As a healthy food blogger and a mum, I have agreed to work with Organix to highlight ways you can feed your family healthy and nutritious meals for less. With new guidelines saying that we should be consuming TEN fruit and vegetables a day, many families are anxious about how to incorporate this into an already tight budget. Many parents and carers also struggle to find time to cook from scratch, relying on hassle-free ready meals or processed foods. As a Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Ambassador I am passionate about not only feeding my daughter the right food but promoting healthy eating to my followers too.

The tips below are great as a starting point. I talk about this all the time, but meal planning really is key here. I like to make a weekly meal plan on a Sunday and then plan two food shops a week around this. This means you are only buying what you need for that week.

Knowing what’s in your cupboard/fridge/freezer is also important. I did a clean up of my cupboard a week ago and was surprised at how much spices had gone out of date and how much packets of pasta and lentils I had. I hate wasting food, so I felt annoyed at how much products had to be binned. So make sure to regularly check your cupboards before buying more of what you probably already have.

Another tip is to shop local. I am becoming more aware of environmental factors when it comes to food and where my food comes from. And although I’m not saying you should go out and buy everything organic, shopping local can save you money while giving you better quality produce. A 6 pack of fresh farm eggs from my butcher costs me 30p a pack less than my supermarket. Not only are they cheaper but they taste better and I’m putting money in to the pockets of a family rather than a large supermarket. This applies to meat too, my butcher is considerably cheaper and I have more control of portion sizes. If you aren’t a meat eater then beans and pulses are cheap and easy to use to make healthy meals. My diet at the moment is 80% vegetarian and I have noticed a big reduction in my food bills since reducing my meat consumption.

Lastly, if you don’t want to spend money on cookbooks, use free recipe resources like Pinterest, Instagram and BBC Good Food online.

I hope this helps you to take the step to create healthier meals while saving money.