Living on a Shoestring Budget: Food

There are many areas in which food come into play when dealing with a small budget. One of the biggest areas is the amount of food we eat. Most people in rich countries eat way more than they need to. Cutting down our dinner is healthier on the body as well as healthier on the pocket book.

Keep in mind that we teach our bodies what they want. Unfortunately many have lost the art of hearing our bodies respond with what they need. I have noticed that when I eat lots of sugary foods, then my taste buds start to crave sugary foods whereas my body tells me that it needs vitamins and minerals and proteins, etc by getting sluggish.

On the other hand, when I feed my body lots of vegetables and fruit, I start to crave the healthier foods. My mind becomes more alert and my body has more energy. I am telling my body what to hunger after and my body responds with a ‘yay, you are taking care of me’ or an ‘I feel like crap’.

So what does this have to do with living on a shoestring budget? Believe it or not, when I eat healthier, I also tend to eat less meaning I spend less money on food. An alert mind and a body that feels good helps me make good decisions all around.

Speaking of cravings, I have heard it said that when people get a craving, they should fill it right away or else it will grow and grow until they end up eating way more than they would have originally. Believe it or not, this is a lie. We train our minds how to think. If I have a craving for chocolate, my natural tendency would be to try not to think about chocolate which would make me think about chocolate even more until I just could not contain myself anymore and I had to buy that 2 pound box of chocolates and eat half of it in one evening.

I have learned, however, that I can change my craving by changing my speech. If I tell myself that chocolate tastes good and would make me feel good but I cannot have any, then I am telling a part of myself that it is being denied a good thing. Instead, if I tell myself that eating chocolate would make me feel sluggish and that I would prefer to spend that money on, say, a new set of pens for my new journal, then the craving quickly passes.

We must train ourselves to think differently regarding what we eat and the amount we eat. When living on a shoestring budget, it is so helpful in keeping costs low as well as keeping healthy. A healthy body helps morale stay higher, which helps sustain through the narrow place.