There are bills you can move and payments you can put off, but food is one of those things you cannot live without. When my husband left the corporate world, we found our income cut in half so we needed to cut all our bills in half to keep afloat. It was simple for us to cut out cable, cancel the home phone and reduce our car insurance premiums, but food kept sneaking in and taking all our extra money. We decided to do find the healthiest foods for the least amount of money and in the process we cut our grocery bill by 50%.
Learn to use unit prices instead of cost. The most prominent number on the shelf label for any food is the price, but that is not the most important number. There should be a unit price that shows the buyer how much the item costs per unit. We were buying butter at $2.50 per pound. We wanted a healthy alternative without carbohydrates so we chose Best Life spread. Best Life sells in 2-pound containers for $2.50. That is twice as much product for half the price.
Get the most calorie and nutrition bang for your buck. Asparagus is a healthy vegetable rich in vitamin A, vitamin C and iron, but it typically costs about $3.99 per pound. Cabbage, on the other hand, retails for around 69-cents a pound and contains more than 4 times the vitamin C per serving. Both have less than 25 calories per serving. You can buy nearly 6 pounds of cabbage for the price of one pound of asparagus.
Find cheaper alternatives to lean meat-based protein. There is no way we can afford $4.00 or more per pound for lean ground beef. With a family of 6, lean protein was the biggest cost on our grocery bill until we realized that meat-based protein is not the only protein out there. Lentils contain 18 grams of protein per cooked cup. One pound of lentils retails for less than $2.00 a bag. That is half the price of lean ground beef. Other cheap protein alternatives include sweet potato, white potato, kale, peas, sweet corn and soy milk; all of which contain at least 3 grams of protein per serving and cost at least 50% less than lean meat.
Fluff meat dishes with vegetables. When money is extremely tight, we fluff meat with vegetables like mushrooms and cabbage. Simply dice the vegetables very small and fry with your lean burger. We add two parts meat to two parts vegetables, cutting our meat usage in half.
I don’t want to serve my family unhealthy foods just because they are cheaper than healthy foods. You can save at least 50% on your grocery bill and stay healthy by learning more about food and wholesome nutrition. Read your unit price, buy cheaper vegetables with similar nutritional profiles, leave behind meat for other lean proteins and use cheap vegetables to bulk meat dishes and save 50% on your grocery bill and stay healthy at the same time.
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