Cheap and healthy foods

Okay so i dont make much money and i care alot about eating just healthy food. and i have to get ALOT cheaper things lately... do u have any good ideas for cheap foods that will last more than a week..or go farther so i dont have to keep going to the store/

any ideas?

Beans are very cheap and healthy.  Buy dried beans, cook up a big batch, and eat them in different dishes throughout the week.  They are sooo  good for you, packed with fiber and low in fat.

Two times a week I buy 6 cans of generic black beans and make a MEAN black bean soup! I swear I could live off that stuff.

HI mom with 5 people in the family I buy a lot of old fashioned oatmeal ,frozen veges, lean meat frozen in bag, kashi granola bars, nuts, My kids love go gurts from the freezer(healthier icecream haha) If you have a sams club membership thiss stuff is cheaper in bulk. and it keeps for a long time...Apples also keep for a week or more in the fridge, beans are good too I could go on and on but those are basic in my houshold.

Beans are cheap. Corns are about 39 cents a can. Tomato (paste), rice they are all cheap. From those you can make some amazing corn and black bean chili. AMAZING. Cheap, nutricious, tasty - what more can you want??

CC recipe

I haven't tried that recipe but that's about how it goes.

-Lemon Jello

VONS has pears on sale right now. 3lbs/$1.

Powdered milk is a staple in my diet. I use it to make homemade hot chocolate mix,  in smoothies and in making 0% fat yogurt.

If you are OK on your sodium, an occasional Ramen Noodles does well.

With the cool weather coming along ( at least where I live) soup is a real dollar stretcher.  I just bought the worst chicken I have ever bought in my life.  Turns out it was a stewing chicken...a tough old bird loaded with salt.  But it was cheap!  Anyway, we didn't (couldn't) eat much of it the way it was so I turned it into chicken/ vegetable soup (onions, celery and carrots) and it is DELICIOUS.  I'll have a bowl and the rest will go into the feezer.

I like to browse the fresh fruit aisle for berries, peaches and bananas about to go bad (all over this time of year).  I take them home, cut them up, weigh them and put them in baggies in the freezer.  For an easy on the go breakfast, I dump a baggie or two in the blender with some water and make a fruit smoothie.  YUM!

    I do the same with the sale items,  I try not to waste food so i will make something i am not particularly crazy about just to use up the things that could spoil.  Sometimes i end up throwing a whole bunch of stuff together and its yummy.
 Waste not want not. 
As for low cost things avoid buying those pre cut veg fruit things,  they are lots more expensive and i tend to eat for of them than if i have to cut up the fruits and vegs myself. 

Yum...I second the black beans.  I will take a can and make quesdillas with just some tortillas and add in a little enchillada sauce, or else a little bit of mexican cheese.  So good!  If you can't find refried black beans just mash the regular ones with a fork.

I'm in the same boat as you, needing to stick to a budget when it comes to groceries. A few things i've found.

buy whole veggies (carrots, celery, broccoli etc) and cut them up and put in baggies instead of buying bags of cut up stuff.

Buy frozen veggies in resealable bags instead of cans, in my case i'm the only one who will eat green beans and opening a whole can is a waste.

brown rice and dried beans, can make larger amounts of these foods and they'll last for a few days.

I get skinless boneless chicken from sams club it's always a good price and seems to be better quality than king soopers or safeway.

egg noodles with "i can't believe it's not butter spray" and some ms dash is a very cheap meal.

 

I recommend Hodgeson Mill's (or another brand )whole wheat couscous - 1 cup cooked is not even 100 calories, really filling and you can buy a pound for around $3.50. Another very healthy one is steel cut oatmeal. This type of oatmeal is considered one the healthiest types and again a 1/2 bag (last 2 weeks - if you ate it every day) is around $4.00.

 Good luck 

there are lots of good ideas in these threads!

cheap eating #1

cheap eating #2

which is cheaper?

I hope you find them useful!  Let me know if the links don't work!

Vegetables and Fruits

- Buy frozen fruits and veggies (they are cheaper, healthier, and you don't have to worry about spoiling them!)

- Only buy your fruits and veggies in season (right now, it's February and oranges, tangelos, and tangerines are in season! watch how inexpensive they are)

- Bananas, and apples are relatively inexpensive year round

Meat

Don't eat meat! It's expensive! Buy the whole chicken, instead of boneless chicken breasts, etc... since they are so much more expensive! 1 pound of chicken is 99 cents vs. 6.99 a pound for the bonless chicken breasts!

Instead, get your protein from: Cottage cheese, fat free yogurt, peanut butter, eggs, beans, and complex carbs!

Only shop on sale and make your meals around what's on sale!

Generally speaking, I find real food the cheapest. The more it's processed, the more packaging, the more expensive it is.  Calorie for calorie, pound for pound, I find real fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, rice, etc. very inexpensive.  My food bills are far less than any of my friend's and I am far healthier as a result.  I found a couple of local markets that are fairly inexpensive for certain things and sometimes you have to go to more than one place to get your grocery list filled, but it's worth it for me.  I also tend to buy stuff on sale, as opposed to just what I want at the time.  Squash for example is dirt cheap in the fall in Ontario, 1/3 or less the regular price, so I buy several.  They last for weeks on the counter, months even, and if I can't use them up, I just cut them into chunks, steam them, and freeze them and they keep for months in the freezer.  By the time they are used up, it's next fall already...lol. 

Not sure where you l live but a great way to shop in the UK is online.  There are some amazing sales 2-for-1 and 50% off on a lot of groceries right now.

If can - budget an amount for food for the month - and shop online biweekly (or weekly) and stick to the amount.  Lets say you budget $60/month on food - so do a shop online every 2 weeks and make sure when you checkout that your bill isn't over $30.  Some of the websites suggest cheaper alternatives and its a quick and easy way to get everything you need.  This way you don't walk thru the aisles and grab random things you don't need and you stick to your budget.  You'd be surprised how far you can stretch your money.

Just a thought :)