Want to Stay Healthy on a Budget: With each passing year, inflation makes food and facilities more and more expensive, especially in the current scenario of fuel and transportation hikes. As most well know, every time these costs go up, it affects food quite heavily. As a result, inflation ensures that we cut down on many lifestyle habits like movie watching, eating out, etc.
Staying healthy and fit in this economic crisis is a big task because you get a lot lesser for your usual budgeted food allowance. To stay healthy without going broke, we give you a few tips to shop and save money the smart way…
1. Buy Local
Instead of going to a supermarket, do your grocery shopping locally. Local shops have products similar to supermarkets, in fact sometimes better than that, at a lower cost. Plus save more money by using your bargaining skills.
2. Prevention is Better than Cure
In today’s expensive times, medical care comes at a premium. Therefore, prevention will definitely save you some big bucks in the near future. Avoid junk foods, and stay active through an exercise to build immunity.
3. Locate ONE Shop
Get a fix on one shop, which means that this is your go-to place whenever you need any household and personal care goods. This will save time and fuel expenses. Additionally, the shopkeeper may give you few discounts for being a regular, loyal customer.
4. Try Go Online
Whether it’s free online tutorials or discounts on gym memberships, nowadays several deal sites are opening up to healthy living products and services. Bulk orders get high discounts as well. Get together with some friends and family, and use these offers to your maximum benefit.
5. Plan Before Shopping
Planning your grocery list will make your shopping easier. This will prevent you from buying unnecessary products, and help you buy exactly what you need. Go shopping only after you note down all the healthy products, with high nutritional values.
6. Munch Popcorns
Munch on some popcorn whenever your stomach grumbles in the evening. Popcorns are available everywhere and are cheap as well. Prefer loose kernels rather than bagged popcorns, as they cost less and are low in calories and high in fibre.
7. Soups Before Meals
When you eat out, start your meal with low-fat soups. They are high in volume and low in calories and will help fill your stomach faster, preventing overindulgence.
At home, make soups from scratch, rather than buying ready to make soup packets, this will save some extra bucks. Apart from being a far healthier option, homemade soups will boost your immunity and keep you safe from seasonal flu – and save medical expenses as well!
8. Free Exercise
Not all exercise requires an expensive gym membership. Look at the communities around you, and you will find groups of fitness enthusiasts who get together and motivate each other to workout outdoors – using free options like jogging parks, walking promenades, or merely concrete outdoor gyms!
Read up on bodyweight exercises and maybe even invest in some free weights like dumbbells and resistance bands instead. These will enable quick home or outdoor workouts and you won’t have to shell out big bucks for a gym with a sauna that you don’t even use.
9. Eat out only during occasions
Prepare your own food, this will allow control of your ingredients in your food and is comparatively much cheaper than outside food. Hence, always carry some fruits or snacks wherever you go and always fill your stomach before going anywhere.
10. Take medical insurance
Always plan for a healthy future. Invest in yearly medical investment plans to avert huge expenses.
11. Shop During Offers
Shop when supermarkets announce sales or offers. This will help you to save some bucks during your grocery shopping. Again, keeping a shopping list handy will help you go for product and service combinations that you need and are planning to buy.
12. Pick Fresh Foods
Not only are fresh foods healthier, but they are also a lot cheaper than processed and packaged foods. Fresh, local produce is one of the rare benefits of living in a developing country where you are never too far from the grocers who sell their own home-grown fare.
Whether it is meat, fruits, vegetables, or even grain products, find a seller who sells everything fresh. You will find that this method of shopping and consumption is great for a fitted waistline and a fat wallet!
How To Stay Healthy
