How I Eat Healthy on a Low Budget! (Cheap & Clean)

By Jean Laguerre | Health & Fitness

I am living on a budget, just like most of you. Is it really possible to eat healthy? YES!
Here are my top 20 tips on how I shop smart, what ingredients I buy to live and eat healthy. Healthy living is not expensive. It's just a matter of taking time to plan your meals, grocery list, keep it within your budget and you will be able to live and eat healthy, lose weight, look and feel your best! =)

So let's not give ourselves anymore money excuses!

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About the Author

Hello there! I'm Jean Laguerre, a free-spirited soul who's overcome challenges. I'm here to share tips on weight loss, staying healthy, and living a fulfilling life. Let's connect with those seeking inner peace and a healthier life.

  • rayvenskylar says:

    Hello Joanna, 
    I just wanted to give you a tip for the frozen vegetables. You could get many more vegetables and a variety if you buy fresh vegetables and simply cut them and place them in a bag yourself to freeze. You will save even more money and have a lovely mixture of vegetables.

  • Tonya Scott says:

    Thank you Joanna for telling people that is okay to buy regular foods when you cannot afford organic.  It discourages a lot of us to hear that you must eat organic when we know that our wallets cannot sustain an organic lifestyle. Thank you for understanding and addressing that issue.

  • Billythachikk says:

    Bottom line: If you are on a budget, stop being picky. I’m on a budget, and I eat healthy BECAUSE I’m poor. In Europe (Or at least in Scandinavia) fastfood, for instance, is really expensive. Whole grain bread (like in this video) is the same whether from a cheap or expensive brand. A carrot has the same amount of Vitamin A, no matter if it’s organic or not (in this case, there’s other things to consider), but the healthiness of the food itself does not become smaller because the prize is lower. Always LOOK at the products. Some are better from more expensive brands, others are not.
    Don’t eat chips, chocolate snacks and candy – it costs more money than carrot sticks and dip, and it’s bad for you.
    Don’t drink soda, drink water, it comes right out of the tap and is “basically” free.
    Don’t buy expensive shampoo, conditioner and body soap. All the brands do the same things, so unless your needs are specific (like eczema, in my own case) go for what’s cheapest, just like with dish soap and hand soap. It’s all basically the same. Even some stores have the same thing packaged in different covers with different prizes. So Target might sell a product at 2 dollars, but Walmart has the same product (EXACT product) in a different packaging for 3 dollars. 

    • d r e a m w a v e says:

      “A carrot has the same amount of Vitamin A, no matter if it’s organic or not ”

      From what I’ve researched I would say that this isn’t necessarily true. For example..

      “A large meta-analysis published in 2014, also in the British Journal of Nutrition, found that organic crops — ranging from carrots and broccoli to apples and blueberries — have substantially higher concentrations of a range of antioxidants and other potentially beneficial compounds. That review included data from more than 300 studies.

      “The organic crops had about 50 percent more anthocyanins and
      flavonols compared with conventional crops. Anthocyanins are compounds
      that give fruits and vegetables, such as blueberries, their blue, purple and red hues.”

      “Another study found that organic dairy and meat contain about 50 percent more omega-3 fatty acids.”

      “A study of tomatoes conducted at the University of California, Davis back in 2008 found that organic tomatoes have almost double the concentration of a beneficial flavonoid known as quercetin, compared with conventional tomatoes grown on an adjacent field.”

      “In a 2002 University of Missouri study, chemists were shocked to
      discover that the smaller organically grown oranges delivered 30 percent
      more vitamin C than the large conventionally grown ones. Certified
      nutritionist Virginia Worthington found that a serving of organic
      lettuce, spinach, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage provided the
      recommended daily intake of vitamin C. but not so for the same veggies
      grown by conventional farming. Worthington reported that organically
      grown fruits and vegetables outpaced their conventional counterparts
      with as much as 27 per cent more vitamin C, 21.1 percent more iron, 29.3
      percent more magnesium, 13.6 percent more phosphorus, and 18 percent
      more polyphenols.”

    • M B says:

      DarthMohammed or they are constantly on the go from working 24 7 just to afford rent

    • Sandra says:

      You had me up until the hair products 🙂

    • hey beech says:

      @Emily M Maybe it’s where you live in America, and in that case—move. It’s not the government’s fault that you choose to live in an expensive place and complain about the expensive lifestyle. That’s like going to New York City and crying about not being able to find an affordable apartment. Where I live, and many other places in America with stores like Food City in place, you can make a huge meal for under $5. Meat isn’t necessary, and eggs are extremely cheap—$2 for 36 of them. Beans, FRESH vegetables and fruits, seasoning, and plain old water are very low cost.

    • j borrego says:

      DearJRenae some ppl are not lazy An work a lot . I know I was eating nothing but fast food 2 yrs ago when I worked 7 days a week An work double shift 5 of those days ( trying buy a house) then I started getting sick cause lack sleep An food ( plus eating fast food for long time it all taste the same lol) yes I stop when doctor like what’s going on An shame me since I’m a nurse an should no better but I wanted a house :p

  • Zara Harrison says:

    This is a very realistic and manageable advice for anyone who is skint and busy. It’s not ideal but its better than how most people eat. Haters gotta hate though.

  • Rebecca Lie says:

    This is what I’m looking for. I’ll started my university and live alone soon which also mean I’ll live on budget. My cousin who had lived alone for university advised me to buy my meals because it’s easier that way and pretty much sure that I’m not that person who bothered to cook. But that’s wrong, I’ve made up my mind that I want to live healthy at least with my food since I’ll take care of myself and completely be independent.  I wanna try make my meals daily so when I eat I know what goes into my mouth, buy the right thing while stay on budget. And this video helps me a lot, I think I already know to do next. Thank you so much Joanna. 🙂 <3

    • Rebecca Lie says:

      @Joanna Soh  Thank you and actually I don’t mind if I gain extra weights because I’m that girl who eat a lot but gain nothing. No matter if I eat tons of food I only gained 2-4lbs and definitely go back to my first weight within days doing nothing. I once put on 8lbs in a week and lost 8lbs a week after. That’s annoying although I enjoy being able to eat a lot but I never reached my ideal weight. Also my other main goal is becoming a good eater and get my skin clear by keep my eating habits. I’ve been a bad eater for a long time, eat anything I want because I need to gain weight and failed. So, I think it’s time for a change. 😀

    • wirina holstein says:

      I just need to aks – is it just as cheap to buy you food pre-made or eat out? If its not, an you dont mind cooking, then a bunch of cruelty free eggs would still be cheaper than if eating out everyday, which would never be possible where i live, as its SO much more expensive to eat out or buy foods already made, than simply do it yourself. And it would not be possible for anyone in the Uni dorms to not use the common kitchens as making your own meals is not and option to do if you’d like to “waste” the time or like cooking, but a mere necessity as no one can pay for remade food/eating out, on a Uni student budget.

    • mawadah mwanyali says:

      Good
      I hope ur college life was successful

  • illybang says:

    I’m fascinated by her accent / the way she talks. I don’t know why.

  • ILoveStemi (Aria) says:

    I just stumbled upon this channel two minutes ago… why is everyone so outraged at eggs?

  • tackyman2011 says:

    She is talking about eating to live, not being morally superior. So what if you eat eggs, or non-organic. Did you fools not hear the part about being ON A BUDGET? There isn’t always the luxury of choices when you are strapped. And she looks healthy enough to me. You people stink of patchouli and self-righteousness.

  • FrostByte says:

    The outrage at eggs in the comment section is hilarious. Good video though.

  • Brandy Bratcher says:

    Do you guys not understand that this video has the words ‘low budget’ and ‘CHEAP’ in the title. YES cage free eggs may be more nutrtionally dense and also are better several other reasons HOWEVER they are much much more expensive. I am a single female living on my own in a tiny apartment, my rent is more then half my income not to mention all the other bills I have. At one point I literally survived off of donuts a coworker brought to work for an entire WEEK because I couldn’t afford groceries.I would very much like to buy cage free eggs (we’ve all seen the horrible videos of them crammed in cages) but at the end of the day the almost $5 I would spend on a week’s worth of eggs need to go in my gas tank to get me to work!!

    • wirina holstein says:

      @Joseph De Vito What is chicken raised in luxurious conditions? I dont think Ive ever heard that concept? How are chicken raised then and what is luxury for them? If you’re thinking of chickens not produced with cruelty, well then you have to educate yourself a bit; theres a huge difference between torturing animals, having them under decent and proper conditions and then having them raised in “Luxury” – whatever that is. Basically you can easily make sure to have enough room for the chickens not to be tortured without raise the costs significantly. The way it happened up here in the North was that the factory owners was under pressure because no one wanted to buy cruelty produced eggs and later on not cruelty produced chickens either. Therefore they gave up the praksis of having small spaces for the animals and expanded their inhabitats. They then just realized the logic that they could make the tall roofed factories into two stories, and utilize the green spaces around the factories which are always to some extend owned as land with the building. The companies not willing to stop the cruelty went out of business as no one wanted to buy their products.    

    • wirina holstein says:

      @Joseph De Vito I dont know how the situation would have been if we in Scandinavia had a larger social media culture. If we had people like this girl in the video telling people to buy cruelty produced eggs (specifically choosing the cruelty produced eggs as they are not cruelty free), then we might have had a far more difficult fight for stopping animal cruelty in meat industries. Luckily, we dont really do that much social media nationally and we dont have people using social media and saying things like in this video.

    • wirina holstein says:

      @Joseph De Vito We sadly still have other fights though. For example people almost never get in prison for animal cruelty. And its still not illegal for the Island communities to slaughter whales for cultural purposes. Its under heavy political debate but no bans have been made yet. Its also still not illegal to slaughter baby seals for their skins, by knocking them in the head as babies and then skin them alive and leave them to bleed out/die from pain shock. Its again an eskimo cultural praksis which is hard to overcome due to the fact that we used to treat hose people bad under the colonisations, so we have some trust issues and responsibility and its hard to ban their cultural ways now. So Im not claiming we’re superior. Im just saying the easy battles are done. And the obvious things are done. And I can believe its still legal – anywhere in the world – to have meat industries commit animal cruelty. Its mass industries, its politics, its national matters everywhere – just ban it. simple as that. And let the industries build humane places to keep their animals without high costs. 

    • wirina holstein says:

      It just takes people like the girl behind this video to stop this and stop being for animal cruelty and start being against. More costumers for cruelty free products = lower prices. Its just so simple, I dont get it. And I dont get how people can disconnect from the responsibility of giving profit for these things to continue happening. No, we’re not innocent. Not at all. We’re very much the people allowing this and causing this to happening..

    • Henrietta Mononga says:

      +paula sings what if internet is a necessity, u don’t know if you are aware but people use the net for more than just fb and YouTube

  • kikicouture10 says:

    Great video, I love your personality, you don’t come off as a know it all just basically sharing your own experiences. Thanks for this video.

  • Aide Rodriguez says:

    This is her way and her opinion on how to live a healthy lifestyle on a low budget.  Don’t disrespect, she’s trying to help us. If you want to make a suggestion then make it but don’t push people aside with your negativity that only makes people not listen.  I prefer free range myself and maybe you can help educate people instead of scolding at them like they are beneath you.

  • Clyde Ng says:

    “Get what you need and go straight out” is called shoplifting lol

  • ColeysCrushOnMakeup says:

    Some people in the comments don’t seem to realize this is for people who can barely afford to eat as it is. When you can’t afford organic food you can’t eat it. Simple as that!

    • No Name says:

      +poromise gmos don’t improve yields, myth

    • Charlie Fiction says:

      same with us guys in body building. No way we can eat all what they do, if we barely have enough to pay for a shity apartment. Poor = skinny; its been like that since mankind discovered money. Back in the med-evil times “Being fat” mean being wealthy.

    • Jamie Donnelly says:

      I love Aldi! 🙂

    • Doina Onofrei says:

      Excellent Video! Excuse me for chiming in, I would love your thoughts. Have you heard about – Dinanlinson Natural Beauty Approach (google it)? It is a good one off product for learning what to eat to look younger minus the headache. Ive heard some awesome things about it and my cooworker finally got cool results with it.

    • Lucy B says:

      20alphabet It is that way because to label a product certify organic, the facility needs to have inspections that are in compliance with the gov’t regulations to be call organic. For that, the growers need to pay money. The right thing to do should be that people, who put pesticide to have more crop yield, would have pay money as penalty for doing so. Pesticides and herbicides are making us and the planet sick. The regulations as they are are not protecting the health of the customers.

  • SaskiasaChristkind says:

    In Germany caged eggs are forbidden. It is against the rights of animals!

  • dihett says:

    Good for you for recognizing that in a perfect world, everyone would like to get organic but it’s wildly more expensive and thus realistically, not available to many.

    • A. Lu says:

      dihett i think a lot of people need to keep in mind that just because something says organic doesn’t mean it’s that much better. A lot of these food companies tend to scam people into posting more by labeling everything “gluten free” or “organic.” Best bet is to buy locally sourced if possible and don’t stress yourself out over having to be frugal over organic.

    • j borrego says:

      Most time company’s lie lol slash stuff on a label

    • Jamestube says:

      Organic is a buzzword.

  • Zack Fair says:

    Idk why i started laughing when she said “buy one free one”

  • Tiryk says:

    I wanna eat healthy so bad, especially because I know it’s possible even on my family’s budget. The problem is nobody else in my family wants to so if I ate healthy i’d be eating separately which would cost more :/

    • Don’t click on the flag says:

      same

    • Shweta Ghosh says:

      Same problem 😶

    • Miss Annette P says:

      Oh no, it is not more expensive. I eat on a budget and give myself a monthly allowance for my food list and I stay in budget. Not more costly, healthier. Think health, try it for a month and it’s fun, being more selective in what you buy is good for a budget. Eat healthy. Go on a one-person budget. It works for me.

    • Taekookie._.v says:

      it’s the same for me too and the worst part is that in my country we don’t usually find tofu or frozen veggies/fruits/meat or even cooked rice everywhere.. and beside the fact that our salaries are really low, the prices are really high, so with a low budget, a country like that and a family that is not interested in eating healthy at all, it is really hard for me to “live healthy” 😕 but i will try my best and i’m pretty confident that i will manage to succeed someday 😊

    • H O L L Y says:

      Same my parents are both skinny and they can eat whatever but I really need to loose weight so I can be happy going into highschool

  • Jennifer W says:

    Honestly, when I clicked on your video, I assumed that it would be another healthy person saying, “I only pay $7 a meal” because you only have to cook for yourself. I was truly surprised. You did an amazing job. Thank you for your help. It really was great!

  • Danny C. says:

    Right, if you can’t afford organic, just clean the veggies and fruit properly. Very useful tip! Also, people don’t seem to care about restaurant food whether it is organic, cage free, free range etc. But then turn around and get really strict with grocery items. If you can afford organic later then great. Thanks, you’re tips seem to be for normal people who are busy and need short cuts

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