That healthy food should be prioritised even when budgeting

[KielyK]

Exactly that. DH and I are having to tighten the purse strings for a few reasons and I am adamant we should continue to buy healthy food, good quality food and veg etc. He says this isn’t a non negotiable for him and that we should be open to dialling back on it.

I’m not talking about going into debt due to this or anything silly, it’s not that extreme.

Would you compromise on this?

I think healthy nutritious food is so important and so should be one of the last things to cut. If you can make cutbacks elsewhere that’s what I’d do.

I always budget healthy foods first - vegetables, fruits, grains, oats etc. Enough for the week and everything else is a bonus.

wonky fruits and veg are brilliant.

Absolutely. It would be the very last thing I would cut. Having said that, there is plenty of healthy fresh nutritious food that isn’t too expensive, I’d be open to dialling back on the steak and caviar (😉) and focusing more on in-season vegetables, chicken, fish, offers ect.

It depends what you are calling “healthy” If you mean organic, from the local farm shop, costing the earth then of course you cut back. If you are talking about fruit and veg from the supermarket then no, carry on buying that. Or consider frozen food which is just as healthy.

I honestly don't buy that eating healthily needs to be more expensive. If you eat mostly vegetables in season, tith small amounts of protein, you'll probably save money.

Not sure what you mean by good quality though because any supermarket veg is healthy.

It depends.
You can still be healthy eating standard food ranges rather than organic or speciality ranges but I wouldn’t want to swap a healthy meal for processed junk unless I had to and I’d still want to find a cheaper healthy meal instead.

I get your point, but YABU for telling people how to budget. Everyone has different priorities.

Also, unless you are spending a fortune on healthy ready meals, you need to know how, and have the energy etc to prep healthy food into healthy meals.

Healthy food is often just basic ingredients.

When I switched to non-UPF and generally ‘clean’ eating, my food bill actually went down. It’s far cheaper to eat healthily in my experience. Porridge oats are cheaper than sugary cereals, a bag of brown rice is cheaper than oven chips, an apple is cheaper than a chocolate bar, and water is obviously cheaper than fizzy drinks.

What do you mean by healthy?

Just taking fruit for example. I can eat a banana, an apple, a pear, a kiwi and an orange a day.

Or I can eat strawberries, dragonfruit, cherries, raspberries, and blueberries.

We all know which selection costs more. Both are healthy.

I could buy organic everything or smartprice everything, I could shop in Marks and Spencer or buy from the local market. I could buy fresh or frozen or tinned.

You can be healthy in cheaper or more expensive ways

It depends what you mean by "good quality". If that means you are buying fruit and veg from a local farm shop which happens to be more expensive than the local supermarket then I think you are being unreasonable.
Ditto for meat, fish, eggs.
If you can't afford to buy them from more expensive places then you will have to buy them from somewhere else, or really cut back on the amount of meat and fish you eat.

However, I wouldn't be swapping fruit, veg etc for processed foods from the freezer. So in that respect, yes, healthy food should be prioritized. If you can't afford organic then you'll have to eat normal fruit and veg.

I pick up the boxes of fruit and veg from my local supermarket (abroad) a couple of times a week. They are the wonky stuff or things that won't survive the weekend for example. It costs €3.50 and you get a whole pile of stuff and as long as you use it up fairly quickly or make things with it and freeze, it's really good. You might be able to do something like that.