Start Juicing Without Breaking The Bank: It is well-known that juicing is not the cheapest thing you could do health-wise. Nevertheless, I can assure you that it is an affordable task for all budgets, as long as you know what you are doing.
Still, so many people have started juicing and stopped due to the expense. Because you need to buy a juicer that STARTS at around $60 for a new one to $2,700 and keep feeding it fresh produce, you can see how expenses add up over time.
Read More: How To Make Smoothie With Yogurt
Thus, here I will share a few practices and adherences that I follow when I go produce shopping, so you can learn how to be healthy while keeping expenses within your budget.
Some ideas/practices when juicing on a budget. Get the most for your money!
Table of Contents
Buy A Decent Juicer As Soon As You Realize That You Are Going To Stick With Juicing
Buy A Decent Juicer As Soon As You Realize That You Are Going To Stick With JuicingIt is normal and wise to start juicing by buying a cheap juicer. No wonder people can get sticker shock when they see a $300 or $400 juicer and think, “I am not even sure if I am going to like use it often.” Thus, juicing newbies usually buy the most affordable centrifugal juicer at Amazon or Wal-Mart. While the more advanced juicing enthusiast will go for Chinese knockoff masticating juicers at under $100.
However, it is also well-known that a cheap juicer is only 55%-65% efficient (which they typically are); you can spend $100 on produce and only get about $55-$65 worth of juice out of it. Therefore, once you determine you like juicing, you see its benefits, or you just generally enjoy the flavors you come up with; my best suggestion is to buy a QUALITY and EFFICIENT juicer soon as you can.
If you spend $100 every month on produce to enjoy about $60 worth of juice, you are shorting yourself by about $45 overall. A decent masticating or cold press juicer is about 85% efficient at extracting juice, so with that setup, you are getting $85 worth of juice for every $100 spent on produce. That puts you up $25 every month than if you were using the cheaper, less efficient juicer.
Let’s take this a little bit further… Over the course of the year, with a higher quality juicer, you are hypothetically saving yourself about $300 than with a less efficient juicer ($25/mo x 12 = $300). So that pretty much paid off your new juicer.
Decide on Your Favorite Recipes
“Variety is the spice of life” even though I agree with that, your bank account may not. Do you know where most people get trapped? It is their taste buds. Although such produce as Starfruit is great and tasty, it is also comparatively more expensive than many other less exotic fruits out there. The same goes for pomegranates, black cherries, mangos, etc.
Of course, this is all location-dependent; for most people, exotic produce is not cheap. I acknowledge that they taste good and have some great stuff in them for you, but you really have to ask yourself, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”.
What is it you want in these expensive fruits other than the taste? Is something else cheaper that has the same properties, nutrients, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals? Is there something that comes close? There are some things that are unavoidable, like ginger. That stuff is expensive, but there are a few things that purify your blood and nearly cleanse your body. You also have to use SO LITTLE OF IT that it is pretty cost-effective.
Once you have your favorite recipes, stick with them to develop a consistent shopping list. Of course, mix it up a little bit, but I do not believe that it is financially wise to get a million different ingredients and constantly switch everything around if you already know what you like.
Shop Around And Buy Some Produce In Bulk
Although it may seem this is common knowledge, it is not. People usually do not bother to shop around to find cheaper products, and I am guilty of it myself. Also, learn to buy things seasonally. For example, you must know how expensive it is to buy fresh strawberries in January. Also, consider how far those strawberries traveled (probably from Panama or somewhere else) and what treatments they could get through to extend their shelf life before reaching the grocery store.
There are some items you can buy in bulk and others you cannot. When I say you “cannot,” I mean that products with a very short shelf life are not worth buying in bulk; for example, leafy greens, such as kale, collards, spinach, celery, etc., will start to wilt and expire if you buy too much of them.
On the other hand, I tend to buy things like apples, oranges, ginger, lemons, turnips, beets, and carrots in bulk because half can sit in a cupboard, and the other half will last for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. So you will visit grocery stops for juicing ingredients more often because you may typically pick up your leafy greens every three or four days.
Grow Your Stuff When Possible
Organic herbs are very costly and do not typically last very long in the fridge. In my experience, they stay a week before they are just totally limp, rubbery, and lifeless. Is growing your own herbs could be a solution?
Indeed, it is not for everyone. Not everyone has a large garden for growing its own juicing ingredients. If you have very limited living space, you will hardly be able to do it. While if you have a small outdoor area for a greenhouse and are serious about a healthy lifestyle and juicing, you can set up a greenhouse even in your small outdoor space.
Moreover, there are many indoor herbs growing kits such as wheatgrass sets or Hydroponic Growing systems. So, it is still possible to grow your own herbs year-round in your kitchen.
Use “JUICE MAXIMIZERS”
When I say “juice maximizers”, I mean produce that produces volumes of juice. One of the biggest complaints I hear from people and questions is, “I’ve used so much produce and got so little juice!”. Well, if you juice only carrots, kale, spinach, and a bunch of berries, it will take quite a bit to get any juice. There are cheaper things out there to fill up your glass. My favorite is probably cucumbers.
They are incredibly affordable, and they are like 90% juice. They are a tremendous anti-inflammatory item and have a very “cool” taste to them. Just pop one of those into whatever recipe you are making, and then your cup will be brimming over the top with living juice. Other juicy ingredients such as Oranges, grapefruits, apples (my favorite is Fuji when I can get them on sale), lettuce, cabbage, romaine, savoy, and celery could also work as “juice maximizers.”
Final Thoughts
Is juicing always going to be a somewhat expensive practice? Probably. But I hope you can learn some tips here that may help you start juicing and not spend a fortune on it. A lot of the tips above are self-explanatory, but at the same time, sometimes, things do not sink in unless you hear them from someone else. But as I have mentioned above, there are some practices that you can do that will keep it as low as possible. Enjoy!
