If you're on a budget with food, stop.
Food is incredibly important to your health, and quality food is absolutely worth the price. I would guess that many people being cheap with food are sacrificing that truth because they want to buy other stuff -- probably stuff they don't need. So first, recognize that you need food.
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| Listen to Tyler. |
Many other categories of spending should be slashed before food, so make sure you've got your priorities straight.
But there are those who have to budget, who are struggling with money, so for them I share this advice. Why listen? I've been poor most of my life and have spent years over-thinking how to "beat the house" at the grocery store. I know what it's like to scrape by, and I've learned a few things along the way.
The first thing is to find and choose the cheapest paleo-ish things in each food category. That means adding rice, beans, and potatoes (unless you have metabolic problems) to the menu. That means eating eggs, sardines, and organs for protein. And that also means using cheap veggies like carrots, cabbage, onions, green beans, peas, etc.
Buy and cook in bulk. Your freezer is your best friend. Buy at the cheapest unit price (e.g. $ per ounce) and you're winning. Multi-vitamins are cheap per unit, too.
Also measure cost effectiveness by the number of calories in the food. Almond milk has 30 calories per glass. A can of tuna has 70. You need about 2000 per day, so hit it where it hurts.
Value = Calories / Price
You might wanna go for factory farmed chicken. Fun fact: those pre-cooked rotisserie chickens, which are delicious, by the way, are what's known in the business as a loss leader. They price the chickens below cost in order to bring in customers, who inevitably buy other stuff too, thus turning a profit. Hence, as a poor person, you win.
Never eat at restaurants. The food is almost never Paleo, and it's marked up astronomically in order to pay for all the working parts of the restaurant. I used to always go with my friends to restaurants just to hang out, but I would gorge on a meal beforehand and just tell people, "I already ate."
Consider the true cost of quality food in perspective. Grass fed beef goes for $7 a pound at my nearby Safeway. That's a $2 burger for the average person eating a quarter pound patty. That's cheaper than McDonald's.
Ultimately, don't stress about it. If you're good, you've already cut out the junk food and that's a major step. With some sacrifice, you can get meals to be under a dollar if need be. Quit the gym, you don't need one. Most exercise is free, and it's much better to be outside moving around. Time may bring more money, but even if it doesn't, rest easy knowing you can always eat healthy on the cheap.
