How to Eat Healthy Foods on a Grocery Budget

Healthy eating is as important as ever during these difficult economic times when stress and uncertainty can negatively affect our immune systems and overall sense of well-being. With many of us needing to shrink our grocery budgets, how can we still eat wholesome, healthy foods when even necessities like fruits and vegetables are becoming more expensive?

I started working on a grocery budget several months ago in anticipation of a reduced household income. I was unwilling to trade healthy foods for less expensive, lower quality foods, but I wasn't initially sure how to accomplish that and stay within a reasonable budget.

I began by educating myself about foods, nutrition and ways to make changes. What I learned was eye-opening. We are still eating healthy, nutritious foods, but spending much less each month. Here's what's working for us:

I made a point of learning when and where the sales are because we're no longer buying fresh fruits and vegetables unless there's a tremendous sale. For example, I never buy bananas at the going rate in this area of 78 cents a pound. However, I learned that our local grocery store has what it calls "Wacky Wednesday," when bananas are an in-store special of 48 cents a pound. That's also the day the store offers several other in-store sales on select fresh fruits and vegetables. So, moving my grocery shopping day to "Wacky Wednesday" means I take advantage of the sales, allowing my family to still have some fresh fruits and vegetables.

We've made frozen and canned fruits and vegetables staples in our home. We know that frozen and canned fruits and vegetables are much less expensive than fresh, whether you buy them preserved or take the time to can and freeze them from your own garden or farmer's market. Interestingly - and surprising to me - I learned that fresh fruits and vegetables are not necessarily more nutritionally sound than those that have been commercially preserved. Because the process of commercially freezing and canning foods today is much improved over past years, properly preserved foods retain much, if not all, of their nutritional value. This also makes it possible to buy preserved fruits and vegetables in bulk, taking advantage of sales, in-store specials and bulk purchases at food warehouses. Fresh fruits and vegetables can also be purchased in bulk during good sales, if you are inclined to process and preserve them yourself - which I admittedly am not.

No more soda or bottled water. Although our tap water is not from a well, it sometimes doesn't taste good. We were buying a lot of bottled water, but have since been filtering our tap water. We purchased a faucet water filter system that removes all unpleasant taste and odor, as well as contaminants. There are several brands of water filtration systems available at very reasonable prices; ours paid for itself in no time when we stopped buying bottled water. The water filter helped our grocery budget by not only encouraging us to drink tap water, but it also helped us to stop buying soda.

We stopped buying snack foods that are individually packaged, exchanging convenience for saving money. Although it's not as convenient to buy a box of whole grain crackers and a jar of peanut butter to make our own snacks, making the effort to package our own snacks has significantly helped our grocery budget.

These few and simple steps have made a tremendous difference in our spending habits at the grocery store. Not only that, we've not given up nutrition and may even be eating healthier than we were before developing a grocery budget.