Cheap and Healthful

At the grocery yesterday, I caught a major sale on chicken thighs; $0.69/lb. They come with the bone and skin, but that's okay. The skin has the fat and vitamins and it's easy enough to cut chicken off of the bone. I typically buy it bone-in because it's significantly cheaper and the bone makes the meat more flavorful when cooked. Anyway, the point is that people talk about how expensive it is to eat healthfully. I laugh at that notion. I bought 8 packages of chicken, a total of 10lbs or so, for $10 at the most. That's the cost of 2 fast food meals for several week's worth of chicken. So compared to junk food and grains, it is more expensive to eat healthy. But compared to what most people are eating, it's not. If you eat out for lunch often, you are wasting money and wasting a chance to eat healthful food. You can find sales on stuff and stock up. I keep an eye on the chicken and it never fails to go on super-sale about a week before it goes out of date. Of course, freezing it makes the date irrelevant.

Skip the fast food and spend the money on several meal's worth of healthful food. Spend a few hours Sunday to do some cooking. On Sundays, I usually cook up 3 or 4 packages of chicken and throw it in Tupperware. I'll also cook a spaghetti squash or some sweet potatoes to last a few days of lunches. And yesterday, I made a huge double-batch of Golden Squash Soup. For a few hours of time, you can have days worth of meals.