Connect the Dots Ginger | Becky Allen: How To Buy Healthy Foods And Save Money At The Grocery Store

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

How To Buy Healthy Foods And Save Money At The Grocery Store

SLOWLY TRANSITION INTO BUYING HEALTHY FOODS
There are some people that say, "go through your cupboards and throw away all the bad foods in your house." It's okay to slowly transition to healthier eating. Use those foods up, eat them but once they are gone, don't buy it anymore. You spent your hard earned money on those foods. Finish it up. Next time you go to the store, is when you start to buy more veggies, or different kinds of veggies.
LOOK AT THE INGREDIENTS
Skip the nutritional info and go straight down to the ingredients list. You might be surprised to find how many ingredients are in a food you love and enjoy! Or even wonder why the heck they add sugar to canned fruits! If you don't know the ingredients, don't buy it. Look for short ingredient lists and avoid the super long ingredients lists. Think about that the next time you buy bread, compared to what you put in bread when you make it homemade.

PICK AND CHOOSE WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO BUY
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when making the change to clean eating is they go to the store and stock pile up on every veggie or fruit they can get their hands on. No wonder why most people think eating healthy is expensive. To save money, you HAVE to pick and choose what fresh fruits and veggies you are going to get a week. Yes, having variety is great, but what if you don't like a veggie you get? What if you can't eat it all? You just wasted all that money. And you won't want to do it again. I personally have "must buy items" every week: 8-10 Apples, and a pack of grapes for Mason's lunch. I also am getting 4 bananas for Elyse now too. And 3 bags of spinach, bell pepper, onion and a bag of baby carrots. Any other fruits or veggies are what I consider "splurge" and I rotate through them. For fruits: one week I will get strawberries and blueberries, the next week I will get pears, or pineapple, or mangos, or oranges. And so forth. Veggies, my splurge items, fresh broccoli, fresh asparagus, rainbow carrots, corn on the cob, cabbage and so forth.

SHOP THE PERIMETER OF THE STORE
Try to avoid the inner isles as much as you can. Those inner isles are the ones with the packaged foods, preservative laden foods, chemicals and additives. Items that you want to get from the isles, old fashioned rolled oats, quinoa, lentils, brown rice. Avoid pasta, canned fruits and veggies (a lot of them have added sugar. Check out the ingredients!) cookies and candies.

BUY FROZEN FRUITS AND VEGGIES OVER FRESH
You tend to get more frozen than you get fresh at a lesser price or for just about the same. But you get more product for your money. To me that is a win win.

DON'T GET PRE-CHOPPED OR PRE-PREPED FOODS
Those pre-chopped, cut or cleaned foods are more expensive than doing it yourself at home. I know it is so nice to have an onion already chopped for you but when it is upwards of $.50 or more just for it to be cut up for you, in my world, I can cut the foods up myself. Save the money! Some foods it might be necessary but just know that you will save a lot more if you buy the whole fruit or veggie over the connivence packaging. I do get the "salad in a bag" at Trader Joe's, but I limit how many I get and I see it as a "splurge item" and I have to be under my budget to get it.

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