How To Stay Healthy On A Budget

We are now in January and as we all know this is the month that we all start thinking about losing weight, and being fit and healthy. After the holidays in December, we all gain a few kilos. I must admit that I have gained not just a couple of kilos but much more than that! I can’t even bear to put myself on the scales because I know I will be crying! But you know what? I must do it as it is the only way to realise that I need to do something about it.

I just need to get my mind focussed on the goal, which is keeping fit and healthy. Last year I was up and down, losing and gaining weight. I felt like a yo-yo! It is really annoying to see how you gain weight so easily when it takes you longer to lose it. It is just ridiculous, how we do that to ourselves, right?

I have become more unfit since I started blogging. I’m not sure if this is something that happens to other bloggers but I seem to stay stuck in front of my laptop all day long! My laptop and my phone are an extension of my body! It is just crazy! It is definitely an addiction and I must say, a bad habit. Even though this is my fulltime job, I need to find a balance to get myself back into a healthy state of mind and do as much as I can to get fit.

I think eating healthier is something that I can do first and I’m sure with determination I can succeed but my main problem is doing exercises. OMG, I feel so lazy to get out and do some exercises. I know that I can do exercises at home but I never do! I just need that little bit of will power to kick my ass and push me into getting out to the park to do speed walking for at least 3o minutes. This is what I used to do before and it actually helped me a lot.

So I’m now trying to organise myself to get back to that healthy state of mind. The thing is that I don’t want to spend lots of money to be able to achieve this. I should be able to do this without going bankrupt at all, LOL! I know I’m being exaggerated but you can be so silly and start spending so much money on healthy meals, nice sports gear (you can get fab and great deals on Fabletics), some healthy subscription boxes, etc. The list of things you can spend on is endless. We live in a consumer based society so we tend to see a lot of great products out there but we need to make sure we always keep things to a budget.

These are some ideas of how you can keep healthy on a budget:

• Send your husband to do the food shopping! I know this sounds funny but to be honest I’m such a big spender that for us it works really well. He is the one who does the food shopping and he is good at keeping to a budget and only getting the things we need. If you don’t have a husband like mine, you could make a note of what you need first and stick to it so when you go to the supermarket you don’t buy more than that.
• Another tip is to do your food shopping online. This is a really good way to keep on track of what you are buying and for how much. I know this is not for everybody as sometimes you end up with substituted products which can be a let down but I think you can specify that you don’t want substitutes so then you will have to deal with the missing products on a small shopping trip to your local supermarket.
• Buy ingredients to prepare a healthy meal like a veggie soup for example and freeze it for the week. Nick cooked a delicious and super healthy veggie soup yesterday and I was like: “Wow, this is so tasty that we should have this more often, so let’s do more and freeze it”. This is not rocket science, but it actually works. You could also get fresh veggies from Hello Fresh. 
• Try own brands from the supermarket. We do this a lot and you know what, you will be surprised by the quality of these products. We shop a lot in Asda, Sainsbury’s and occasionally at Tesco and we have not had any issues. This is worth trying for sure.
• An obvious one will be to cut down on meat and try more substitutes like legumes, beans, eggs. Also, buy quinoa. It is a super power food that comes from my country and it is what the Incas used to eat making them strong and healthy. It is just amazing how good this can be for you.

These are some ideas of how you can keep fit on a budget:

• Walk everywhere! As I mentioned before, I need to do this more. I have decided to do 30 minutes walk in the park every morning! It is now a must for me. I can’t keep having excuses for this!
• Choose walking instead of driving. This one goes together with the previous one. Can you believe that my daughter’s school and nursery are walking distance but I choose to drive? Yes, I know what are you thinking! And I don’t blame you! Lazy me! But my only excuse for this silly behaviour is that I will gain more time to do my work! It’s sad really as I think I will be more productive if I keep my body active. This definitely helps with your mind.
• Use free apps to keep track of your weight, measurements and calorie counting. This is something that has helped me a lot in the past. I loved checking my weight and measurements. It was nice to see the improvement. I didn’t use to do this every day as it is better if you do it weekly so I was looking forward to doing this each Monday morning. Regarding the calory counting this could sound crazy to you but it actually helped a lot. I lost 13 kilos just doing this. It is great!
• Use YouTube videos to do exercises. There are so many out there now. The options are endless. It is actually good to have so many to choose from!

Check out this video below from My Voucher Codes that was put together recently with some great tips on how to stay healthy on a budget.

I think this video is really good and has some fantastic tips. I like the one about not going food shopping when you are hungry! That is so true! How many times have I ended buying the whole store because I was dying of hunger, LOL! The tip I didn’t like though was the one about getting a cold shower. Oh no! I will never do something like that – not even in the summer! I love at least a warm shower. Do you Agree?

Do you have any more tips to help us to stay healthy and fit on a budget? What do you think of the video?

*Disclaimer: This is a collaborative post

Thanks for stopping by,

Love you all ❤️

Franca  💋

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