By Tom Watson, Money Writer at Mozo.com.au
There’s a common misconception that eating cheaply and eating well can’t go hand in hand. While it may take a little more time and effort to maintain a healthy diet, it can certainly be done without having a massive impact on your finances – in fact, a healthy diet could even save you money in the short and long term.
Intrigued? Here are some ideas to help you strike the right balance.
1. Download a free fitness tracker
Before we dive into food tips, it’s important to acknowledge that maintaining a healthy diet isn’t just about eating the right things, it’s also about moderating your intake to suit your own lifestyle.
The good news is that there’s a bunch of free fitness and nutrition tracker apps available for your smartphone, like MyFitnessPal, that can help you keep your healthy habits on track.
These apps allow you to input the meals you eat throughout the day so you can track your daily calorie and macronutrient intake while comparing them against a daily goal. This kind of information can be really important if you’re following a strict diet, or just helpful if you want an easy way of viewing what you’re eating in order to keep yourself accountable.
You’ll also have the added bonus of being able to track your daily cardio and workouts, that way you’ll be able to see the number of calories you’re burning as well as intaking!
2. Prepare your own food
If you’re not doing it already then cooking for yourself is a must when it comes to cost-effective, healthy eating – especially as an alternative to eating out. That’s because cooking in larger quantities is generally cheaper, plus if you’ve got healthy options in your fridge ready to eat you’ll be less reliant on unhealthy healthy snacks or takeaway.
I know what you’re about to say though: “Cooking at home takes too long and fresh vegetables and meat can be expensive.” One solution? Meal prepping.
Even dedicating a few hours a week is enough to prepare lunches or dinners for a week, fortnight or even a month though, and once they’re done you’ll have healthy, ready-to-go meals waiting for you.
For example, you could prepare a homemade chicken stir fry for work lunches for around $20, or $4 each day. If that replaced you spending $10 each day on a takeaway lunch then you’d be saving around $30 each week, or roughly $1,560 a year!
Of course, you might fancy a bit of variety, which is why your freezer is going to be your best friend. As long as you store them properly, cheap, healthy eats like stews, curries and even soups are perfectly delicious after being frozen and reheated, plus they can be flat packed to save you space.
Meal prepping doesn’t just have to be for dinners or lunches though. You could be prepping overnight oats for your breakfast, creating your own muesli or even making protein balls to snack on. The options really are endless!
3. Plan before you buy
If you’re anything like me the old saying ‘never go shopping on an empty stomach’ is absolutely spot on. It’s a dangerous game to play, and one that often ends in a packet of chips or a chocolate bar being thrown into the shopping trolley when it really doesn’t need to be there.
While fueling up before you go shopping is one solution, planning before you buy is the real key to success – both in avoiding temptation and getting the best value for money on healthy alternatives (because sometimes they’re not cheap).
Let’s start with buying in bulk. Like keeping an eye out for discounts, this is one way to cut down your grocery costs in general, but it also applies to your ‘healthier’ staples like oats, rice, grains, lentils, yogurt, cheese, tinned vegetables, meat and even supplements like protein powder.
Whether it’s at your regular supermarket, a local meat market or even an online store, save yourself some money by taking the opportunity to buy in bulk whenever you can – especially if you’ve got the storage space in your pantry or freezer.
Take protein powder for example. Purchasing a quality standard whey protein powder could set you back around $15-$20/lb if you purchase a single pound at a time, but if you made a bulk purchase of 10 pounds the price would drop to around $9-$13/lb. That’s a saving of at least $60!
It also pays to think seasonally when it comes to planning your meals. We may be living in a world where produce is shipped in from far and wide, but that doesn’t mean that certain fruits and vegetables aren’t going to be cheaper when they’re in season.
Check out a seasonal guide for your area to find out the best time to buy different fruits and vegetables to use in your own cooking and meal prepping.
4. Make some simple replacements
This isn’t going to be for everyone, but even replacing a few meals a week with a vegetarian alternative can be a great way to cut down your costs while getting some extra veggies, legumes, lentils or pulses into your diet.
Eating vegetarian doesn’t automatically equate to healthy eating though, so make sure you make the effort of creating a balanced meal that isn’t just mac and cheese. Finding an adequate protein replacement may also be important, especially if you’re tracking your macros, so consider protein-rich, plant-based alternatives such as tofu, seitan, beans or lentils instead.
Speaking of replacement, one of the easiest solutions to improving and maintaining a healthy diet is water! Chances are you could probably be drinking more of it anyway, but making the switch away from soda and other sugary beverages to water could have a huge impact on the way you feel, the calories you’re taking in and ultimately, your wallet.
About Tom Watson
Tom Watson is a money writer at financial comparison website mozo.com.au. When he’s not covering the latest developments in the world of banking and finance, you can find him working out, shanking balls at the driving range or catching up on his favourite podcasts.
