Eating healthy can be done on a budget too!

Doesn’t it seem that healthy food is more expensive? To stretch your dollars while eating healthy, always keep the following tips in mind…

1. Cook at Home
We all know that eating out is not only more expensive, but also much less healthy. The portions are typically larger than necessary and you truly don’t know what’s in your dinner. Hitting that drive-thru might seem fast and easy, but we pay for it both in cost and health.

2. Plan Your Meals in Advance
One way to avoid the temptation of last-minute drive-thrus and processed, pre-prepared meals in our constantly busy schedules is to create a weekly menu plan. Sticking with simple, healthy meals along with cooking ahead and freezing meals works wonders in this area.

3. Eat Less Meat
Many times, the most expensive item on your grocery list is… (yep, you guessed it!)… meat. Although fresh meat is part of a healthy diet, don’t forget about other healthy sources of protein such as beans, eggs, fish, and even canned tuna or chicken, which is usually less expensive and just as nutritious. Toss these on a salad or whole-grain pasta dish – and there’s your healthy dinner!

4. Buy Locally
Farmer’s Markets are an excellent resource for discounts on fresh fruits, and vegetables. Many communities also have small businesses that focus on gathering fresh produce from local, organic farmers each week.

5. Save on Canned & Frozen Vegetables and Focus on Healthy Sale Items
In planning your grocery trip, focus on the healthy sale items each week. When canned or frozen vegetables go on sale, stock up… and keep in mind that just because that sugary snack is on sale, it doesn’t mean that you need to buy it!

6. Focus on Whole Grains
Stock up on whole grains when they go on sale. Cereals pasta, and oatmeal have a long shelf-life, and you can get excellent deals on these products when combining Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sales and coupons!

7. Avoid Processed Foods
Processed and pre-packaged foods are often a source of unidentifiable and unhealthy ingredients. If you focus on whole foods, you’ll avoid these unknowns all together.

8. Keep a Stocked, Healthy Pantry
We try to keep our pantry stocked with healthy choices, such as whole-grain pasta, canned vegetables, whole-grain crackers, nuts, canned healthy meats and more. Use those 6-week sales cycles and stock up at that rock-bottom price on those healthy choices! Plus, knowing that I can throw together a quick meal for my family that is both healthy and frugal gives me a small sense of peace in our hectic, busy 4-kids-in-lots-of-activities everyday lifestyle!

 
Credits to Valerie Reed for this article.

Clipping coupons are not limited to physical coupons at the grocery store any more. Coupons are available for redemption at many online retailers!

If you think about cutting back on your expenses when you are shopping, you should avail from the online coupons that help you save a considerable amount of money. Online coupons help you get discount on various items at online as well as actual stores.

Upon hearing of free coupons, I thought of the good old days when we used to cut them out of the newspapers or magazines and take them to the stores to cut back a few bucks. But in the recent times, free coupons are usually addressed to the Internet coupon codes that are to be used while shopping at online stores. Online coupons work the same way as the traditional paper ones. The coupons offered by websites are codes that help you get discount on many items such as groceries, clothes, shoes, gadgets, jewelery and many other products. Some of these codes are numeric or alphabetic whereas others are alphanumeric.

You can purchase many items online and get good discounts with the help of these coupons. All you have to do is search for a website that offers free coupons to get discount on a varied range of items. When you find such website, you can get all the great discounts offered by numerous online stores. You can choose the ones that give you the most suitable deals. Many of the discounts expire unexpectedly, so you should ensure that you are entering a coupon code that is valid at the time. You can find coupons at these websites along with the relevant information such as the actual discount available on products, the store where it can be redeemed and the date it expires.

Most of the websites directly link you to the website of the store when you click on the coupon. When you visit the online store through these websites, you automatically get a discount on the product you wish to purchase. You can click on as many coupons you like and check out the product on the website. The other kinds of coupons are printable coupons that you can get printed from the computer and avail the discount at an actual store, not the virtual one. You can take the coupon print to the store of the given company and save a considerable amount of money on each purchase.

Many online stores also give away free coupons as part of their brand marketing campaign. They want more and more people to visit their stores. Discount coupons, free coupons, freebies and giveaways are the incentives used by manufacturers to attract consumers towards their products. This way, they get consumers to try out their products and beat the competition with their counterparts. Some companies give discounts on services as well.

In order to mark their presence over the Internet, all the major companies use many tactics to attract new costumers as well as hold on to the existing ones. The online printable coupons and free coupons are the easiest way to achieve this. The discounts offered by the companies draw people towards the free coupons that let them purchase many products at low prices. If you really want to avail from the great discounts that are offered by many online stores, you should visit these websites regularly to get free coupons and save some bucks on each purchase.

To save money on various purchase over the Internet, you can search the Internet for websites that offer printable free coupons to get discounts on numerous products.

 
Credits to Gagan Singh for this article.

Ok, so Christmas is just round the corner, and if you haven’t already started your shopping…then what are you waiting for? But just before you get your wallet out… have a think – could you save yourself some money?

Christmas is going to cost you a lot this year, and finding things ‘on the cheap’ can be quite hard.

So that’s why I’ve put this short guide together, to help you reduce the cost of Christmas the easy way.

1) Use price checkers to lower the cost of presents

There are plenty of websites that provide free ‘price-checking’ facilities, so you can compare the price of your desired item from several retailers, and find out which one offers it the cheapest.

Price-checking facilities can help you save some serious cash at Christmas. For example, last year – I used a price-checker to find the cheapest retailer of the latest computer game for my son, and found that one retailer was offering it $20 cheaper than another one!

So, just do a search for ‘price-checker’ on a search engine and take a look at the results!

2) Use discount vouchers

Shopping for food, drinks and presents can be a real drag, and before you know it, you’ve spend $100s. So, to help you reduce the cost of your shopping, you should take a look at the selection of discount vouchers on the internet.

Just search for ‘discount vouchers’ on a search engine and you should be provided with plenty of links.

Some vouchers will offer you the chance to get 50% off at your favourite retailers, while others will allow you to buy cheaper food, drinks and other items.

Discount vouchers aren’t just available online, you can find them in your local paper and some retailers may even give them out once you have shopped there.

3) Shop online

This is the easiest way to do your Christmas shopping – you can order everything you need online and have it delivered straight to your door.

Online shopping tends to be cheaper than shopping in your local store. The demand for products can be much higher online, and retailers lower their prices to compete with each other – so look out for the cheapest online stores, and like the first point in the guide…check the prices using a price checker to make sure you’re getting the best deal.

So, there you have it, a short but sweet guide on how to reduce the cost of Christmas and stay out of debt… the easy way. (for more debt information visit ThinkMoney)

Of course, there are many other ways in which you can save yourself money over the festive period, but the ones mentioned above are certainly worth a try!

Thanks to hannah for this guest post.