5 Tips to help you eat healthy and stay on budget

Here are 5 simple tips to help you eat healthy on a budget.

1. Stay In Season - If you want to buy fresh fruit and vegetables out of season, expect to pay top dollar. These items either have to be grown in greenhouses or shipped from halfway around the world.

2. Shop Local - Visit a local farmer's market, you'll be surprised at how much you'll learn about your food and how far your dollar will go. If you have to leave the city, make a family trip of it.

3. Cut back on meat - Top quality meat that is pasture-raised and antibiotic free is going to cost more than the discount priced hormone saturated frankenmeat at your local grocery store. Buy a food scale and monitor just how much meat you and your family are eating. The USDA recommends the average person eat 5 1/2 ounces of protein per day. Measure your intake so you can stay healthy without eating excessive amounts of meat products.

4. Pinch pennies! - Clip coupons, watch for sales, and don't ignore the fancy health stores- they have sales too!

5. Inconvenient items - Stay away from convenience items. Sure they're quick and easy, but they also cost extra. Instead, buy whole food ingredients and make your own meals.

There you have it, 5 sensible tips to eat healthy on a budget. Funny, when I look at that list I see the common sense tips our parents and grandparents used every time they went to the grocery store. Nowadays we lack so much common sense when it comes to our food that we have to re-educate ourselves as adults to do basic things like shop for food.