Cheap Healthy Meals – How to Feed Your Family on a Budget

Cheap Healthy Meals

Feeding your family on a budget with healthy meal choices can be both challenging and expensive.

Using a little creativity, however, and you can find healthy food choices for your family that suits your budget and saves you money, too!

Eat out less frequently

If you eat out less, you enjoy two significant benefits:

• Your monthly spend on food will be significantly less because eating at restaurants consistently is more expensive than you might realize.
• When you eat out, you lose control over what ingredients are in your meals. What’s on the menu might sound wholesome and healthy, but there’s a strong likelihood that the overall meal won’t be as healthy for you as you’d like it to be.

Grow veggies and herbs at home

You’d be surprised at how much you can save by growing your own herbs and vegetables at home. Even if you have a minimal amount of space outdoors, you can still grow your own garden in pots from decks, porches, or spare rooms around the house.

• Fresh herbs and vegetables taste great, but they get pretty expensive when you buy organic products from a grocery store. By growing your own produce at home, you’ll get the best of benefits from organic foods picked at their peak, and you’ll also be saving money on groceries.

Healthy, Affordable Cooking Tips

For a change of pace and more change in your pocket, try some of these healthy cooking ideas:

1. Grill, don’t fry

Families with kids will understand the desire for chicken nuggets, fish sticks, and other tasty fried foods. They’re inexpensive and convenient, and are they really the best choices you could make for your family? Not really.

Grilled substitutes are a better choice, and they’re not that much more expensive.

• Use your oven or a portable grill to avoid unhealthy fried food favourites for you and your kids.

2. Make some homemade condiments

Store-bought condiments are loaded with extra calories, salt, and sugar. You can make much healthier choices by making your own sauces and relishes right from home.

The added bonus is that these are much less expensive than grocery store varieties in bottles, jars, or cans with more preservatives than you need.

3. Make your own juice

Even “no sugar added” juices on the market today use lots of sugar or artificial sweeteners to make them taste better to consumers. Avoid the extra calories and save yourself a few extra dollars by making your own juice at home. Buying local fruits in season makes them more affordable, and making your own juices at home is better for you.

Cheap healthy meals – no need to break the bank!

Many people assume eating healthy is more expensive, so they end up choosing more expensive and less healthy options for their families. Sometimes it’s necessary to spend a little extra to get better products, but not always. Being creative allows you the opportunity to see healthy options on a budget and enjoy more for less.

Today’s economy demands close attention to opportunities to live better and still save money. Your limited budget shouldn’t limit the nutritional value of the foods you eat.

Healthy and affordable alternatives are within reach, if you seek out these types of bargains for yourselves. Start cooking cheap healthy meals as part of your financial makeover!