Foreclosure Help Blog

Top Healthy Foods To Buy On A Low Budget

Times are tough and making every penny count now-a-days is very important.  If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, like most Americans are, or even facing foreclosure, you know that at the end of the month an extra hundred dollars would be useful.  Having a few extra dollars at the end of the month can mean the difference between losing your house and saving it.  A good way to come up with some extra money is to really look at what your spending on food a month; most people are spending way more than necessary to feed themselves.

You need to start figuring how to get a lot of good food and at a cheap price.  When you go grocery shopping think about what you are buying; look at, not only the sale price, but also how many servings you are getting with the product.  You want to break the price down to the per-serving price.  This way you know how much you are spending and how much you are getting.  Usually on the price sticker it will have the serving size price printed on it.

For instance Oatmeal can be a great purchase, it is healthy, filling and has a cheap per serving price.  Store Brand oatmeal can run approximately $0.10 per serving.  Oatmeal serving size is usually half a cup.  So even if you eat a whole cup, which would be pretty filling, you are only spending 20 cents.  Compare that to a McDonalds meal and you probably just saved yourself 6 dollars.

Other Foods For A Good Price Per Serving (Price can vary depending on your locations and grocery store)

Dried beans/lentils    $0.14 per serving
Brown Rice        $0.10 per serving
Frozen Veggies    $0.99 per serving
Bananas        $0.45 per serving
Baby Carrots        $0.19 per serving
Canned Tomatoes    $0.28 per serving
Oranges        $0.40 per serving
Pears            $0.45 per serving
Yogurt            $0.60 per serving
Multigrain Pasta    $0.28 per serving
Wheat Bread        $0.31 per serving
Russet Potatoes    $0.23 per serving
Marinara Sauce    $0.30 per serving
Wheat Flour        $0.06 per serving

When looking for meat to buy, chicken and turkey are usually the less expensive choices and the healthiest.  When buying a whole chicken you can save some money buying cutting it into parts yourself.  Ground beef is usually a good buy; a lean ground beef will yield more meat when cooked.  Always compare the cost of meat to the serving size and look for specials.  When looking to purchase the medium size eggs are usually the best buy, the large egg is about 8 cents more than the medium.

So, overall, if you try to save some money remember the 3 things to look for at the store:
1.    Is it healthy
2.    Is it filling (Try to buy products where you know 1 or 2 servings will fill you up)
3.    Price Per Serving
At the end of the month add up all your grocery-shopping receipts and see how it compares to what you used to spend per month.