Help! My Healthier Lifestyle Is Giving Me A Budgetache!

Kadeeae

The healthier I try to be the more financially frustrated I get.

I've never been one to care much about what I ate as long as it was cheap and easy. Until recently . . .

I've sprouted a conscience and a concern for my body's health - all at the same time and it's doing my budget in. In a big way! I do believe that I'm better off if what I eat doesn't have additives, preservatives and the like mixed into it and it hasn't been sprayed with lord knows what or ground that has had years of chemicals pumped into it from various means (whats in the rain I can do nothing about). And I'm willing to pay more for what I feel to be the better quality.

I suppose what I'm looking for is tips/tricks from any other OS'ers who also are paying more attention to what they eat and how it was raised/grown whilst still staying on some sort of reasonable budget. Something has got to give soon and I don't want it to be my (our) diet.

So when in doubt / trouble / mental anguish there was only one place for me to go and here I am!

Seakay

If you want to have more organic stuff and keep to the same budget, then you will have to accept a few changes eg eating less meat, using cheaper cuts etc, at least at first.
Check out the WWII diet thread - not suggesting you go for it entirely, but it does give an idea of the relatively small amount of meat and complex carbohydrate which was considered to make up a healthy diet, and that diet was for people who were pretty physically active whatever their job (petrol rationing, dig for victory etc)
On the other hand, if you are extending this new philosophy to all areas of your life then when you run out of cleaning products, how about making your own from bicarb, vinegar etc, rather than buying ready made enviromentally friendly products?
Think of what you are doing as a front-end investment, much as you would have to do if you bought the ingredients for making moisurizers, cleansers, soap etc, which will show savings in the long run.
Have a rootle around in Green and Ethical Moneysaving for some ideas.

angchris

i find the trick is to buy big joints of quality meat where the source can be traced and then make them stretch as far as you can, if you have to buy a chicken make it a free range happy chicken and use every last scrap. i don`t mind eating meat but i`d at least like to know that when it was alive it had a good life, although lately i have been veering more and more to a veggie diet and only having meat as a treat once in a while, i then appreciate what im eating and enjoy it all the more even though it might cost twice of what the supermarket cheapo meat is.
i`ve been wanting to get a couple of chucks in the garden for a while now (have yet to convince oh) at least then i will know for sure that one of my main kitchen staples is indeed free range.
is there any chance you could maybe visit the local fruit/veg wholesaler? the one near me did sacks of organic veg etc and it worked out much cheaper to blance and freeze the veg myself rather than buying diddly bags at extorsionate prices at the supermarket.

thriftlady_2

I find buying food to be fraught with dilemmas these days.

1) Is it healthy for me and my family ?

2) Is it good for the environment ?

3) Is it good for local producers ?

4) Is it good for far away producers -fairly traded ?

5) Is it good for my purse, and even if I have a fairly generous food budget should I be spending a lot on it when others are going hungry ?

6) Where do I buy it ? Local shops or greedy supermarket ?

I find I do best budget, health and conscience-wise when I stick to cheap basic food stuffs.

flour both wholemeal and white
oats
rice and pasta
beans and lentils
home grown (I mean UK not my back garden although that would be even better) and in-season fruit and veg.
Cheap sustainable fish like pollack, coley, mackerel and herring, tinned fish.
Local meat bought in bulk from my butcher -free range chicken about 3 times a month, sausages, liver or mince once a week plus bacon and ham from a whole joint I've cooked.
Milk from a local dairy -unhomgenised, butter from same (now as cheap as supermarket butter), home produced Cheddar and local free-range eggs
Basic storecupboard items like sugar and spices, local honey

A farmshop is working out cheaper than the supermarket for eggs, veg (20kg sacks of spuds for £4) fruit and milk.

It is easy to spend a lot on a variety of exotic fruit and veg. I love avocados, peppers, mixed salad leaves, pineapples etc, but I've learned to love what is local, healthy and cheap -carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks, mustard and cress, home sprouted mung beans.

I make my own yogurt -far cheaper than buying it, flavour it with fruit purees made when there's a glut -I have blackcurrant, damson and quince in my freezer at the moment from last summer. Make your own preserves (not really a health food, but one of life's little luxuries), making your own bread is one of the most satisfying things you can do for your health and pride;)

spaghetti_monster

Hi there!

totally sympathise with you - I think lots of people will be along with good advice... in the meantime:

I think it's possible to get a good healthy diet eating normal fruit/veg/nuts etc. ie. you don't need a goji berry smoothie to be healthy. Things like apples, pears, carrots, leeks etc etc are all really good for you - and I think we have a good variety of cheap fruit/veg without getting too expensive.

I'm not sure what I think about organic...... but in the end for me it's just too expensive. Some people I know think it's just a load of rubbish (making money by sticking a vague label on something), someone else once told me if you buy anything organic, it should be things that grew in the ground (ie. root veg) as this could be most contaminated. OH just thinks you should just really wash everything

I never compromise on eggs (organic free range). I was also a total veggie for about 17 years but now eat chicken and fish - as we only eat this occasionally I can buy the better stuff. The rest of the time we eat pulses/veg/cheese etc.

One thing I like about OS is that it's brought me back to more traditional cooking. I've loved cooking for ages but was really getting distracted by chef's cook books full of exotic ingredients, people telling you to live off salads and smoothies to be healthy etc.
I think it's quite a job to balance the things you mention - budget, quality, health, green issues. You have to find the balance that suits you best!

thriftlady_2

alex_w wrote: »

I think it's possible to get a good healthy diet eating normal fruit/veg/nuts etc. ie. you don't need a goji berry smoothie to be healthy. Things like apples, pears, carrots, leeks etc etc are all really good for you - and I think we have a good variety of cheap fruit/veg without getting too expensive.

absolutely;)

One thing I like about OS is that it's brought me back to more traditional cooking. I've loved cooking for ages but was really getting distracted by chef's cook books full of exotic ingredients, people telling you to live off salads and smoothies to be healthy etc. Oh me too

Couldn't agree more Alex.

Raspberry_Swirl

What gets me is the shops 'healthy' ranges. 79p for a piece of brie but it's £1.49 for the healthy option brie!!!

I know cheese isn't something you should eat at all on a diet as even the healthy version is still full of fat, but sometimes you just want brie

**purpleprincess**

Raspberry_Swirl wrote: »

What gets me is the shops 'healthy' ranges. 79p for a piece of brie but it's £1.49 for the healthy option brie!!!

I know cheese isn't something you should eat at all on a diet as even the healthy version is still full of fat, but sometimes you just want brie

I know!! What's this all about, not just cheese either, it's just ALL 'healthy' option foods are ridiculously more expensive!

Anyway, going back to the point, one thing I've learnt is with these sorts of things, buy the full fat version, as they are cheaper, just have a bit less than normal and it is still kind of effectively low fat as you're not having as much! PORTION CONTROL!! That's all a lot of the 'healthy' brands do, give you less in a packet (rather than always reducing the actual calories or whatever in it or whatever they do,) and charge you the earth for the privilege of having less! Bonkers!



It is hard though to try and do it all and that is where I loooove the OS forum as it really has helped me learn to eat healthily for less, streeeeeeeeetching things and using other ingredients that I wouldn't have thought of using before like pulses and eating a couple of more veggie meals a week.

I always ramble!! :rolleyes: :rotfl:

prettypennies

I try to buy organic as much as possible (mainly due to concerns about cocktails of chemicals). I cut back in other areas of spending to keep to my budget.

To keep costs down I try to stick to seasonal veg (most of my veg comes from a weekly vegbox scheme.

I have a monthly meat delivery and I make sure it lasts the month by padding meals out rice, pots, pasta etc.

Also when I make a meal, I tend to put everything in serving dishes on the table for the family to help themselves. That way I can just tub up the leftovers from the serving dishes rather than chucking things from people's plates in the bin.
Also the family seem to control their portoins better this way.

We all take packed lunches to school/work and any leftovers are used up this way.

My mission for this year is to start growing my own stuff again (would love an allotment but they are like rocking horse poop round here!!)

thriftlady_2

Raspberry_Swirl wrote: »

What gets me is the shops 'healthy' ranges. 79p for a piece of brie but it's £1.49 for the healthy option brie!!!

I know cheese isn't something you should eat at all on a diet as even the healthy version is still full of fat, but sometimes you just want brie

Brie is actually relatively low in fat cheesewise.

Any food that has health claims- ie 'low fat', 'healthy living' blah blah is bound to be more processed, adulterated and less actual food than a straight piece of cheese or whatever. These things are merely 'foodlike substances' not real food. See my sig;)

ceridwen

Good on you Kadeeae

Pleased to hear it re the changes..

My thoughts:
- make own bread
- make own yogurt or kefir
- grow own beansprouts (theres a much wider range possible than just mung beansprouts)
- is it possible to grow any food yourself - even if your garden is teensy - maybe you could manage a bit of food grown with Square Foot Gardening techniques.
- box schemes for home delivery of organic fruit and veg
- I gather the greengrocery that it is most important to buy organically is apples/green salad/soft fruit.
- Eggs need to be freerange (not battery)
- Try investigating vegetarian recipes - veggie food is a lot more interesting and available than it used to be.

Any time it gets you down paying the iniquitous organic "price premium" (yep - I do it!) - remind yourself of the "Stitch in time saves 9" saying. In this context it means keeping yourself as healthy as possible (eg by eating organically) is helping to avoid illness/financial costs of illness further down the line.