Guest Blogger: Chloe @ Eat Good Feel Good

Hey folks!

Today we're super lucky to be hosting a guest blogger. 

Chloe, from Eat Good Feel Good, is a Plymouth student on a mission - to eat healthily on a student budget. But not just that, Chloe likes to eat with her eyes (don't we all?!) so all her meals and snacks are aesthetically beautiful, interesting and I guarantee you'll be cracking out the chia seeds and dusting off your blenders when you have a read.

Chloe shares photos of her adventures in food on instagram(@ourowndust) and can be found on her blog here. 

Be sure to check her out!

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Smart Shopping on a student budget

“It’s too expensive to eat healthily!”

I agree. Sadly, eating healthy, whole foods is not the most cost effective way to eat. It is a crying shame that most of the time, it is cheaper and easier to grab a Maccy D’s than to prepare a delicious and nutritious meal. This year I made the decision to reclaim my body, one pound at a time and this meant making drastic changes to my diet. I was utterly shocked to find that the foods that are the best for you are often the most expensive- I’m looking at you organic produce! So, being a student on a tight budget, I decided to look into the best ways to eat smart and shop smart and  I am kind enough to share my secrets with you!

(Disclaimer: I am not some kind of financial whizz, nor are any of these ideas anything new and innovative. They are just tips and tricks that I have inherited, read online or discovered for myself.)

Select your supermarket

WARNING! This section is not for supermarket snobs. In a quest to find the cheapest fresh produce, I travelled far and wide. Ok, I travelled to the shops across Plymouth, but that’s the same thing. I crossed off Waitrose and Sainsbury’s straight away as they are just too expensive for me. I’m sure they do some great deals, but I can’t be dealing with popping in to have a look. Here are my supermarket sleuth findings…

• Tesco
  Now, it is not the best for fruit and vegetables and I find that the quality of their produce isn’t fantastic. However, you get the lovely, lovely club card points. I use Tesco for fuel and packet food such as sauces, dressings and other things that might be on offer.
• Morrison’s
  Although I cannot stand the experience and have an active hatred for their vegetable misting machines, I actually rate Morrison’s for their fruit and veg. They often have great deals and offer a brilliant range of produce. I love trying new and interesting food so this is a great option for me. Added to this, I find that the whole foods are a little cheaper in Morrison’s, so I buy my quinoa etc there. Oh, and (although this is for treats) the steak is amazing!
• ASDA
  As I grew up five minutes away from the local ASDA, it is the supermarket that I feel most confident in. Also, it is the cheapest of the “main ones”. However, I don’t think it is that great for fresh produce or whole foods, apart from the blueberries. They are to die for!
• LIDL
  Supermarket snobs look away now. Since I wasn’t able to buy all of the fresh and healthy things I needed in the main name supermarkets, I decided to try LIDL on recommendation by my grandparents and I will never look back. There is a great range of produce and it is all at amazingly low prices. A lot of the produce will be British, too. There are LIDLs popping up all over the place and I would say that you should all go and have a look!
• ALDI
  And I thought it couldn’t get any better than LIDL! On my first trip to ALDI, I was able to get a full (small) trolley for about £40. You will be amazed at the prices. The fruit and veg is really, really nice and with the prices so low, I am able to spend a little more on treats like berries and better quality sauces and seasonings. The meat is also really great and each week they have super 6 offers, meaning that 6 different items are only between 49p and 69p each! All of this was purchased in ALDI for under £25…

• The Internet
  I know this sounds weird but you can actually get some great deals online. If you are looking to buy some chia seeds (great post about these on Saira’s blog), look online. Things like this work out much cheaper in bulk and the best prices are from wholesalers on eBay and Amazon.

Although it is great to buy fresh produce for low prices, you do have to remind yourself that it is always better to shop locally and to buy organic produce. Local and organic produce is not only better for your body, it is better for your world too. It is a constant battle for me but I figure that cheap, imported fruit is better for me than a chocolate bar. It’s all about compromise and choices. If you do one thing to challenge yourself this week, go to ALDI!

Also, never go shopping hungry! Top tip.

Pick it yourself

With this in mind, another great choice is to pick your own fruit and veg and support a local pick your own farm. My local is called Pip’s (find them at http://www.pipsfruitandveg.co.uk/) and the produce is competitive with the supermarkets, only much fresher and tastier. These farms will have a range of products and the real value for money part for me is the fact that you get to have a day out! It can take a few hours to walk around the farm and pick the fruit and veg and it is a really fun thing to do, especially with kids. I would really recommend doing this.

Grow it yourself

Another great cost effective alternative is to just grow it yourself! If you have green fingers, this wont be a problem but if you are like me, you will cringe at the thought of having to look after a plant (not to mention the fact that I don’t actually have a garden). However, I have found that there are very simple things to grow and tricky cheats to keep the cost low and the earth healthy. I have just started to look after some herbs on my kitchen windowsill that I loving ‘adopted’. Buying the plants instead of growing them from a seed is a good cheat and if you look in LIDL or ALDI, you can pick up herb plants for less than 90p- much better considering you pay about 50p for a bunch that will only last a few days. I have had a mint plant in my kitchen for about 3 weeks now and it is still going strong, despite my tea habit!

Some tea made with some mint leaves from my lovely plant, named Minty.

Cook in bulk

You’ve probably heard this one 100 times before, but cooking in bulk is a really great way to keep food and energy costs down. When you prepare food for one portion, it is pretty much inevitable that you will cook too much. Making a big batch will help you ration your portions and means that you will only have to cook up one lot, saving money on energy as reheating is quicker. Loads of meals can be made in a big pot and because you are cooking it yourself, you can control the ingredients and make it as clean as you like. The dishes I like to make up and keep in the fridge for the week or freeze for further use are;

• Curry
• Chilli
• Quinoa (much easier to cook up a big batch for the week than do it each day!)
• Whole Chickens (free range!)
• Soups

There are about a million more things that you could do this with, but these are my go to meals! Also, with this, it is much better if you plan out your meals ahead. This gives you a good idea of when you need to make a big batch and when you need to takes things out to defrost.

A portion of my chicken and vegetable curry. I use chicken that I take from a whole roasted chicken and freeze it into individual portions.

Be friends with your freezer

Your freezer is your friend! The most frustrating thing about eating clean and raw is that fresh produce goes off. Don’t let your purchases go to waste- throwing out food is like throwing away money! My top tip is to freeze your fruit just as it starts to turn (like when your strawberries start to go a bit squishy!). Not only are you saving your hard earned fruit from being wasted, you are preparing to create numerous frozen treats! You can make sorbets, ice creams and yummy summer smoothies with your frozen fruits. For more information and ideas about this, see my blog post ‘Ice cream, nice cream!’.

Some delicious strawberry lime sorbet made with frozen fruit!

Also, you can make smoothie bags to last you the week. Just prepare your fruit and greens and pop them into zip lock bags then in the freezer. This saves time, too. On this note, make sure you are only buying what you need when you are at the shops, don’t over do it! Wasted food is wasted money.

Pack it up

A typical lunch time for me at work. Delicious and nutritious!

It is no secret that I am a Tupperware fetishist! I love, love, love food storage containers and my life would not be the same without them. One of the key aspects to me being able to keep my food costs low is that I always prepare my food in advance and take a packed lunch. Taking food with you is a much more cost friendly option as often pre packaged food that had any nutritional value is rather expensive, especially pre prepared fruit packs. It does require a bit of extra effort but it is totally worth it in the long run. Also make sure that you invest in a good BPA free bottle and always take a drink with you. Stay hydrated kids!

Finally, I would suggest that you always and only drink water, not fizzy drinks or juices. Not only are they really bad for you, but the cost can really rack up without you noticing. It might be hard to give up at first but you won’t notice after a while- I promise! Although it might seem that eating packed lunches and the same meals over and over can get boring, you need to remember why you are saving money. For some people, it is a necessity and for others, it means that money can be spent more wisely elsewhere (maybe a holiday fund, or a new laptop). I have found that shopping smart and saving money of my healthy food bills has become a bit of a hobby and I love coming home and seeing how much good stuff I can get for my pennies! Give it a go and tell me how you get on! Visit me at www.eatgoodfeelgood93.blogspot.co.uk and join me on my journey.

Chloe xx