Healthy Eating on a Budget of $75.  Is it possible?

Do you think healthy eating on a budget is possible?  If you had a grocery budget of just $75 for the week (for a family of four), what would you spend it on?  

Would you buy 20 Lunchables, 10 cans of soup, and 20 Lean Cuisine Dinners to get you through the week?  

Sure, you could do that.  

Would you go to the Dollar Store and buy 75 items for just one dollar treating yourself to some candy and cookies along the way?  

Sure you could, and some do.  

Would you buy big bags of cereal, a few gallons of milk, a few loaves of bread and a jar of peanut butter to get you through?  

Sure, that would be easy.  

Do you think you could take that same $75 and spend it on organic produce, high quality meats, sprouted grain breads, good quality butter, and organic beans?  

Now, I have you thinking.  

We constantly hear that healthy eating is too expensive. That there’s no way a family can eat healthy on a budget. My goal is to prove the naysayers wrong and to “show” that you can in fact do it on a minimal budget.  

Our family recently tested the notion that you can eat healthy on a $75 budget, but with one important stipulation. We would not sacrifice the quality of our foods. That we would do it while still eating organic vegetables and high quality meats, breads, and beans.  

You see, I lived my early adult years eating cheap, processed foods. I know how to do that with my eyes closed. Eating crappy foods on a budget is EASY! But I also know what it does to my body. How it made me feel (depressed, no energy, sick). I also know what it did to my kids when they were little. They had no ability to focus, were gaining weight, and sick all of the time.  

I wasn’t about to go down that road again. Not even for a week. My family deserves better than that.

This video highlights our rationale behind the foods that we ate and also shows what each meal looked like. It’s easy to look at a sheet of meal plans but we wanted you to truly see what each meal looked like as we talk through some important decisions we had to make.  

This video will be highly debatable. We had to make a lot of tough choices and leave out a lot of foods that many would find unacceptable. But to our family, quality is most important.  

The average family spends $100-150/week on groceries. Reducing it to $75 is considerable, but also very real for many on a fixed income.  

The battle between health and convenience plagues us each and every day. And in most cases, convenience continues to take hold while our health suffers more and more.  

I don’t believe that a low budget entitles you to low quality food.  

I absolutely believe you can eat high quality foods despite your budget. In fact, we included 12 different fruits and vegetables, salmon, tuna, organic canned goods, and high quality beans in our Meal Plan on a Budget.  

Eating organic isn’t just for the rich and affluent.   This has nothing to do with status and everything to do with nutrients and health.  

Check out the video above and let me know what you think? Could your family make it on $75 a week and what would your meals look like? I can’t wait to hear from you.   

Check out our list of recommended products for Meal Planning and Gardening Here!