How I Eat Very Well For Under $20/week
Update: Due to some good response to this, there is now a whole site dedicated to it! Please check out Frugal & Healthy!
This economy has forced me to learn a frugality I would not otherwise have learned. It’s actually caused me to adopt a much healthier diet on top of learning how to save money.
I used to spend between $300 – $400 per month on groceries, and I live by myself. Lots of pizzas, burritoes, microwave meals, steak…whatever looked tasty at the time. Not only was I wasting money, but had gained a lot of weight and become very unhealthy.
Though I am somewhat of a foodie and love to learn about all kinds of food, I’m also lazy and can only bring myself to cook occasionally. I’m good at it, and like to do it when I do, but often just don’t feel like it.
I decided to kill two birds with one stone: cut down my grocery bill and eat a better diet.
I started by deciding to stick to the edges of the store, a very common health tactic. Focus on meat, veggies, fruit, and bulk stuff. I stayed away from the boxed pizzas, the microwave meals, and all the other stuff. This meant I HAD to cook.
I bought a 6-quart slow cooker. I learned some easy and tasty recipes and ended up only cooking once or twice per week, as most slow cooking recipes consist of chopping up a few things and chucking them in the cooker and forgetting about them for 8 hours or so. I ate Guinness Beef Stew, French Dip, Pot Roast, Chili, Pulled Pork and other really tasty stuff.
This worked pretty well for a while, and I cut my grocery bill to about $120/month. Spent $60 every two weeks. Got paid, planned my meals for the next two weeks and shopped accordingly. Much better than wandering around the whole store with no list, no plan, and grabbing whatever looked yummy.
However, I still felt pretty heavy and was somewhat healthier, but certainly not losing weight. I examined what I was spending my money on and what I was eating and realized that at least half of my food budget was on meat. Now, I love meat. I will never be vegan. I’ve always seen meat as the focus of a meal. But, if I want to save money and lose weight, that meant at least drastically reducing my meat consumption. This meant I had to reconsider how I viewed meat.
I’m never going to go PETA on anyone and preach the evils of meat. As much as I am disgusted by the commercial meat industry, meat is damn tasty! There’s no way I’m going the rest of my life without ever having bacon again. But…meat is not the be-all end-all of food. Most cultures don’t eat nearly as much of it, and it’s often a luxury for most of the world. We’re suffering from overpopulation, so I’m obviously not going to die from eating much less meat.
Also, I have an inherent distaste for food that is not meat pretending to be meat. Boca burgers, veggie burgers, Tofurky, etc. all taste like crap. I’ve found that if you use your ingredients as themselves and make them the star of the meal, it’s always way better! If you are eating fake meat, that means you want the real thing, so just buy a burger already and stop pretending. Don’t insult food by making it play pretend.
I did a 30-day experiment: no meat for a month. Seafood was okay in moderation, but no beef, pork, chicken, turkey, lamb, etc. Just for a month.
I learned about Indian, Thai, and Middle Eastern cooking, as how there are a vast number of dishes that use rice, couscous, and other grains as a filler, and very delicious vegetables are served with it. I love spicy food and figured that this would be a good way to go. I wanted to be as authentic as possible. As it turns out, the more authentically you cook, the cheaper it often is!
For instance, pre-made hummus is ridiculously expensive. Find an Asian food market and buy the chickpeas (dried, not canned), sesame seeds (to puree for tahini), lemon, garlic, olive oil, and whatever flavor you might like (jalapeno for me!). Any Google search on hummus from scratch will provide tons of recipes. The ingredients are cheap, and for the price of one little plastic tub of hummus, you can make several times that much.
I also learned to make my own refried beans, mix various curries, and make various sauces from scratch, of which I used to buy over-priced jars.
It took an initial investment to go and buy a bunch of mason jars (often easy to find at Goodwill) and bulk grains and spices. I used a Sharpie to write the name of the ingredient on the lid, and basic prep instructions on the jar. That way, I never have to look up the ratios of how much water, how much time, and what temperature.
For instance:
Brown Basmati Rice.
Ratio: 1 rice:2 water.
Boil.
Simmer 50 min.
I bought a small coffee grinder to use for spices like cumin seeds, cardamom, etc. Just like coffee, grinding spices fresh provides more flavor.
I also bought a spice rack, and emptied out many of the things I don’t use or would rather have fresh and relabeled the bottles. I filled them up with things like cumin seeds, methi (fenugreek), garam masala, turmeric, and made a few of my own mixes as well.
Once I had my bulk foods and spices stocked up and efficiently stored, all that’s left to buy on a regular basis is fruits and veggies.
Now, I go to the store, buy my veggies, and only have to replace bulk items occasionally as they run out, and they never all run out at once. Sometimes I have to buy something canned or bottled, like coconut milk or olive oil, but it’s not much. I plan my meals for the next week, and cook on the weekends. As soon as the meal is done cooking, I put it into tupperware containers and I have my lunch prepared for the week. Grab and go.
People often ask what restaurant’s leftovers I’m eating, or if I have an Asian wife or girlfriend (I wish!). I feel a sense of accomplishment when I tell them I made it, and I watch them go back to their microwaved meal or fast food.
I make sure to include as much raw green leafy stuff in my diet as I can as well. The more raw foods, the better, but I just can’t bring myself to go completely raw. Besides, a billion skinny Asians can’t be doing something wrong if they eat that much rice and don’t look like us Americans! They only get fat when they eat like us…coincidence?
I now have more energy, the pounds are starting to drop off, and I feel more confident overall. My grocery bill is usually less than $20/week. It’s often between $10 – $15. The food tastes awesome and is often complimented.
Plus, the occasional hamburger once or twice a month won’t kill me or my budget. Oh, and that $300/month or so that I used to spend on groceries now goes to paying off debt, having more fun, and saving for travel!
Useful links:
Veggie Recipes
Indian Recipes
Thai Recipes
Middle Eastern Recipes
Raw Recipes
“How I Eat Very Well For Under $20/week”