Happy Friday everyone! How was your week? Mine’s been hectic with work and uploading YouTube videos, Instagram photo’s and general social medai-ing for next week as I’m away in Poland! I’ve been uploading YouTube videos on a really old and slow laptop so fingers crossed I can get a new computer soon! The drama’s of a blogger and YouTuber!
Anyway, today’s post is about better eating on a budget or ‘Better Budget Eating’ as I like to call it. As someone who was recently a student and on a low income I picked up some tips and tricks on how to eat healthy on a small budget that I’d thought I’d share with you! So without further ado let’s get started….
1. Make a shopping list!
I can’t stress this enough it’s soo important to make a shopping list before you go shopping as it means you won’t buy extra food which in turn means you spend extra money. Not good my friends, not good! Especially when your weekly food budget is between £20-£30!
Go through your cupboards and write out what you need. I like to divide my list into sections for fresh food, frozen, store cupboard and miscellaneous. As you become accustomed to what store’s sell which brands cheaper than another supermarket you can even divide your list into where you shop! I did this whilst I was at university as I knew the local market had better, fresher fruit and vegetables, meat, fish etc. but that Home Bargains and Morrison’s where the best value for tinned goods, household goods, diary, bread etc.
2. Bargain Shops.
Some people turn up their nose at bargain shops like Home Bargains (my favorite shop besides Wilko’s), Pound Stretcher, Iceland etc. but I don’t. These type of shops offer frozen, fresh and household goods for a fraction of the cost of larger supermarkets. Iceland sell own brand and Linda McCartney vegetarian food far cheaper than Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s do. Home Bargains stocks dried, tinned and baking goods with many of the brands being household names and again they’re cheaper than the supermarket.
Iceland is great for cheap fresh fruit and veg and frozen fruit and veg. With frozen bags of veg starting from £1.00 there is no excuse not to add some to your trolley! Similarly, LIDL and ALDI sell excellent own brand ranges of Mexican, Spanish, Chinese etc. food that are again cheaper than big brand competitors. Which brings me onto my next tip…
3. Own Brand Food.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying own brand bread, dried, baking or household goods. Value brand or own brand products are just as good as as their upmarket competitors and in some cases they are even made in the same factory. I’ve been buying Sainsbury’s own brand porridge mixed with bran for years now at £1.30 a bag as buying a named brand porridge and bran can cost up to £4.00 for both. Also, I buy value beans, pulses and lentils to bulk out soups, stews, casseroles etc. which taste every bit as good as the more expensive branded tins
4. Plan your meals!
Look through your cook book collection, because everyone has one of these right?! I like to look through my many, many cook books and write a rough plan of what I’m going to be eating and meal prepping for the week ahead. This not informs my shopping list but also means I have a variety of mouth-watering recipe’s to choose from when I’m meal prepping and cooking!
5. Bulk buy and cook.
I’m a great advocate for people bulk buying and bulk cooking if you can. I try to buy my favorite peanut butter, nut milk, dried goods, household goods etc. whenever they are on offer. Though this depends if I’m doing online shopping or just popping into the supermarket and spot a good bargain on some of the above named items. I can’t realistically carry back ten cartons of oat milk if I’m walking to the supermarket!
Also bulk cooking is an awesome way to save money on a budget and make sure you always have something healthy to hand. This is particularly true if you are cooking for yourself or maybe one other person such as a boyfriend in my case. I try to always make one extra portion when I’m cooking as that means I will have a yummy lunch the next day as well as having the option to freeze any leftovers that don’t need to be used up straight away. It’s no joke that people in my work are always envious of my lunch because of all the yummy food I’ve cooked or meal prepped the night before!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post and check out my YouTube video below for some more in-depth tips on how to eat better on a budget! Happy Friday everybody!