Budget Clean Eating at Aldi's
Through the years I have often heard people say they can’t afford to eat healthy. Healthy food is so expensive.
Sure. If you buy the prepacked crap in the boxes and freezer section.
Step away from the pretty red packaging.
It’s ok. I was lured in a time or two myself.
So I spent about $80 at Aldi. I was so excited when I saw 99% of the produce was all MI homegrown and most of it was only $1! Even bags of potato! This is my produce photo. I did not spend $80 for all of this. On a counter you don’t see was a lot of other items. I wasn’t planning on buying much but when I saw how cheap it all was I re-budgeted my groceries for this month. The other counter was full of fresh meat, tuna, sardines (hey, its my low carb stuff) and cheese. I do really well at Kroger with all my discounts and coupons, but this was even better.
3 Romaine lettuce hearts, giant head of cabbage, 9 green peppers, 3 zucchini, 3 yellow squash, 3 large avocado, 1 butternut squash, 1 acorn squash, 2 bags of Yukon potato at 3lb each, 6 kiwi fruit, 1 giant bag of oranges, 2 bags of baby carrots, 1 bag of celery, 6 cucumbers, 1 big bag of radish, 2 things of blackberries, bag of fresh spinach, few pounds of banana, and eggs.
This is clean eating at its finest. Everyone who says they can’t afford to eat healthy on a budget need to think outside the box. I can’t begin to tell you how many meals I am going to get out of this.
While Aldi is not close to me at all it is near other places I tend to visit once a month. I’m going to try to incorporate Aldi shopping at least once a month into my grocery budget.
What are some of your frugal healthy eating tips?
Thanks for the reminder about Aldi. We have one just a few miles from our house, and I have never been there. Someone else told me they had nice produce, but I had a hard time believing it! Do you know if they carry any organic produce?
I know that one city by me does, while another does sometimes. So I assume it just varies by location.
Our biggest issue with buying produce is that most of it goes bad before it gets eaten. I use a lot of veggies in the meals I cook at home but Hubs sometimes doesn’t eat with us because he’s not coming home until 11 at night when everyone is in bed. He reheats things which is fine, but I can’t put a lot of those sorts of things in his lunches because he is allergic to the wax that is on fresh veggies and they have to be cooked. Everything gets smashed in his lunch bag because of his line of work as well.
The carrots, celery and radish I cut up and keep in bowls of water in the fridge. I change the water every couple of days. We snack on these pretty much every day too. We eat salad pretty much every day as well so thats not really an issue. We keep most produce in green bags so it keeps a lot longer. Green peppers , cucumbers and such we dont cut up until we are ready to eat.
The only way around the wax issue to buy organic, use a co-op or farmers market. When we buy MI based products I don’t noticed the wax. Only when I buy things from other states, countries.
I hear that all the time from people who say they can’t afford to eat healthy. It does take planning. I find that I use about four or five stores, which are all close to one another. One store is for produce, one for meat, etc. I have learned which ones have the best products for the best prices.
Also, when people tell me that they can’t afford to eat healthy, I tell them they can either pay at the grocery store or at the doctor’s office/pharmacy. That usually does the trick. 😉
I think people get discouraged because eating plant based foods does require frequent trips to the store and maybe they think it will add-up. Which it does. But if you buy less prepackage stuff like chips and other junk food you are saving money. And, like you said, less trips to the doctor and pharmacy.