Cheap Ways to Stay Healthy

With all the crazy talk about the economy and need to start pinching pennies while keeping our weight loss resolutions, what solutions do we have to achieve our money and figure saving goals? Here are a few easy to implement tips that will get you through this penny pinching period. Consider it level one of the lifestyle change.

1. Drink only water that you bottle yourself and drink 3 liters a day. Take 2 - 1.5L bottles of water and refill them with filtered water (I use a faucet Brita) every night before you go to bed. Yes, I am suggesting you reuse your single use bottles. All that stuff about bacteria and toxins in PET 1 bottles, I snoped it and found out as long as you clean the bottles properly, you can reuse them repeatedly.

Analysis:
Monthly cost of buying water bottles daily: $90.00.
Monthly cost of bottling your own: $9.21 (Assuming that you buy 2 water bottles a month and it costs you about $0.07 per liter using a Brita.
Monthly Savings: $80.79.
Estimated extra calories burned per month: 4,500 (If the article on About.com is right.)

2. Cook and eat as many homemade meals as possible. This include packing your own lunch instead of stopping at the local drive through, and making your own dinner instead of popping in a frozen dinner. I could delve into the fact that buying a $10 salad at a restaurant that you can make for less than $2.00 is relatively ludicrous (salad's don't even require turning on a stove Dear Readers) or that you can make a turkey sandwich for under $1.50 that you would buy for about $4.00 at the minimum.

The important thing is that when you're cooking you can be conscious of what you're putting in the food and you'll most likely remind yourself to add in a few more vegetables and cut back on the bacon fat. I have also done a $3 a Day Diet project that tells me quite clearly I can feed myself on merely $3 a day. It was difficult to get in all the veggies so I'll bump it up to $5 a day just for extra produce. Under the $3 a Day Diet Project, the calories for the day came in between 1200-1400 calories.

The average cheap meal eaten outside the home usually comes out to at least $3.00 a meal. The average fast food meal runs over 1200 calories BUT say you're buying only $3.00 worth of food and going with a relatively healthy option. Like Wendy's chili and baked potato w/ side salad. That is probably the healthiest combination I can think of around $3.00 (it's actually slightly over but I'll let that go for the sake of the argument). It comes out to 760 calories. That means about 2,280 calories per day if all the meals average that caloric intake.

Analysis:
Monthly cost of eating all meals outside of homemade: $270 (at the low end)
Monthly cost of eating all meals homemade: $150
Monthly savings: $120
Estimated Calories Uneaten: 26,400.

3. Pack your own vegetable snacks. Snacking is inevitable. I think that most people snack at least once throughout the day, usually something like a bag of chips that costs at minimum $0.99 and about 150 calories. Packing your own veggie snacks would only cost you about $0.25 a day for celery sticks or cucumbers with some dressing, some grapes, etc. for about 100 calories.

Analysis:
Monthly Cost of Average Snacks: $30
Monthly Cost of home packed veggie snacks: $7.50
Monthly Savings: $22.50
Estimate Calories Uneaten: 1,500.

There you go Dear Readers, a theoretical savings of $233.29 and about 9 lbs!