Why does eating well cost so much?

I went food shopping yesterday and just picked up a few things...  fresh fruit and veggies, some tuna... nothing really.  I spent close to $50!  This food might last me a week.  Does anyone have any tips on buying healthy but still staying within budget?  I coupon clip, I have store cards... but it seemed like nothing was on sale yesterday!   Any advice on where and when to buy to help save a few bucks?

• beans, lentils, rolled oats, etc. are cheap and very healthy
• look for the cheaper vegetables; carrots may not be as yummy as asparagus (IMO) but you can get a *lot* more of them for $5; what's cheap will vary by region but generally includes carrots, cabbage, potatoes, etc.
• look for the cheaper fruit (same rationale as above); usually includes apples, oranges and whatever's on sale
• stock up on nonperishables like tuna when they're on sale - especially if they go as low as half price
• avoid pre-packaged "diet" foods (which it sounds like you're already doing)

Honestly, though, $50 for a week's food doesn't sound crazy to me.  When I was in undergrad, I spent about $25/week to feed one person - and I used every cost-cutting measure possible (within reason; I refused to cut fresh produce out completely but shopped at the supercheap for-students-mostly grocery store).  That was 15 years ago, so inflation would translate that to $40-50 these days.

Watch the chicken - at my grocery store, there is sometimes a weekly special where breasts are 1.99/lb - we buy as many as can fit in the freezer and defrost as needed.

My tips would be to plan your meals carefully in advance and then shop only for what you need with a list.  If something on your list is on special offer, bulk buy it.  But don't shop when you're hungry because you buy more! 

Work a few vegetarian meals into each week.... Fresh meat and fish are fantastic but expensive.  Things like rice, pasta, other grains, potatoes, pulses (legumes) are really cheap, pretty healthy and quite filling.  Buying seasonal/local fruit and vegetables is an excellent tip.... I just saw imported blueberries in my local supermarket for £2.99 for a pretty small boxful.  You can get a lot of bananas for that.  Make soups... a big pot of vegetable and lentil soup is really healthy, very cheap and might be enough for two or three meals. 

There's a great old book called 'The Pauper's Cookbook' by Jocasta Innes (practically for free on Amazon) and that has lots of great tips on shopping and cooking on a budget.  Good luck!

Some of these were already suggested, but I found the following in another thread similar to this and it's got some really good ideas.

If you're willing to plan ahead and learn to cook then you will save a ton of money by eating healthy.  You will have to cook at least once a week in order to save money and time throughout the week.  You will need a refridgerator.

PROTEIN:

• Eggs...they're cheap and healthy and they store well in the refrigerator.  Buy a dozen or two dozen, you can scramble them, fry them, poach them, hard boil them, use the in salads.  A great source of lean protein and healthy fats in the yolks.  To hard boil them, put them in water at room temperature for 10 minutes, then add heat (medium-high) and boild them ~12 minutes, then remove the heat and cover the pan for 20 minutes.  Rinse and refridgerate.
• Rice and beans...buy them in bulk, they are so much cheaper than mac'n cheese.  Beans you'll want to soak overnight before cooking, this gets rid of some of those toxic gasses and then you cook them, adding salt for flavoring at the end.  You can make a pot of rice and beans (I'd recommend a mixture of different beans rather than all of one variety, just scoop out a bit of whatever looks interesting in the bins).  For the rice, buy the whole grain or wild or brown, they're much healthier.  Rice and beans make a complete protein and have lots of fiber and healthy vitamins and minerals.
• Tofu, ~$1/lb, it's cheap, it's relatively easy, what's not to like?  It takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with.  Garlic is great for this.

Healthy fats:

• Cook with olive oil and you're set.  The first bottle might set you back a bit, but it will last quite a while.

Whole grains:

• Whole grain pasta, flax pasta - these keep for a long time so you can buy them in bulk
• Wild rice, brown rice, barley, etc. - good as bulk items as well
• Whole grain bread and tortillas

Fruits and vegetables (Buy frozen, you'll save a ton of $, generally the frozen are as good as the fresh and they keep longer):

• Frozen raspberries, blue berries, strawberries, pineapple, etc.  They're generally $2-$3 per pound instead of $5 per tiny container.
• Broccoli, grean beans, etc. $1-$2 per pound.
• Unfortunately, lettuce does not do well frozen, so look for lettuce and tomatoes at bulk stores like COSTCO, Sam's Club, etc. if they're your preference.

Try the hillbilly housewife website.  Lots of great ideas for the tight budget.

Thanks for all the great tips so far.  I think the main thing I've overlooked so far is the frozen fruits.... I always forget that they're there!  Thanks!

Great ideas here so far.  Not sure if anyone has mentioned it already...sorry...but whole grains are dirt cheap when you consider their nutritional value, calorie content and cost per pound cooked.   I buy all types of grains like quinoa, millet, oatmeal, oatbran, buckwheat, etc...and all are organic and $1-4/pound dry, but cook up to 3-5 times their dry weight with the added water.  That translates to $0.20-$1.33/lb cooked and to me, that's pretty cheap.  Tough to buy a pound of anything to eat these days for a buck or less and certainly not with the nutritional value that whole grains have.  Rice is even cheaper if you eat rice.  

I have found that using mostly the idea already mentioned in this thread, switching to a healthier diet that is mostly organic has actually been cheaper for me...

Also, does anyone find that they save by shopping in bulk?  Places like Sam's Club and BJ's...  how do they compare for healthy bargain hunters?

It really depends on what you're buying at Costco/Sam's Club.  I buy things like rice, broccoli, frozen foods chicken, and cat food at Costco, because I have found those are the best deals for me.  Things like produce; it varies.  Will you be using it up quickly enough is always a question to ask yourself.  Sure, that large bag of oranges looks good, and is cheap, but make sure you will use it before it spoils, or you just wasted your hard earned money.  Double your bulk shopping with coupons that they send out, and you're golden.  Just remember not to buy something just because you have a coupon for it.

Oh, and their onions and potatoes are really good deals (those don't go on sale enough for me).

How much were you spending and what were you buying before trying to eat healthier? Just curious.

I shop at sam's club for the following items:

• frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts (it's easier to thaw than the fresh ones at the grocery and if i'm going to freeze it anyway then why not right?)
•  frozen vegetables/fruits
• sandwich meat
• cereal (if I ever buy it)
• yogurt
• occasionally fresh fruit if they have a good deal -- for the past couple weeks they've had huge bags of navel oranges that are delicious! And my fiance and I went through within the week, haha.
  

Pretty much everything else I buy at the store. Those are the things we go through the most of and I think we definitely save money by buyin bulk.

Avoid buying snacks that are pre-portions into hundred calorie packs. You're paying for convenience when you could just separate them into ziplocks yourself when you get home.

I definitely agree about watching for what's on sale and buying a bunch of it. I've never been a big fish eater, but i'm trying to branch out and last week our grocery store had frozen tilapia fillets for basically half off so I bought two bags of them and i'm so glad I did because they are amazing! haha

Planning your meals out will also help you cut costs, especially if you try and work similar ingredients into your meal planning in different ways throughout the week. Finding new ways to use different ingredients will help save you money and can also cut down on prep and cooking time. LIke say you're going to cook some chicken breasts for chicken tacos or something and you're using chicken again later in the week to add to a pasta sauce -- roast all the chicken in the oven with salt and pepper. Use what you need for tacos then you already have the chicken ready for later in the week, just dice it and pop in the fridge!

I kind of rambled, apologies...

I've been eating really well lately but spending less.  I shop at Winco which has lots of food in bulk in bins.  It's a lot cheaper than packaged stuff.  I buy dried legumes, rice, whole wheat pasta, wheat berries, bulgur, all my spices, dried chilies, etc. in bulk from the bins.

For fruit and veg I buy what is on sale, like oranges, 3 lbs for a dollar, or apples under $1 a pound.  Also I look for the 5 lb. bag of potatoes on sale.  Sometimes I go to the local produce store for that stuff, or sometimes Winco.  

I buy Yoplait light for 47 cents each which is a pretty good deal.  I do spend more for organic non fat milk and also free range eggs, and bags of baby lettuce.  For bread I try to buy something decent or if I have a coupon go and buy a dozen bagels, cut them in half and freeze them.  

Basically it's pretty easy to build a decent meal around a grain, some legumes, and a few fresh veg.  Yogurt for dessert, or fruit.  Also I like to have a few cans of beans on hand like chickpeas for sandwich spread, kidneys for minestrone soup, and black beans for chili.  I always have carrots, potatoes, onions, and celery on hand.  

I thought the same exact thing when I went and bought fruits and vegetables!  I told a few people and most people respond with the same suggestion - go to farmer's markets!  The fresh fruit and vegetables are way less expensive than at the grocery store AND they're fresher AND you're helping out your local farmers!

our farmer's market doesn't opyen back up until May...I've been missing it. The last week it was open in the fall I bout a zucchini the size of a 4 month old bably for like $1.00. haha. soo good. :)

i live in the city, so that makes it easier. i've noticed that different stores tend to have different sales, so i rotate between them for my staples. if you have a trader joes, they have great prices on organic dairy (yogurt, milk), tofu, soy milk, and a few other items. qfc has good prices on only a few fruits and veggies, so i buy whats on sale. safeway has good prices on tuna, cat food, etc, so i tend to buy my canned goods there when there is a sale and i need to stock up. farmers market is always good, as noted above. if there are any ethnic markets in your area (here its mexican and asian markets), they can be a great place to get lower cost veggies, fish and meats. some are quite good, others, not so much, so that can take some research, but i find its worth my time to locate the quality ones in the long run, and they tend to run cheeper than any of the main stream stores. 

oh, and when im in the right part of town, i go to the fish market. its cheeper than the grocer and fresher. 

also look for the little produce stands, around here they sell local and again are hecka cheeper than the chain stores. apples for under a buck a lb. good prices. and supports small local business.

I feel you. Since I noticed the inflation in groceries I have cut my grocery bill in half. I changed the way I "planned" meals to revolve around what's on sale, instead of on what's on my list.

I go into the market with only a list of basic items I use every day (milk, coffee, peanutbutter, honey etc). That is IT!!!

Then I go up each isle to see what's on clearance & decide whether it's worth it (nutritional value, pleasure value, cost value) or if I can just make do with what I have at home.

We often don't have cereal in the house, we have bulger, bulk hot cereals/oatmeal/etc. & make french toast & pancakes. If we get the hankering (or it's my kid's snack day) I go to my Grocery Outlet which has pricey items (cereal, granola bars, crackers) at incredibly cheap prices. Rite Aid will also put food like tuna, beans, coffee, milk super cheap.

When juiceboxes are on clearance we buy up; if we run out before they go back on sale we go without them. Sometimes we don't have canned tuna, we have canned beans.

I buy "manager's sale price" meat and anything that is ridiculously inexpensive. This saves me a lot of money. Instead of going in with "staples" in mind, our staples change with what's on sale.

e.g. This week I bought a whole turkey breast for $1.99 we had a nice turkey dinner & all sorts of turkey sandwiches for lunch the whole week. Last week I bought a whole pork shoulder for $1.99 & we had carnitas, bbq pork, sandwiches & froze a whole pound of cooked pork in the freezer, which will make for impromptu taco or enchelada filling. The prior week we made lunches using the beans that were on clearance. I have, consequently, become very creative with beans!

When ground meat is on sale I buy a bunch, form into in 1/4 1/2 & 1lb patties, wrap in freezer paper & freeze flat. When I'm braking it up sometimes I'll make a mini meatloaf or meatballs & freeze those separate.

Ethnic markets and, especially, produce stands have amazing prices. Like, amazing prices. I come out of our produce stand with armloads. The other day I got 6 huge grapefruit for $2.

Of course I buy something special when we really want it, but every day is pretty cheap. It's definitely never boring since we have something different in the house each week.

I'm also a big cook once feed twice person. Whenever I make something freezable, I'll freeze a complete "meal" of it in pyrex (right now I have spaghetti & meatballs & a yummy curry). It's a great way to use leftovers that you probably wont eat within a few days.

What really helps me, too, is that I shop with a calculator. It really helps me determine whether or not I really want to buy something I don't totally need (like $5 strawberries or flowers). Sometimes it even works in my favor :)

freshbaked suggestions are great. Buy what is on sale and plan your meals around that.

Also, I thought I was spending more at first as well but are you eating out less now? That will affect your grocery bill as well... the less you eat out, the higher your grocery bill will be but it's probably saving you money in the long run.

Original Post by alibsam:

are you eating out less now? That will affect your grocery bill as well... the less you eat out, the higher your grocery bill will be but it's probably saving you money in the long run.

I totally second that! If you spend 50 bucks a week for a single person, that is about 7 or 8 bucks a day, even at 70 a week and 10 bucks a day, you couldn't eat a meal out for that cheep. around here, dinner out is easily 15 to 20 bucks by the time you pay tax and tip, if you want to eat decent food. and lunch, well your lucky if you can get by at 8 bucks, its usually closer to 12. heck, star bucks is 3 bucks, which is 1/3 to 1/2 a day of on otherwise fairly manageable grocery bill. so i've quit eating out as often.

my new thing is: i have friends bring the protein, whatever they want, burgers, prawns, fish, doesn't matter, then I cook and provide the rest of the meal. veggies, starch, etc. we dont spend nearly as much money as we would going to the local burger joint, and are meals are much finer than what we could afford going out anyway. I think we are all really enjoying this solution. every once in a while, its still fun to go out for a burger or a nice meal, but for the most part, the money we save and the fun to be had staying in has been a delight to (re-)discover. and the booze is way cheeper at home! 

Growing your own is a great strategy if you have a bit of space. I had tomatoes for months and months last year.