With the cold weather, higher energy costs and Christmas spending, it can be hard to account for everything, so PureGym have put together some tips on how to keep healthy no matter the budget.
Here are 5 tips to help you save, while keeping in shape.
1. Plan Your Meals
Money-saving starts with good planning. Popping to the shops every evening to find your dinner will inevitably end in over-spending.
Plan your week out, and where possible, think where your meal choices could stretch to cover lunch the following day.
For some ideas on healthy options that cost less, check out these healthy recipes that cost as little as £1 per portion!
Alternatively, here are some easy, low-cost recipes we’ve put together for students – but even if you aren’t studying, they still make tasty meal choices!
2. Buy Frozen Fruit and Veg
Frozen fruit and veg are cheaper than fresh, but also bring the benefits of lasting longer, doing away with the need to keep buying, or creating food waste.
Frozen fruit is often seen as less nutritious than fresh but that is actually a myth, as most frozen fruit and vegetables are frozen at their prime ripeness, meaning all the goodness is locked in, for when you defrost and consume them.
3. Add More Vegetables to Meat Dishes
Speaking of vegetables, if you eat meat but are finding it difficult to purchase enough to keep you full at meal times, pad out your dishes with more veg!
Not only will this make mealtimes more nutritious, but it will also keep you fuller for longer. And, veg typically costs less than meat so it brings down the price per meal.
4. Pack Your Lunch
Tying into all of the above, and as many of us are beginning to return to offices around the country (where there’s more temptation to buy your lunch out), be sure to bring your own lunch in every day.
Although the occasional work lunch out is not a problem, buying a meal deal even just a few times a week soon adds up.
It’s much more cost-effective (and often tastier) to bring your own lunch to work instead.
5. Use Free Resources
There’s a lot of fitness help and advice available for free online, which won’t cost you a penny but can supercharge your training regime.
From running outside, through to home workouts, there are ways to move your body for free.
The PureGym app is entirely free to download (even for non-members!), and comes packed with 600+ workout ideas – all free of charge and ready to be used during your next visit to the gym, or even at home.
To coincide with these tips, PureGym also found which countries are actually the cheapest to lead a healthy lifestyle – by analysing costs of key foods to maintain a balanced diet, in addition to gym membership costs and activewear. These costs were then weighted across average salary.
Interestingly, the UK ranked 7th worldwide, however it was Denmark that took the top spot as the most affordable country in the world to keep healthy.