Real Food on a Budget

Most of you already know of my love for real, organic food. I have been carrying on and on about it in this space for years now. I am also pretty sure you know of the importance of budgeting in my family – more people means more love but also more money spent on food. Let’s face it – eating healthy, real food and saving money don’t exactly go together, unless you think about the money you’ll save in the future on doctor’s bills. However I am talking about the present. The time when we only have X amount of money to spend on groceries that need to last us Y amount of days.

I confess as hard as I try to budget (and believe me I put a lot into it – hours each week), there are weeks where we’ll eat like kings for a few days only to find out we are short on money towards the end of the week and end up having to eat ramen noodles to get by. We are essentially undoing all the good of the real food we previously ate with the processed junk. Ridiculous, right?! I just find myself confused and thinking something’s gotta give.

With that in mind, you can imagine my excitement when I saw that one of my favorite authors is coming out with a book all about eating real food on a budget. 😍 Lisa Leake’s new book 100 Days of Real Food on a Budget is available for pre-order now and will be released on Tuesday August 14th. I had the pleasure of getting an advance copy in the mail just the other day (I may or may not have jumped up and down and squealed like a schoolgirl when it arrived). I have been reading through it every chance I get. The recipes all look incredibly scrumptious and I look forward to trying them as soon as possible – the Southwest Salad is calling my name. For my fellow vegan and vegetarian friends this cookbook has quite a few recipes to meet our needs and most can easily be adapted (ie. use homemade sprouted almond milk in place of the cow’s milk). It contains recipes for other dietary restrictions as well. Equally exciting though is the entire first chapter. Lisa shares her budgeting tricks, ways to lower your grocery bill, and meal plans that even include average costs as well as a meal plan template. She also has a supermarket coast comparison chart that really opened my eyes. Granted prices vary depending on where you are living but it still gives you a good idea of where to shop for particular items. Every family that wants to eat healthy but feels like they never could due to expense needs a copy of this book. It really can be done!

Here is a sample recipe from 100 Days of Real Food on a Budget. Click on it to see a bigger version.

For once I look forward to sitting down and planning our meal plan and budget for the upcoming week. I feel like perhaps now I can finally conquer the beast that is eating healthy while staying within our means.

I am giving away a copy of Lisa Leake’s first book (a big game changer and personal favorite of my family) 100 Days of Real Food on my Instagram account. Be sure to check it out!