Eating Well on a Budget – Introduction

I want to eat healthy.

I live a super active lifestyle and when I look at my “diet” objectively, I know that I feel so much better when I am eating well, but…

For me, developing a balanced relationship with food was tough. Growing up, food and I were like that toxic couple that were obsessed with each other one second and hated each other the next and without going into all of the gory details, let’s just say that it was not natural for me to want to eat healthy.

For clarification, when I say “healthy” now and in the future, I mean that in an all encompassing kind of way. Healthy, as in real food that will fuel your body. Healthy, as in food that makes you feel good. Healthy, as in eating in a way that is sustainable for you longterm mentally, physically and financially. Let’s get back on track…

Now that I am a full grown adult, I love my relationship with food. We are great friends. I have solid, ongoing goals of eating healthy, but when my husband and I have been out working all day and we want to order a pizza from our favorite place in town, we do and I enjoy it. I am not “treating myself” to a slice or I don’t immediately start planning for how I am going to “make up” for what I just did. I don’t, because I didn’t do anything wrong. I had some pizza and doing so doesn’t require me to pull myself back onto a make believe wagon that I must have fallen off of or eat twice as good tomorrow to balance things out. I am going to eat healthy things tomorrow, because I was going to anyways and it’s not going to be a chore or punishment to do so.

Now, unfortunately, even if we could make the psychological elements of eating healthy disappear, there are often financial hurdles to deal with as well.

When we talk about the goals of eating healthy and eating on a budget, they are often discussed separately, as if they cannot coexist, but this Eating Well on a Budget series is all about proving that idea wrong.

My husband and I have been following Dave Ramsey’s financial program and we have recently added a personal goal of paying our home off before retirement. Although we have always been fairly frugal, our budget has become much more important lately. My husband is in the military, so we move a lot and moving every few years ain’t cheap. In fact, in 2018, we moved from Japan to Virginia Beach then 2 years later to DC then a year later to Pensacola then to coastal North Carolina and 2 months ago, we moved to Yuma Arizona. All that in 6 years.

My point is, our finances need to stay in tip top shape in order to keep up with this lifestyle, but eating healthy is just as important, so finding ways to eat well on a budget is crucial right now (always, really) and I want to share this goal and all of the experiences tied to it with you.

I am starting this series off with an ode to ground beef, which I hope you enjoy, but there are plans for many more coming soon! If you have any questions, comments or special requests, reach out! I would love to hear from you!