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Eating well can be a hard thing to factor into your daily habits. We live in a fast-paced era where focusing on our diet tends to take a back seat in favour of socialising and work – it can be hard to make sure you are eating right in a manner to suit your budget. But eating well doesn’t have to be expensive. The following are useful tips to have a healthy diet without breaking the bank.
Buy in Bulk
This is a great way to save money in the long run. Cupboard essentials like pasta, organic rice, tins, sauces can all be left for months and sometimes even years until they need to be eaten. This means that when there’s a sale, it’s a good idea to make the most of it and stock up for your future meals. Opened tins usually need to be consumed fairly soon after the first use and kept in the fridge in the meanwhile – but they are a good investment to make to stretch your money long term.
Try Out Meal Prep
This has been a trending practice recently, with lots of healthy recipes available to try out online. This can be a great method to prevent reaching for convenient ready meals and take-aways when you just aren’t in the mood to cook. Spend a little time at the weekend cooking a big, delicious dish and portion it out into smaller meals. Then you can freeze them and slowly and eat them over the week ahead, meaning you save money and make sure you receive the right nutrition.
Eat Less Meat
Veganism is a booming industry at the moment and has been praised for its health benefits and the consciousness of providing nutritionally balanced dishes. Many people think this type of diet is too expensive to maintain, but meat is actually one of the most expensive food shop items on everyone’s list that takes a big chunk out of your spending money. You don’t have to go full vegan but reducing the amount of meat you eat and replacing it with plant-based protein and vegan or vegetarian alternatives is both healthy and cheaper. Our culture today is heavily geared towards meat consumption as the main component of our meals, when in fact vegetables should take up the most space on your plate. Moving away from meat makes you more conscious of your meal structure and gives you a better perspective on what you are putting into your body.
Refrain from Take-outs
These are not only nutritionally weak but also super expensive. They are dangerous to implement regularly because we can naturally fall into the behaviour of ordering once a week as a ‘treat’, or even more frequently than that. It becomes the go-to measure if you don’t feel like cooking, which not only promotes lazy living and not giving yourself balanced home-cooked meals but is deceptively costly. Try to limit yourself to genuinely special occasions, and create healthy behaviours surrounding food.
Make a Shopping List and Stick to it!
Chaos can ensue during the weekly shop if you haven’t done the prep. Going through your fridge, thinking about the meals you want to make mean making a shopping list becomes a natural part of the process. But writing down what you need rather than having a mental list means less room for error with duplicate or unnecessary purchases. If you shop online, checking your basket along with the stock of your kitchen is a brilliant way to make sure you buy what you need – and avoids the temptation of naughty side-purchases when ambling down the aisles.
An online pound store like Low Price Foods is a fantastic shop that doesn’t damage your finances but provides quality products to build a healthy diet. You can find £1 pound products from lowpricefoods.com across a range of different products. You can eat well without eating into your savings when you stock up your cupboards in this online pound shop.
Grow Food at Home
Turning your garden into a veggie patch or placing some edible plants around the house is a fun hobby and a rewarding practice. It is a great form of exercise and provides a lovely source of bonding for families and housemates. It can also provide some aesthetic décor for your property, creating some natural vibrancy in the home. Fresh produce at home is a great budget way to eat your greens, and so many vegetables and fruits can be grown easily at home.
Try out these tips to enjoy delicious healthy, food to fuel your body and mind, while simultaneously saving money. Creating lists for your shopping trips and putting thought into your cooking results in more mindful eating. Eating well and saving money in a pound shop online both reduce stress and have a positive impact on your physical and mental health.