Healthy Smoothies on a Budget are a terrific way to include a range of nutritious foods in your diet on a regular basis. They are portable, quick, and simple to prepare, give you nourishment on the go, and best of all, they taste fantastic. But what if you have a limited budget?
A healthy diet can be very expensive. When you consider that it is less expensive to purchase the components for a fresh salad or smoothie.
The frequency of overweight or obese people in poverty stops appearing contradictory when it is cheaper to buy a greasy, fast-food hamburger.
There is a method if you’re watching your food budget but still want to eat healthy and enjoy smoothies. Eating well doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive.
All you need to do is be willing to put in the effort and know the tricks.
Healthy Smoothies on a Budget |Create Your Own Smoothies
This first piece of advice will seem painfully apparent to many people. You shouldn’t feel bad if you haven’t found this out yet. A lot of folks haven’t.
The cost of a smoothie at your neighborhood juice bar or smoothie shop is much more than the cost of creating one at home. Smoothies are very trendy right now, so you may easily pick one up on your way to work.
These pre-made smoothies are not free. Be prepared to spend more than $4 if you purchase one from a chain restaurant like Starbucks, Tropical Smoothie Café, or Smoothie King. You can significantly reduce that expense at home.
Making your own has the important advantage of giving you control over the ingredients. Smoothies are infamous for concealing calories and sugar. The cheapest and healthiest smoothies will be made in your own blender.
Healthy Smoothies on a Budget |The Mixer
Yes, a blender is required in order to make your own smoothies, and yes, some high-end versions are extremely expensive. But it is possible to get a blender on a tight budget. Finding the ideal balance between price and quality is important.
If a blender is inexpensive but not functional, there is no use in purchasing one. If you purchase a blender that struggles to effectively shatter ice and frozen ingredients, you probably won’t continue to make and consume smoothies.
Fortunately, I know just where to direct you to get the ideal blender for your needs. The low-cost blender I used for the first five years of preparing smoothies is included in my recommendation.
An Overview of the Best Blender for Smoothies
When choosing a blender that you can afford, make sure to read the warranty and register your model so that you can get it fixed or replaced if something goes wrong with it while it is under warranty. I recently had wonderful luck with BendTec’s customer service. They sent out a replacement for my slightly damaged jar in less than a week.
Load up and freeze
Once you have a blender, start considering inexpensive ingredients. Produce, including fruits and vegetables, will be the main components of all of your smoothies. When you go grocery shopping for smoothie ingredients, use all of your money-saving techniques.
You may go shopping at a store that offers incentives and loyalty points, for instance. When coupons are offered, use them. Visit your neighborhood farmer’s market, where produce is frequently cheaper than in supermarkets.
The most essential thing is to stock up on vegetables when it’s on sale. How can you assemble a supply of fresh food? clearly by freezing it.
Almost any produce, from berries and peaches to kale and spinach, may be purchased fresh and frozen. Also remember to examine the freezer section of your local supermarket.
Additionally, frozen produce is frequently just as nutritious as fresh vegetables, if not more so.
The longer produce sits, the more nutrients it loses, so if you do purchase fruits and vegetables to freeze, do so as soon as possible to lock in the nutrients.
When to Buy and When to Skip Organic
Purchasing organic food is a significant additional cost when attempting to eat healthily. Organic produce can be quite pricey, depending on what you’re attempting to buy organically, where you buy it, and the season. It’s wonderful if you have unlimited resources to use on food.
However, if you’re like most people, you can’t always afford to buy organic. Certain foods are best purchased organically, while others can be skipped.
Consider oranges as an example. It’s not too dangerous to purchase conventional, non-organic oranges because you won’t be eating the skin.
The Environmental Working Group conducts routine pesticide residue tests on food and publishes information on the cleanest and dirtiest produce.
The top 12 produce items with the highest levels of residual pesticide are known as the “dirty twelve.” You should purchase organic versions of these foods whenever possible. In 2022, they are:
- Apples
- Peaches
- Nectarines
- Strawberries
- Grapes
- Celery
- Spinach
- Sweet Bell Peppers
- Cucumbers
- Cherry tomatoes
- Imported snap peas
- Potatoes
The association also provides a list of the cleanest produce. You may feel quite good about purchasing these vegetable items without purchasing organic versions. These are the “clean fifteen,” as the Environmental Working Group puts them:
- Avocados
- Sweet corn
- Pineapples
- Cabbage
- Frozen sweat peas
- Onions
- Asparagus
- Mangoes
- Papayas
- Kiwi
- Eggplant
- Grapefruit
- Cantaloupe
- Cauliflower
- Sweet Potatoes
Use more of the fruits and vegetables from the “clean fifteen” list if you can’t really afford to spend a lot of money on organic products. Smoothie-friendly fruits like papayas, mangoes, kiwis, pineapples, and cantaloupe also have natural sweetness. When you use these fruits, you won’t need to purchase an additional sweetener.
start your garden
Start a garden if you truly want to reduce the cost of the produce for your smoothies and ensure that your fruits and veggies are organic. Even if you don’t have much space, you can grow a lot of produce in a few pots.
Concentrate on producing the foods that go into your smoothies frequently, cost a lot at the store, and are expensive even though they should be organic. Greens like kale and spinach are very simple to cultivate in a variety of conditions.
Save your money for premium superfoods.
If you’ve read any of the superfood recipes or articles on my website, you likely know everything there is to know about superfoods and how they elevate the nutritional value of your smoothies. Superfoods are not usually the cheapest item on your shopping list, though.
You may learn how to cut costs on these purchases, and some superfood varieties are no longer as pricey and unusual because of their increased popularity.
Spend the money you’ve saved on your other purchases if there is a pricy superfood, such as goji berries, that you absolutely must have every day. You’ll be able to save money for your more expensive smoothie add-ons thanks to your cost-cutting measures.
Many superfoods can also be purchased in bulk and kept in storage for extended periods of time. I prefer to stock up when internet businesses have bargains and promotions. More foods remain wholesome and fresh than others.
For instance, choose chia seeds if you can decide between them and flax seeds. They have sufficient antioxidants to prevent the good fats from becoming bad.
They can be purchased in large quantities and kept for several months at a time in a cold, dry closet. Any superfood that is dried or powdered, such as powdered spirulina, maca root, or dry goji berries, can keep for a very long time.
I hope this has given you some motivation to go out and buy smoothies for less money. Smoothies are tasty and you don’t need to be affluent to enjoy them.
What financial techniques do you use for smoothies? Please share in the comments below for the benefit of all.