Good Food on a Budget

Posted bybrooklynwellnessnzPosted inLifestyle, Recipes, Tattler

These are not easy financial times and many people are struggling with their food budget. It’s tempting to buy the cheapest food available, without worrying about quality. But if we look back to the wisdom of older generations , there are options for good, nourishing meals that are budget friendly.

This is a long post with lots of information. If it’s too overwhelming, bookmark it and read a bit at a time. Just look for one money saving idea, cheaper food, way to cook or recipe. Then come back another time.

This article is aimed to help people with a limited budget get the most bang (nutrition) for their buck. If even these suggestions are more than you can afford, see the bottom of the page for some additional ideas and Resources.

  • Home cook your meals and snacks. Make this part of the family culture. Involving the whole family in food prep and cooking will help prepare them for later life.
    • There’s no need for ‘fancy’ meals. Meals can be very simple, but still nourishing & appealing.
    • Use foods with the least processing possible, for better nutrition.
    • For treat nights, make your own pizza (maybe invest in a pizza stone), fried chicken, curry or fish and chips.
    • For when time is short, have a variety of pre-cooked meals in the freezer.
  • Shop wisely
    • Before thinking about where you shop, it might be helpful to think about HOW you shop. Do you usually take the car to do the shopping? Have you worked out what that costs in petrol? If you bus, what does that cost you per month for shopping trips? Compare that to the cost of doing an online shop once or twice a month. There might be some savings in time and money to do it that way, and just top up in between – or there might not, depending on your situation. Can you walk to the supermarket? You might have to go more often, but if you have more time than money, it could still work better.
      • We don’t have a car, so we do one online shop per month for heavy stuff and a general top up (just after the visa closes off – which we make sure we pay in full every month, without fail). In between, we walk and carry what will fit in a backpack, a couple of times per week. We find backpacks best for walking with groceries, as you can carry more on your back then in your arms. I’ve recently started walking at sunrise, to reset my circadian rhythms, and sometimes pop into a supermarket on my way back. Bonus being the supermarkets are quiet at that time.
    • There are big price differences between the supermarkets, and remember that one might be cheaper for some things but more expensive for others. One way to compare could be to set up for online shopping at all your local supermarkets, set up identical shopping lists (or put items into a shopping cart). If you have limited time, go to the supermarket with the lowest total that week. If you have to visit more than one, you can see which of your required staples to get where. After a while, you’ll have a feel for what to get where without having to check.
    • Shop the specials, check online only retailers, and shop in bulk – maybe join a co-op. Look for Farmers Markets in your area. You are likely to get produce that is fresher and cheaper than in the supermarkets. But that’s not a given, you still need to know the supermarket prices and quality to compare.
    • Check out food boxes. There are generally two kinds.
      • Fruit & vege boxes. In general, these are probably most useful if you don’t have time to shop, and are flexible /adventurous enough to experiment with unusual items, but also able to adapt if you get the same thing every week for a while. If you don’t use everything, it won’t be worthwhile. They generally work out cheaper than the supermarket, but allow for freight. There are quite a few around, and generally they are aiming to connect growers and buyers with less middlemen and more freshness. Look at reviews, and ask if they do a discount for students or SuperGold. This review is for Auckland, around 2023, but most places reviewed deliver in other areas. This review by Ethically Kate is from 2024.
      • Meal boxes. These are probably most useful for households that are quite time poor, and especially for only 1-2 people. You will be supplied with whatever you need for the meals you choose, and will only need some pantry staples. For some people, this can be useful as there will be no waste.
    • Buy produce in season when cheapest and freeze, bottle, dehydrate or make preserves. For example, now in early autumn, new season kumara is about to come into season. Buy it in bulk when the price is cheaper & store it. Then kumara soup & Shepherds pie topped with kumara instead of potato become more affordable.
    • Build relationships with a farmer or hunter.
  • Produce your own food
    • Grow your own fruit and veg – see our article on Growing a Nourishing Garden. Invest in heritage seeds from Koanga Institute, or purchase from Kings Seeds or your local garden centre. Visit Tui Gardens for what to plant when. Koanga also sell heritage fruit trees and more.
      • I’m no great shakes as a gardener, and the list of things I have failed to grow successfully is a long one. But even I can grow cos lettuce, spinach, silverbeet, radishes, beetroot, strawberries, flat leaf parsley and a rosemary bush. So there is hope for everybody!
    • If you don’t have garden space yourself, look into nearby community gardens. Or look into container gardening. Tui Container Gardening Guide ~ Palmers Container Gardening Guide ~ Bunnings Container Gardening Guide ~ Grow spuds in a cardboard box ~
    • Talk to your neighbours about what they grow. If you all grow different things, you can swap and get a wider range of foods than you can grow on your own.
    • There may also be a community pantry in your area. Contribute to it when you have excess, and draw on it when times are tougher (taking only what you need).
    • Keep hens for eggs.
    • Learn about foraging on the land or in the sea, or take up hunting yourself. Urban Foraging website has a map of free nut and fruit trees by area.
  • Plan meals in advance, to reduce waste
    • You can always change the plan if needed, but knowing what you’re making for the next few days takes away a load of stress.
    • Base your meals around what you bought on special in this week’s shop, what ripened in your garden and anything in your freezer that needs eating soon.
    • Plan how to use up leftovers eg roast lamb on Sunday, lamb rissoles for Monday night dinner, sliced lamb for sandwiches, and make some stock with the bone.
    • Limit your shopping to once a week, or even less often, if that works logistically. Have a ‘fridge clean out’ meal each week before doing the grocery shop. Make a casserole, stew, soup or frittata. Or have a smorgasbord of leftovers.
  • Cook in bulk and freeze already cooked meals
    • Soups and stews, for example, are ideal for making a big batch of and freezing
    • At the weekend, cook in bulk, for the freezer and for the coming week. There is no shame in having the same meal 2 or even 3 times in the same week.
    • Keep a list of what’s in the freezer and when it was frozen, so you can use the oldest things first and nothing gets forgotten.

Equipment

Back in 2016 I wrote a blog article on equipment for the Real Food kitchen. Since then I have also added a pressure cooker to my favourites. Read the article for more details, but probably the top 3 for cooking in bulk would be at least one of:

  • A large stock pot – for making stocks, soups and boil up
  • A slow cooker – great for preparing the ingredients for a meal the night before, then just taking them out of the fridge, popping them in the crockpot, and dinner is ready when you get home
  • A pressure cooker – good for cooking cuts of meat that would otherwise need a long slow cook for tenderising

Proteins

It’s critical for good health to get a good amount of protein into your diet. If you’re living cheaply, or eating simple meals, it can be easy to miss out the protein.

One of our Mums used to cook in bulk for an elderly couple, and needed to work to a budget. She says “For budget, you can’t beat mince or eggs. Our personal go-to for budget meals are cottage pie (I can get 6 portions out of a kilo of mince). Chilli con carne with a baked potato. Egg frittata with tinned salmon or sausage. Possibly butter chicken when I stretch the meat with lots of vegetables.”

Egg dishes

Forget all that rubbish about limiting eggs. Unless you have an egg sensitivity, there is no need to do that. They can be prepared in lots of different ways, and used to stretch a more expensive form of protein. I Love Eggs NZ has a variety of egg recipes, including a section on Feeding 4 people for under $20, and another called Delicious dinners for less.

Broths and soups

Most cultures have some saying along the lines of “good broth will raise the dead”. That’s because bone broths and meat stocks are among the most healing foods you can eat. The difference between them is that bone broths are made from, well, bones. They are rich in minerals from the bones, as well as other nutrients from the meat, tendons and cartilage. Meat stocks come from cooking meats. They don’t have the same level of minerals, but are also good for gut healing and easier to digest for some people are very ill.

One of our Mums group says “Start with bone broth! Include it in most meals & also have it as an easy ‘snack’ with diced or grated or julienned veggies. This helps keep hungry tummies satisfied & we all know the benefits of broth for our health.”

Another says “Get really good at making broth and soup. We have settled on eating chicken once a week and using the carcass to make a stock. It sits on the fridge for a week and if not used by the time the next batch is made we freeze it. We find having stock ready to go in the fridge makes nutrient dense meals come together really quickly. One of our ‘simple meals’ is pate (from chicken livers) and toast with a soup to follow. My family don’t find soup on it’s own enough but adding pate seems to be OK.”

Meat recipes

You might be feeling that you need to just cut meat out of your diet altogether, for the sake of your budget. But first, see our Meat & Poultry post for a variety of affordable recipes using mince, beef / steak, lamb, chicken, and pork.

Organ meats

If you’re not used to cooking with these, you might not be keen. But they are actually the most nutritious parts of the animal, and are often cheaper than muscle meat. One of our Mums says “Offal is not expensive from butchers or the supermarket. I find rural people who homekill often don’t eat offal so I have friends who save it for me. Lambs fry with egg and avocado; Beef heart stew; Fried sliced lambs heart; would be our favourites.”

See our Meat & Poultry post for a variety of recipes.

Fish

Fish is often more expensive than most cuts of meat. But there are still budget options.

  • The cheapest fresh fish is usually hoki. It has good flavour, but is a bit flaky so you need to be careful how you cook it. This short video by Sealord shows how to pan fry, poach or bake hoki. Or try this recipe that has a wholemeal & bacon crumb topping. More recipes here from Seafood NZ, including more hoki recipes.
  • Another great fish dish, for hoki or any fish you might have found on special, is Jamie Oliver’s Fantastic Fish Pie. By including hard boiled eggs in the dish, you can spread your fish further. You don’t need to use the fish he does, most will do just fine.
  • Utilise tinned fish. Especially nutritious are fatty ones that include the bones (good source of minerals), such as salmon, sardines or mackerel. Tuna would need to be used in a dish with some good fats in it.

Legumes

Legumes don’t agree with everybody, but for many people they are very nourishing as long as they are prepared correctly. Use them to stretch your meat further. On their own, they don’t supply all the amino acids we need, but when paired with grains or nuts, they will supply more. The four categories of “grain” foods are grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. If you don’t eat any animal protein, you need to eat at least 3 of the categories each day to create whole proteins.

See our article on how to prepare them. Recipes in the article include chili, dal, nachos, hummus, lentil loaf.

Dairy

If you tolerate dairy well, find ways to use it moderately to stretch your budget

  • Use Tasty cheese. If you use a stronger cheese in a cheese dish, you will need less of it. (Mainland Tasty is one of the few cheeses left that are made with animal rennet. We don’t yet know what lab produced microbial rennet will do to our gut health, so choose animal rennet as much as possible.)
  • Buy larger blocks, and stock up when they’re on special. Grate it and freeze it in amounts that you use in your favourite recipes.
  • One filling family recipe using tasty cheddar is good old mac and cheese. Edmonds recipe here. Personally, I like it without onion, or any other additions, just the simplicity of macaroni and cheese sauce. But you can add ham, chopped sausage, tomato or whatever else you fancy to it. If you want to make it gluten free, use your own favourite GF pasta, but then you have a choice of how to make the sauce. This recipe uses GF flour. It doesn’t say what kind, but cornstarch or tapioca starch should work ok. This recipe doesn’t use any flour, just cream, cheese and spices.
  • Make your own yoghurt. Homemade yoghurt can be both cheaper and healthier, by only adding whole food flavourings, once the yoghurt is made.
    • Acidophilus yoghurt – needs to be heated and kept warm
    • Caspian sea yoghurt – if you can find someone with a starter they can share, this ferments at room temperature.
    • Kefir – a runny, tangier ferment. If you can find someone with spare “grains”, they will keep for ages, and be cheaper than buying packeted starters.
    • Contact us if you would like us to source you a starter for either ferment.

Fats

Also a very important part of the diet. Saturated fats in particular have been blamed for heart disease – but our ancestors ate a LOT of saturated fats, a small amount of unsaturated fats and had very little heart disease. So we don’t buy that unproven theory.

The safest fats for cooking, and for adding flavour and calories to a meal, are animal fats of any kind, coconut oil, avocado oil, a little dash of sesame oil is nice for asian dishes, and extra virgin olive oil (but add that to the meal as you serve). In the form of whole foods, go for avocado, coconut and nuts and seeds. Most “vegetable oils” are actually from seeds and not safe to eat a lot of. Think “could Grandma have made this fat in her own kitchen?” If the answer is No, avoid.

  • If you make a stew, and some fat floats to the top – either incorporate it back into the meal, or save for another time.
  • Keep fat from your roasts for roasting up some veges, or for pan frying. Chicken and duck fat are specially delicious. Riverside Farm duck fat can often be bought for a slightly cheaper price (per gram) than butter, and it can be used instead of butter quite often.
  • Or you can render fat from off cuts of fat which is a very economical fat to cook with.
  • When avocado is in season and cheap, make the most of it for fast meals. Avocado and eggs on toast is an easy meal. Or on their own or topped with nori or feta, lemon juice, salt, pepper and coriander is delish. If you don’t like the texture of avocado, blend it up with some soft boiled eggs, butter and sea salt, before smothering your toast with it.

Carbs

Carbs tend to be a divisive food category. Many people rely on carbs and overeat them, because they are cheap, because they are easy, or maybe they’re just how you’ve always eaten. Others have demonised them and think they need to be reduced or deleted completely from your diet.

For most people, they are a healthy part of a balanced diet – just choose the right ones and balance them up with plenty of protein and healthy fats.

By serving carbs with a generous dollop of a good fat they will be more filling, the energy will be released more slowly and they will keep you satisfied longer. So portions can be smaller. Add in some protein and you have a well balanced meal.

Low to medium carbs – most fruits and veges – will tend to be more expensive, so just shop the wisest you can. In this article, we’re focusing more on the higher carb / more calories for your buck carbs.

  • Root vegetables and pumpkins.
    • Mashed potato, pumpkin or kumara with bucket loads of butter, or for a treat Dauphinoise potatoes.
    • Loaded potatoes are good and cheap. Add mince/chilli, cheese, sour cream, herbs, or canned tuna/salmon and mayo and herbs.
    • Now (in April) carrots are next cheapest after potatoes. But later in the season, look out for beetroot, parsnips, swedes. Choose what is cheapest at any time and learn how to best cook them. eg The best way to cook swede is in stock, till tender, when it becomes suddenly sweet and tasty. So don’t be put off if you’ve had it before and didn’t like it – try again.
    • Make up a tray of roast veges that are in season: eg potatoes, kumara, pumpkin, carrots, beetroot, eggplant, capsicum, fennel, zucchini etc. Serve with seeds, nuts, feta or fresh herbs.
  • Bread – see our article with a large range of breads you can make yourself. This will be particularly useful (and dollar saving) if you are buying gluten free breads.
  • Baking – see our articles on Savoury baking and Sweet baking.
  • Grains & Pasta. Most whole grains, like legumes, need to be soaked or fermented to make them more digestible. We tend to favour the non-gluten grains.
    • Rice is the one grain that doesn’t need to be pre-soaked, but cook it slowly and serve loaded with butter. Pressure cooker rice and veges – you could do something similar in a slow cooker.
    • Buckwheat is another hearty gluten free grain with a nutty flavour, that is part of traditional cooking in many parts of the world. 20 Buckwheat recipes.
    • If you’re looking for non-gluten pasta, there is much more choice than there used to be, some with quite good textures. But you can also make your own Thai style flat rice noodles from rice flour and tapioca starch, which will probably be cheaper and nicer, as long as you have some spare time – video here (also some interesting comments) – full written recipe here.
  • We’ve already talked about legumes, which will give you a generous portion of carbs along with the protein. Our Mums group particularly like lentils for a filling meal.
  • Desserts – being sweet – are usually higher in carbs. We have already written about Bliss ball type snacks and some more decadent desserts. But I’m remembering the more everyday desserts my mum and grandma used to make us back in the 60’s and 70’s.
  • A more modern budget dessert (or breakfast) is to use chia seeds (which are cheap in bulk) for a pudding. Soak overnight in milk, yoghurt, coconut cream or any other plant mylk. Top with fruit or nuts. 10 Chia Seed Pudding recipes.

What else do you buy ready made?

Think about what else you could make yourself, or replace with something simpler / cheaper. Some examples:

  • Granola / muesli – oats are more digestible soaked than toasted, but if you’re a fan of it, make your own and have some control over what’s in it ~ Homemade Granola recipe (this is just one of many online). One of our Mums makes her own Homemade muesli: “I purchase nuts and seeds in bulk from Moore Wilson’s, toast them in the oven with coconut oil and a small amount of maple syrup or honey. Optional vanilla or cinnamon. Can use whatever nuts/seeds you want ie. coconut, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds, cashews, etc. it’s way cheaper and healthier than buying the keto/ gf ones from supermarket.”
  • Other cereals – packaged cereals are expensive and devoid of nutrients. A whole grain breakfast like porridge is more nutritious and cheaper. It might not be as appealing to young taste buds (or your own!) but you can jazz it up with added fruit, berries or a little healthy sweetener. After cooking it, stir in some butter or coconut oil, or top with some cream. This makes it taste better, and makes it more filling. Again – soak your grains before cooking them. Soaked Oatmeal Porridge ~ Oats & Berries ~ Buckwheat Porridge ~ Buckwheat, Chia & Coconut Porridge ~ Blueberries ‘n’ Cream Amaranth Porridge
  • Plant “mylks” such as almond milk and oat milk may be cheaper if you make them yourself, especially if you can use the leftover pulp for baking. They will definitely have less additives. Almond Milk (if you can’t afford the $20 a nut mylk bag costs, a piece of cheesecloth will also work almost as well) ~ Creamy Oat Milk
  • Nut butters – If you already have a heavy duty food processor or blender, you can make your own. Nourishing Peanut Butter recipe – with coconut oil, honey & sea salt. Can be adapted for other nuts ~ Homemade Peanut Butter – with just roasted peanuts and salt.
  • Things in tins – it can be good to have some tinned staples that can be useful to base a meal on, or to make a meal more interesting. Think tinned fish, corned beef (mix up with a batter to make quick, cheap and surprisingly tasty fritters), coconut milk, tomato paste. But for other things think about whether you can make your own in bulk cheaper.
  • Sauces, herbs & spices, spice mixes. If you are a cook who likes to use lots of different flavourings, it might be money well spent to have a wide range of condiments, as long as you will use them up. But if you tend to use the same things over and over again, it may be better to have a few well chosen favourites only. And some you may choose to make up yourself – 10 Homemade Pantry Mixes to SAVE You $$$

Avoiding Waste

Don’t waste anything that’s edible.

  • Dinner leftovers – eat for breakfast, lunch or incorporate into a meal later in the week
  • Lunchbox leftovers (see our Real Food Lunchbox page for lunch ideas):
    • fry up leftover sandwiches in butter to make toasted sandwiches for an after school snack
    • fruit that isn’t still ok for the next day’s lunchbox could go into an after school smoothie, or be chopped up to go with cream or yoghurt for after dinner. One of our Mums often makes an after school smoothie, which works out much cheaper than something from a box or a cafe:
      • Milk/mylk, coconut water, juice or just water
      • Fruit – fresh, frozen or leftover – anything works, even orange or mandarin pieces – frozen fruit often cheaper bought in bulk
      • Optional: Avocado, chia seeds or a few nuts for some good fats
      • Optional: throw in some spinach or micro greens for extra nutrients
  • Expired food items – Keep track of when things need to be used by, so you can use them on time. Then check if its a Use by or a Best By. You will need to be more careful with a perishable Use By, but if it’s Best By, it will often keep for days, weeks, or even months longer. (I’m currently using cocoa powder more than 2 years past its BB date, and it’s fine – but always check the look of it, the smell and the flavour before using. If it doubt, toss it out.)
  • Leftover vegetable soup. Even if its not enough to freeze for a meal another time, freeze it anyway. Even a cupful of soup, if it’s blended up to be thick and creamy, can be added to a pack of panfried mince to make a very quick meal.
  • Leftover bread:
    • If you know ahead of time that you won’t use the whole loaf before it’s beyond even toasting, separate some out and freeze a few slices. Keep your old bread bags for this purpose.
    • Make bread and butter pudding.
    • Make into breadcrumbs for burgers or meatloaf (which can also be frozen). Or toast up in the oven to make croutons. This is a great use for the crust pieces.
  • Over ripe bananas:
    • Use in baking eg banana bread, cake, muffins or Oatmeal banana bread for a portable breakfast.
    • Make into 2 ingredient pancakes – 2 eggs per medium banana, no flour needed.
    • Or add to porridge for breakfast eg Banana Overnight Oatmeal (Tip – use yoghurt instead of milk to make the oats more digestible)
  • If you use part of a tin of something for a recipe – such as tomato paste or coconut milk – freeze the leftovers in ice cube trays. Bag them up and they’re all ready for a later recipe.
  • Bones – make stock
  • Vege cut offs, or uneaten veges that are starting to go soft:
    • Use to make vegetable stock or to add to bone broth for extra flavour. If you don’t have enough, or don’t have time, pop into a bag and keep in the freezer till next stock making day
    • Compost – You can buy a compost bin, bokashi bin or worm farm, or just start a compost heap in the back garden for no cost. Composting is also a way to use garden waste.
  • Egg shells – Clean then crush up for the garden. They add minerals to the soil, can deter snails and slugs, or can be added to your compost heap.

Weston A Price Foundation

WAPF are an organisation dedicated to education about traditional foods, and how to prepare them for maximum nutrition. Some of their links on how to eat well on a budget:

Looking for even cheaper meals?

Modern day homesteaders

Quite a few people are sharing their tips for how to make the cheapest meals in the current economic climate. They are using US pricing, but the principles are the same.

Frugal recipes from recent ancestors

A whole bunch of YouTube videos have been popping up in my feed about recipes used during the depression or other lean times in the past. I haven’t had time to go through them yet, but will put them all here for you, and gradually dip intro them for ideas and recipes. These might not be as high in nutrients as we might like, and are much more basic than our 20th century tastes are used to. But when the larder is pretty bare, these may help.

Lessons from even more distant times

This YouTube video explores how our medieval ancestors ate very cheaply to survive. 15 cheap medieval meals

These included pottage (a constantly simmering stew, that was added to daily), bread (though different to today’s breads), gruel (like a thin porridge, better than starving but barely), turnips, onions, cabbage, peas and beans (soaked, boiled, mashed), offal, pigs head, blood, game animals, salted herring, ale (safer than water then), cider (apple trees were able to grow in otherwise unusable land), wild berries, tart fruits in autumn, acorns & chestnuts, young greens in spring, and anything else that could be foraged.

It’s quite a long watch but very interesting, and gives us good context for how to be thrifty today. The comments are also useful.

The channel has a variety of videos on Medieval life. Some of them I wouldn’t want to watch, but there are others on medieval food, or ways to keep warm, for example, that could be interesting.

Free Food Resources

Related posts on this blog

Recipe posts compiled by Deb.
For more recipes, go to the Recipe Index page

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