Make Your Meals At Home
Cooking on a budget requires a little ingenuity in the kitchen. For instance, learn to creatively mix and match bulk and dry ingredients so you can stretch healthy meals further. For example, a homemade chili can be used as pasta sauce, enjoyed over rice, or wrapped into flour tortillas to keep meals fresh.

Do Your Research
Kitchen creativity can also be boosted with the help of a healthy cookbook or recipe resource online. There are tons of online resources that will help you make a nutritious meal from the stores you have accessible right in your pantry.

Buy Multi-Use Items
Shopping for grocery items that you can reuse in many meals will save you a lot of money. For example, plain yogurt is cheaper by the large container (vs. mini cartons) and can be used in multiple dishes—in breakfast smoothies, fruit parfaits, as sour cream in tacos and casseroles, to make sauces, and to use as a cereal topper instead of milk.

Know What Goes in Your Food
There are many health and cost benefits to making your own meals at home. For one, by making your meals, you control exactly what goes in each meal, cutting down on excess calories, sugars, fats, and sodium. Secondly, by spending more time preparing food, you’ll boost your kitchen creativity, be confident creating your own recipes, and teach your own children how to eat healthy on a budget.

Julie Ching, MS, RDN, CDE
Julie Ching is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator in Los Angeles. She decided to become a Dietitian after traveling through Europe, South America, and Asia and discovered a passion for food. She now works with people of all ages and varying disease states to improve their health. She is passionate about teaching people about nutrition so they can live their best life while still considering their cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.