How to Eat Right on a Budget

You’re almost two months into your New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, right? How’s it working out?

The truth is most of those 2018 promises you’ve made to yourself, such as exercising and eating right, tend to fall by the wayside around the end of February.

The hustle and bustle of life, our propensity to find solace in convenience and the always agreed upon “crutch” of a comment about how you don’t have enough time often seep into your thought as resolutions turn to redemption, in this case for 2019.

Roughly 80 percent of New Year’s Resolutions end by mid February, so if you’re still hanging on at this moment, kudos to you.^[1]

The top two resolutions are the ones the majority of people tend to struggle with keeping: eating right (losing weight) and saving money.

Ironically, these two are joined at hip if you consider the popular excuse by the general why losing weight and changing your diet and saving money work against one another.

Simply put, eating healthy is just too expensive.

Most who use that justification point toward the cost of a salad on a take-out or dinner menu being much more expensive that a burger and fries. They aren’t afraid to pull into the equation and subsequent argument the notion that direct-to-door meal planning and ingredients is far too costly when it’s so much easier to buy a package of hot dogs, heat them and go to town.

And, let’s not even get started on the convenience factor.

How simply is it to nuke a packaged sandwich out of the freezer or a plate of fish sticks versus the time, effort and poise to piece together the perfection that is a home-cooked meal?

Think about it, maybe those who are beating that healthy food is expensive drum have a point.

It’s so easy to hit a drive-thru window versus slaving over a hot stove and buying ready-made items at the grocery store rather than ingredients.

Or, is it?

You might be surprised to find out that eating healthy is more expensive than the trans fat, high sodium and unhealthy alternative, but not the financial investment you believed.

As much as we want to label healthy food as a cost prohibitive reason why we can’t eat better or lose weight, that doesn’t hold much water in the overall scope of the total bottom line you’ll spend.

Research suggests that eating foods better for you costs about $1.50 more per day, roughly $500 more per year on average.^[2]

What most tend to do is make assumptions about healthier alternatives due to a preconceived notion that “health food” consists of what only the famous and well off individuals and those of the celebrity status can afford to do consistently unless you’re eating apples and oranges all day.

Forget about organic foods, protein powder and other luxuries, right?

Wrong, so very wrong.

Here are a few tips on how to eat right on a budget, so that saving money and healthier eating can live within your household in perfect harmony:

Prep Schooled: Meal planning makes for healthier, cost effective shopping

When you talk about convenience and unhealthy eating, you inevitably go back to the example of the take-out food or drive-thru window approach to how you eat.

A Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, for example, at Wendy’s is $1.99 in comparison to a $4.69 Apple Pecan Chicken Salad (the half portion).^[3]

Not only is the food served up quickly and efficiently but the less healthy version is cheaper, too.

Often lost in this argument is the ability to meal prep and save money at the grocery store and make meals for much less per person (not to mention having food leftover for lunch the day next day or so).

Studies have shown that making lists and meal prepping lead to less money spent at the grocery store, suggesting that is more money in your pocket. As easy as it is to think that spending $2 on a store bough, fast-food burger is better than making food at home because it’s “cheaper,” you’d actually be wrong.

The average meal as part of a meal prep is $6 per meal, so roughly $30 a week for dinner, per person.^[4]

Consider that meal prep also allows you to not only have meals for lunch and dinner, but allows you to avoid the temptation to snack at work and thus make bad food choices, as well. The idea of snagging a bag of potato chips in the vending machine sounds convenient, but like the lunch time hamburger even though meal prep is a one-day affair on average.

And if meal prepping seems as though cost is an issue, the average fast-food “value” meal is between $5 and $7, and a family of four eats for $28.^[5]

Funny, the number that falls between $5 and $7 is the $6 a healthy meal prep costs you at home, not to mention a family of four eating for $24, versus the aforementioned $28.

Don’t forget too that meal planning is concise and regulated so not only can you control what you eat, make it more convenience but also prepping and planning what you buy saves money. The average person wastes about $529 per year on food they throw away.^[6]

Planning plays a role in making sure that money stays put.

Snack Ill-Timed: Snacking on the cheap is easier than you think

In addition to the bigger meals and the penchant of most to assume that healthy is impossibly expensive, snacks also make the list as being “cheaper” for things that aren’t the best for you.

Saving money and eating healthy from a budgetary perspective are viewed as taxing, trying and downright difficult, particularly when you get into the discussion about fruits and vegetables being so expensive, while pretzels, bags of chips and other high-fat, high-sodium foods are a lot less money.

Whether or not that is true sits squarely on the numbers.

Take a three pound bag of apples (about nine apples in total) costing on average about three to five dollars per bag, so let’s say in the neighborhood of $4.^[7]

Depending on whether you consider a full apple as a serving size (which is about right), you’re getting nine servings for $4, so roughly 44 cents per apple.

Your neighborhood grocery store might sell a bag of potato chips, on average, for $4.29 for 9.5 or 10 ounce bags.^[8]

The average servings out of a 10 ounce bag is about 10, and that equates to about 43 cents per serving.

Those apple snacks seem a whole lot more desirably than the potato chips when you consider the money aspect of it, along with the obvious disparity from a healthier eating regimen.

Shifting from snacks to beverage choices, consider a simple comparison between water and sugary, “diet” drinks that contain Aspartame and Sucralose.

Beverages loaded with sugar and artificial additives actually have been studied closely and make you hungrier as you consume them. Conversely, water helps satiate and lessen your appetite.

Those who gravitate toward the sugary drinks or diet fare are going to spend more, just as a generality, than those who consume more water based on the overeating versus feeling full, respectively feel you get from those drinks.

In addition, when it comes to snacking and fruit, try to purchase in-season items because they’re cheaper to buy that way.

Buying frozen fruit and vegetables are an alternative you can’t ignore, mostly due to the cost being relatively the same versus their “fresh” counterpart, not to mention you won’t throw away as much food, potentially, either.

Americans throw away $165 billion worth of food each year.^[9]

Talk about a waste.

Package Deal: Why direct to door delivery meals are viable option

From Blue Apron to Plated, you can’t ignore the hype and fanfare around the direct-to-door, ingredients in a box and ready to prepare and serve that is gaining momentum and generating some serious revenue streams for the aforementioned companies and others of that ilk.

You can’t argue that take-out food is much pricier than the at-home meals, almost to a 2 to 1 margin.

But can you get the convenience of take out and couple it with healthier, portioned and delicious (and reasonably priced) meals too?

Blue Apron, Plated and Hello Fresh (another marquee player in this marketplace) are convinced the answer is “yes.”

If you order a conventional dinner, with two sides at a restaurant (chicken as the main entree), you’ll spend on average about $13.41 per person, per meal.^[10]

Those restaurants, per the study, are Denny’s, Olive Garden, Boston Market and Cheesecake Factory, for instance.

Looking at what Blue Apron offers, including the delivery piece, much like a take-out place would do as well, the company offers a price point of $9.99 per meal for two people (per person) and it’s as low as $8.74 per meal, per person if you order meals for four people, rather than just two.^[11]

Blue Apron gives you a discount the more meals you order, which makes sense, but even at the two-person meal price, they’re still cheaper than an average dining experience or take-out, and you could argue that Blue Apron gives you better quality and more diverse dining options as well.

The projections and prosperity of these types of meal delivery entities is also on the rise, and if the pricing remains aggressive for the average consumer, you’ll see an increase from its current status among people: roughly 19 percent say they’ve tried direct to door dinner and meal planning, with the thought that it will be a billion dollar business by 2022.^[12]

More so, the idea that somehow this definition of opulence of ordering food and having it delivers so you can just open, unpack and cook is costing a small fortune is laughable given that it’s less than eating out in a restaurant or ordering take-out, per person.

That only plays into the misguided nature of how people eat, and the cost that is involved, suggesting that only the rich can revel and benefit from this sort of service.

Not the case, whatsoever.

Given the fact that certain healthier products, in fact, have a higher point than others that are similar (consider almond milk versus the regular version), the tendency to immediately jump to conclusion that eating healthy is difficult and costly is a natural, voluntary one.

Where the major disconnect lies in the thinking that healthy eating, as a whole, across the board, is too expensive for the average Joe or Jane and thus should be dispatched into the darkness that is anything from a New Year’s Resolution to a lifestyle change in general.

The other piece that those same individuals point to is how healthy food often is described as “premium,” using that exact word in the rhetoric. Anything from a premium chicken wrap on a menu to premium cuts of meat aren’t viewed as fare for the common person but rather a delicacy that only Beyonce and Tom Brady can enjoy as the standard operating practice within the walls of their respective kitchens.

The bottom line is price and quality tend to be a marriage that you can rely on, but that isn’t always the case. The idea that “price and quality” are so closely and frequently grouped together is part of the reason healthy food has been labeled pricey.

Dispelling that notion with the aforementioned tips only serves as notice to income sensitive individuals content on saving money, yet still longing for longevity in years, that having the best of both worlds from your food and financial standing is a resolution that isn’t meant to be broken.

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