How to Have a Healthy Lifestyle without Spending Lots of Money

How to Have a Healthy Lifestyle without Spending Lots of Money

It’s easy to assume that living a healthy lifestyle with a focus on healthy food and fitness has to cost a lot of money. This lifestyle can cost a lot of money if you choose to spend on things like protein bars, take-away smoothies, extravagant exercise clothing, expensive gym memberships etc. Luckily, you don’t need these things to be healthy! You can do it all on a small budget or without spending much at all. Let’s have a look at how this can be achieved.

• Save on Food

You often see health and fitness influencers showing quite complicated recipes with lots of ingredients – many of which you cannot get when doing your weekly shop. Food doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive to be healthy.

Focus on eating a lot of vegetables and fruits of different kinds. If you buy what’s in season, your food will taste better and be cheaper too. Look for what’s on offer when you’re in the shop too rather than simply buying from a list to make the most of your money. This means being flexible with your meals and what you eat and when. Frozen fruit and vegetables are often cheaper and offer great nutritional value too as they’re frozen while they’re at their best – unlike “fresh” fruit and veg that has often been laying around for quite some time.

If you cut down on unhealthy products (treats, sweets, crisps, processed meats, ready meals, etc), you will quickly save lots of money that you can instead spend on healthy ingredients to use in your cooking.

Check out supermarket own brands and visit budget supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl to find healthy bargains like nuts and seeds instead of buying them from a health food shop. Then you can use these to make your own healthy snacks like protein balls or energy bars for example. They are super easy to make, affordable, and taste great too. If you do want to add extra protein, buy your protein powder in bulk to make your own shakes and to use in homemade snacks instead of buying ready-to-drink shakes.

For a healthy breakfast or lunch, you can’t go wrong with porridge made from oats with lots of healthy toppings to make it more nutritious and filling.

For dinners, focus on making healthy food from scratch where possible and fill at least half your plate with veg.

• The Best Drink is Free

The healthiest thing that you can drink is of course water and this is free (or included in your water bill!). Skip the fizzy drinks and cut down (or cut out) things like alcohol and too many caffeinated beverages to look after your health. Cutting down on drinks that cost money will of course save you money. If you want to have fresh smoothies as part of your healthy lifestyle, make these at home to ensure freshness and to save money. Use frozen fruit, berries and vegetables to add extra nutrients on a budget.

• Exercise without Paying for It

A gym membership or group exercise classes can be a big expense every month. Instead of paying to exercise, look at the many free options that are available to you. Running, walking and cycling are all great options and so are exercise videos on YouTube for at home exercising. You can pretty much find anything you need on there whether you’re looking for yoga, Pilates, HIIT exercises or anything else. You can also find free trials for fitness apps and websites – make use of these to exercise for free.

• Shop Around for any Essential Equipment

When you do need to buy some new essential equipment – new trainers or exercise clothes, for example – then shop around to compare prices. Be aware of brands that are overcharging just because they happen to be popular at the moment and avoid them. You can get budget friendly fitness gear from cheaper brands too – just do your research to find the best items first. It’s also worth being flexible with colours and styles – you can sometimes find the same pair of running trainers or the same gym leggings at half price in certain colourways.

Having a healthy lifestyle does not have to cost a lot of money at all. It can be achieved on a budget and very easily be cheaper than a “regular” lifestyle as you cut down on expensive treats and drinks and instead focus on spending your money on food that will fuel your body. Hopefully the points above have made it clear that you too can have a healthy lifestyle without spending lots of money.