5 Tips to Eat Healthy, Nourishing Foods Within Your Budget

As a Nutrition Counselor, I spend a lot of time in grocery stores.

I actually really enjoy grocery shopping.

In fact, if I won the lottery, I think buying delicious food would be one of the first things on my list. Can you imagine going to the grocery store and having UNLIMITED money to spend on all of the food that you want?

Well, I can imagine…but for me, and probably most of you, that’s not the reality.

I love grocery shopping for healthy, nourishing foods and delicious treats. And it true that the healthy food often costs more than the delicious treats, but there are ways that you can eat healthy nourishing foods within your budget while shopping at ANY grocery store– not just the high profile natural grocers out there. Really.

Making healthy choices within your budget might involve shifting your priorities a bit, and maybe thinking about food and planning a little more. Luckily, there are plenty of tips and tools out there to make it easier for you…and even MORE fun. Seriously.

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Here are 5 Tips to Shop for Healthy Nourishing Foods With Your Budget:

Shift Your Food Focus

When you first started eating more high quality whole foods, I’m sure that your grocery bill went up a bit. It’s true that organic produce costs more than conventional produce. With organic produce, you pay for the process and the sustainable practices of the farm when you buy it, and to me, it’s definitely worth buying some foods organic–and this is where I spend a good portion of my grocery budget.

When you start eating more whole foods and following a Paleo diet, the goal is to decrease the amount of packaged, processed & refined foods that you’re eating. These packaged, processed and refined foods probably take up a good portion of your food budget. When you shift your focus to more whole foods, you’ll gradually start buying less of the packaged foods. Thus, you’ll have more of your budget to devote to buying those high quality whole foods.

Download a Coupon App

Coupons are where it’s at. Seriously. There are sales and offers ALL the time at every grocery store. Some stores, like Star Market, make it SUPER easy for you to save money on high quality groceries by offering free coupon apps.

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Clik here to view. Star Market just introduced this brand new coupon program called MyMixx that you can access through the Star Market App. Through the app, you can clip coupons and save them to your account. You can also view ALL of the sales at your local Star Market and create a shopping list that takes advantage of all of those savings.

You literally go on your phone, clip ALL the coupons (it’s kind of like playing an amazing game) and then enter your phone number when you check out and it AUTOMATICALLY rings in your coupons. Easy peasy.

Plan Your Week

Take sometime over the weekend to think about the week ahead. How often will you be cooking at home? How often will be you eating at a restaurant? What big events do you have going on this week that you’ll need to have some snacks for? Taking more time to think and prepare for the week will allow you to be in more control of your food choices– you’ll be able to go shopping and prepare rather than having the grab something to eat while you’re out. Think packing your lunch and snacks rather than buying them from the cafe. Grabbing food while you’re out is usually more expensive than bringing your own.

Make a Pantry Staples List

Make a list of all of the foods that you eat every week. They don’t have to be your traditional “pantry” staples (like rice and beans)– they can be anything that you eat on a weekly basis. Pantry staples are foods that you like to pack for lunches, snacks and ingredients that you often use when cooking meals.

Here is a peek at my pantry staples:

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Clik here to view.These are all foods that I got at Star Market using the MyMixx program too!

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Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Lots of organic fruits and veggies.

Each week, I make a special shopping trip for these foods (using my trusty coupons) so that I can always put together a meal with what’s in my fridge.

Have some Go-To Meals Up Your Sleeve

Although I usually know what nights of the week I’ll be cooking dinner, I often don’t know what I’m going to cook until that day– I like to have most of the ingredients at home already so that I only need to pick up one or two things from the store.

I have a few Go-To meals that I can pull from my pantry staples. One of my favorites is Paleo Massaman Curry. Sometimes I use red curry paste or green curry paste to mix it up a bit or change the veggies or protein.

These are just a few ways that you can shop for healthy, nourishing foods within your budget. Taking more time to think about your week, and using coupons are just a few of those ways.

How do you shop for healthy foods within your budget? Share your tips in the comments below!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Star Market. The opinions and text are all mine.