time, you can take advantage of price matching (which we’ll get to shortly).
And, by making a grocery list you can get your coupons ready (which we’ll also cover in a moment).

Once you’ve got your groceries, try meal prepping some of your meals ahead of time to make sure you’re not wasting any food. This helps you stay on track with the original meal plan you created. If you need some tips on how to meal prep from end-to-end, you can check out our ultimate guide to meal-prepping for beginners.

2. Buy the generic brand

A timeless hack for money saving tips at the grocery store, don’t shy away from the generic brand. If you’re not overly picky on the flavour of staple grocery items: i.e. ketchup, salt, pasta, etc., you can save lots of money by going generic. Generally, by buying generic, you can save anywhere from 30% to 50% of the price of the item.

If you are more particular about the taste or flavour of generic vs. branded, then finding the best price might be a better option for you. Which brings us to our next point…

3. Research the best price

The easiest way to eat healthy on a budget is to find the best prices for the items you’ll be purchasing. There are lots of ways to do this. You can research the best prices, you can shop at generally cheaper grocery stores, you can use coupons, price match, and more.

Ever notice how you can buy the same brand of canned tuna for two totally different prices at two different grocery stores? Both cans are produced by the same manufacturer, it’s the same brand, it’s literally the exact same product. Yet, one is selling for $0.99 per can at one store, and the other is selling for almost 3x the price, at $2.99 per can.

That’s because not everything is equal when it comes to pricing at various grocery stores and retailers. With a little bit of research and time, you can find the best prices.

Use apps and tools

Nowadays, there are lots of apps and tools to help you easily research the best price for any product your buying. Apps like Flipp quickly curate the sales and deals happening in your area. All you do is enter in the product you’re looking for, and the most affordable deal in store will pop up.

Price match

If you’re not fond of driving from store to store just to pick up your different grocery items all at the cheapest prices, then look into price matching. Price matching is where a store will honour the sale price at another store if you show them proof that you can get it cheaper elsewhere. For example, let’s say you’re buying a bottle of Heinz ketchup for $3.99 at Store A, but it’s on sale for $1.99 at a competing store, Store B. Since you’re buying all your other groceries at Store A, chances are you don’t want to make the drive to Store B just for a bottle of ketchup – and just to save $2. If you show the cashier proof (i.e. through a flyer), that Store B has the ketchup on for $1.99, they’ll honour the price of Store B.

Not every grocery store practices price matching, so make sure you double check that they do before you plan to get multiple things price matched on your grocery list. This is a great way to save you time from jumping grocery store to grocery store, but also gives you the option to get the cheapest price for your goods!

Use coupons

There is nothing, and may I repeat, nothing wrong with using good old-fashioned coupons! After all, they exist for a reason! Coupons can save you lots of money at the grocery store, and every dollar adds up.

You receive coupons all the time – in the mail, as an insert in other products when you purchase them, etc. Make it a habit to start saving these coupons and refer to them when you’re about to do your groceries. On the other side, you can actively search for coupons or the best prices online through tools like Honey, Flipp, and more.

4. Go Meatless

The never-ending debate of whether meat is actually good for you or not isn’t going away any time soon. So whether you’re a meat lover or an aspiring vegan, going meatless for a few meals can apparently help with your health, but will also save you lots on your grocery list.

To start easing this into your diet, try going meatless one day a week (i.e. #MeatlessMonday). Alternatively, you can opt in for one meatless meal per day. Cutting meat out entirely for one meal a day adds up in the finance department, and you’ll notice how much cheaper your grocery bill is. If you’re in search for other high-protein foods in lieu of meat, try substituting meat for protein shakes, greek yogurt, lentils, or chickpeas. You can check out more healthy-on-a-budget foods in the grocery list below.

5. Opt in for lower priced foods

An obvious (but yet not so obvious) way to eat healthy on a budget, is to opt in for generally cheaper foods. In an ideal world, we’re eating organic, farm-fed, fresh foods 24/7. Unfortunately, that’s not always an option for the large majority of people. It’s important to still get your nutrients in through whole foods, so here are a few ways to do that.

Prepared meat: Instead of buying a pack of boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, (which can run you at about $5 per breast), try buying a rotisserie chicken (which will get you a whole chicken for about $9 and last you for a few days)
Non-perishables: Buying non-perishables (especially when they’re on sale), is another great way to get your food lower priced. Think canned chickpeas, black beans, and more. Just be sure to look at the ingredients list and sodium level. You are trying to eat healthy after all, so you don’t want to compromise your health for a few bucks on non-perishables. Nowadays, there are lots of canned options without many preservatives or added ingredients, just keep an eye out!
Frozen foods: Fruits and vegetables are a great option to buy frozen, especially items like berries, broccoli, kale, etc. It’s great to have fresh fruit, but if you find you have to spend lots of money just to get enough fruits / veggies to last you for the week, buying frozen is a great option.