Sunday, January 8, 2012

Losing Weight and Saving Money

It's the first of the year, and many of us have started our New Year resolution to be healthier. Plus, some of you smart people have been eating healthy all along. It is a common thought that coupons are only for junk food, and if you want to be healthy, you have to pay more and can't coupon.

Well...it is true that organic, etc costs more, but you CAN coupon. There are frequently coupons for soymilk, SmartBalance products, cereal, vitamins, medicine, LOTS for yogurt, some organic products, etc.

Plus, right now, there are lots of coupons on http://www.coupons.com/ for diet and healthy foods. Here are a few examples:

Save $1 off one box of Kashi bar
Save 40 cents on six Yoplait yougurt
Save $1 on Arrowhead Mills Breakfast Product (they have whole grain and gluten free!)
Save $3 on after 10 Weight Watchers Smart Ones Product (combine this with the Target coupon for $3 off ten, and you can save $6 off!)
Save $1.50 Atkins Day Break products
Save $1 on one Kashi Go Lean Crisp cinnamon crumble cereal
Save $1 on two Nabisco snacks (you can get Wheat Thins or other whole grain crackers)
Save 75 cents off any one bag of Crunchmaster crackers (they have whole grain)

If you are diabetic or watching your blood sugar, Coupons.com also has a coupon for $10 One Touch Mini meter and $4 coupon for the test strips.

Target has the following coupons on their website. **Denotes a Target-only coupon, which can be stacked wtih a manufacturer coupon for even better savings

**Fifty cents off two Kashi items
**$1 off Kellog's Special K item (shakes or meal bars)
**Save $3 off 10  Smart ones frozen entrees
**Save $1 off Morningstar Farms frozen food items
**Buy One, Get One Free Multipack PowerBar nutrition item
**Save $2 off with the purchase of two 4-pk Dannon Activia yogurts
Save $1.25 on any two Glucerma Mult-Pack Bars of shakes


Another way to save money is to check out some of the amazing free websites for tracking calories. I used to pay to be a part of the Weight Watchers online program. It's a good program, certainly, but Livestrong is essentially the same thing, and it's FREE. Livestrong also has a special feature for tracking your food AND your blood sugar levels. Another friend uses SparkPeople, and I believe that is free as well.

I used to buy cookbooks with ideas for healthy recipes, but then I realized I had the internet. Google healthy recipes. There are a 25.7 million results. Narrow it down for a low GI diet, low-carb, low sugar, high protein, etc. Or...low GI diet recipe with chicken. It's much more time efficient to use Google than leafing through cookbooks.

If you prefer a cookbook, try looking for used ones online at Half.com.

This spring, we are talking about having a garden. It'll be a way to get my indoors butt outside and moving around, plus, hopefully we will have lots of fresh veggies to eat! :)

Here's to a new year of healthy, frugality, and hopefully more posting on my part!