Healthy Tips Video: Shopping on a Budget

Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Katie Dubree. I'm a registered dietitian at the Owensboro Health Healthpark and today I'm going to teach you a few tips on how to shop on a budget.

My first tip that I'd like to give you is, number one, making a plan. So with a lot of grocery shopping, a lot of times we don't come in with a plan. We might come in just perusing all the aisles without even thinking about it.

And a lot of times, that can work if we're busy or if we're on the road a lot. But generally when we do grocery shop, we would like to make a plan, whether that is coming up with recipes for the week, maybe coming up with lunch recipes, what to get for breakfast, what to make on the weekends. Really finding 15 to 20 minutes to just sit down and work on making a plan for the week.

In addition to this, another helpful bonus tip when it comes to making a plan is finding ways that you can reuse meats and produce and perishables for the week. For example, if I'm making, let's say, sweet potato hash or a sweet potato casserole, I can reuse those sweet potatoes to maybe make a soup on Friday, for example, or on the weekend.

So finding ways that you can incorporate those types of foods into your daily week can be very, very helpful for shopping on a budget. In addition, another big tip is to know that fresh doesn't always equal best. So we hear that a lot, that in order to eat healthy, we have to be choosing fresh fruits and vegetables. But unfortunately, that's just not the case.

So for example, canned or frozen fruits and vegetables might even be better than fresh according to some certain studies. So some reasons why that might be is because a lot of times fresh produce actually loses nutrients as it goes through transit. When it is fresh or frozen, a lot of times it is preserved as it's harvested.

So a lot of times the nutrient content might be better than one that is fresh. We might also see that if you buy canned or frozen, it tends to last us longer. So trying to choose more of those cans and frozen fruits and vegetables can be helpful with shopping on a budget, as well as keeping in those fruits and vegetables that we need throughout our diet, right?

And on that topic, another thing that I do see is trying to avoid buying those pre-cut fruits and vegetables. I know it's so tempting when we are going to the grocery store, and we're just saying, oh, great, some diced fruit already cut up or some diced onions. That's great. But I actually tend to find for this video that a lot of times, those fresh fruits or those pre-portioned fruits and vegetables tend to be almost triple the price of the actual wholesale fruit or vegetable.

For example, I went to Meijer the other day and saw some diced onions for $3. And it was only about half a cup of diced onions. Whereas if they had a whole big onion there at Meijer for $1.59, right? Same with watermelon. I actually saw about a cup or half of diced watermelon. And that was about $6 or $7, whereas a whole watermelon was on sale for $5.

So I know the cost is kind of in the convenience, but when you do feel like chopping up a watermelon or chopping up some onions, another hot tip to do is to actually freeze those for later. For example, chopping up a big bag of onions, dicing them up, and then freezing them, putting them in a big gallon bag. That can be one way that we can save some money. Like I said, almost triple the price on that. So that's a really, really helpful tip when it comes to shopping on a budget.

Another thing is to buy non-perishable in bulk. This goes hand in hand with shopping with a plan. So it's good to know what stores might have more things in bulk than others. For example, places like Walmart, Kroger, ALDI, tend to not have items in bulk, whereas places like Costco or Sam's Club do. Knowing those places can be very, very helpful.

Now, of course, places like Costco or Sam's Club do require a membership. But a lot of times, you do end up saving money depending on your family size and, of course, what you're buying. For example, we might tend to buy stuff like nuts, grains, paper towels, toilet paper. And those non-perishable items, those are going to be cheaper at those bulk stores.

However, places like ALDI, Walmart, Kroger, aren't going to have those as readily available. So it's good to know which ones are in bulk and which ones are not. Next big tip I'd like to give you is looking at meats. Meats can be a hard one because a lot of times they are getting more and more expensive by the day. But there are some ways that we can save money in this category.

For example, obviously buying meat in bulk can be a huge plus. Certain cuts of meat are actually cheaper than others. For example, chicken thighs are going to be cheaper than our chicken breasts. Example, or as another example, buying a big pork roast or a beef roast can be cheaper than buying a steak. And they tend to last longer, too. Bigger for families, tend to last longer, go a really long way.

When we're making a plan, we can also use those to work with our rest of the recipes. So I can make a roast one day, and then maybe make roast beef sandwiches the next day. It's a give or take that we do see in making a plan. It can be so helpful for creating a budget.

So those are all the tips that I have for you today. If you're interested in learning more about nutrition or our one-on-one nutrition counseling services, please call us at the Owensboro Health Healthpark Resource Center at the number 270-688-4804 for more information.