Dietitian Tricks: Save Money On Food!
Being an RD who switches cities every few years (because of her’s husband’s career) doesn’t exactly guarantee a lavish lifestyle where money doesn’t matter. The fact is, we need to save money, and so do a lot of people. The issue is, I love food. Food is the one thing I would want to spend all my money on. Not clothes, not shoes, not a new car…just food. Luckily my mother is a thrifty and resourceful lady. I learned at a young age that eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. These money saving, nutrition boosting tips below are used on the daily by the RADNUT team. Enjoy!
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Shop at stores with affordable canned and frozen foods. I typically pay $2 for 750g bags of frozen peas and carrots and throw these into rice, quinoa, and ground meat dishes
Keep canned no salt added pulses at home for quick, convenient additions to chili, soups, dips, burritos, and salads. I purchase these for $0.89 per can- that’s affordable and healthy protein!
When I don’t want to use an entire can of beans, I label and freeze extras to use in soups or other cooked meals at a later date
If a recipe calls for ground meat, replace a portion of it with lentils to add fiber and make your meat go further. My 900g bag of lentils was only $2.49, and that lasts many meals
Review grocery story flyers and weekly sales. Planning meals around sale items saves money. It’s gotten even easier with online flyers and Apps. I regularly use “Flipp” to review local flyers on my phone and “clip” sale items to create my own unique shopping list
Waste less. If you know you’ve cooked too much and nobody will eat lasagna for 6 days, freeze half of it and eat it a few weeks later
When you need an ingredient you don’t use often, buy it in bulk and only buy what you need
Our family loves cheese. Cheese is expensive…unless you check the flyers every week and only buy it on sale. Enough said
Keep canned tuna or salmon in the pantry for quick wraps, burgers and sandwiches
Eggs. They’re cheap, delicious, a good source of protein, and who doesn’t like breakfast for supper?
It sometimes saves money to purchase a larger size of more expensive foods that are used often, like frozen berries and nuts (if the price decreases as package size increases and if we don’t end up eating it faster because there’s more of it in the home)
Purchase chicken and ground turkey on sale and freeze for later use
Purchase fresh berries and herbs such as dill, rosemary and mint when they’re on sale and in season, wash and freeze batches for later use
I use these strategies every time I shop and cook. A great example of how affordable, nourishing and mouthwatering home-made meals can be is the “Sloppy Lenny” I created for Alberta Milk.
The per portion cost came to only $2.04! To see how I actually put these tricks into action to create drool-worthy meals, stay connected with me at RADNUT. Happy eating!
