In today's fast-paced world, staying fit and healthy is more important than ever. However, with the rising costs of gym memberships, food, and fitness equipment, it can be challenging to maintain a healthy lifestyle on a tight budget. Fortunately, there are plenty of inexpensive ways to stay in shape and improve your overall health. In this blog, we share a few money saving ideas to stay fit and healthy that are both effective and easy to incorporate into your daily routine.
By Elsa Tatam. Published 05 May 2023. Last updated 15 May 2024.
YouTube home workouts
Working out doesn’t have to mean expensive gym memberships. There are many ways to get active without breaking the bank or your home. YouTube is filled with different workouts to suit your goals, whether it be a gentle yoga session or a more intense HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) session, you’ll be able to find something that meets your level and fits into your schedule.
A few channels we recommend:
Healthy, cheap meals
Diet is one of the hardest areas to tackle when on a budget. Whilst bulk buying and cooking larger quantity meals can help, ingredients are still expensive. Lots of supermarkets will have pages on their website offering healthy meals for under £5, or other resources such as text alerts to tell you when products are reduced.
- Tesco has a dedicated page for cheap meals with focuses on different dietary requirements, including kosher meals and budget-friendly vegan dishes.
- Nicksbrokenkitchen is a TikTok channel created by a University student and features some great tasty vegan menus for students on a budget.
- On Instagram, Mimi Harrison’s beatthebudget features easy to make recipes costing just £1 per portion.
- The Co-op has a "recipes under £5" section, including tasty desserts and inspiring meals if you are looking to impress.
Alternatively, you can find websites with recipes dedicated to student budgets and shopping for one, for example, BBC Good Food has an entire page dedicated to student-budget meals.
Apps
There are so many apps to help you stay healthy, it’s just about finding the ones that work for you and your needs. There are apps to help in all aspects of your health journey, whether it be workouts, food or your mental health. Here are a few of our favourites:
Workouts
Workout apps can be really useful to help you reach your goals in a more tailored way. Most apps offer notifications to give that nudge often needed or offer words of motivation when you want that push.
Some we love:
Sworkit
7 Minute Workout
Strava
Couch to 5K
Mental health
Your mental health is just as important as your physical wellbeing when it comes to keeping healthy. If you’re one of our students, our Wellbeing app provides a range of ideas, resources and strategies to help you create healthy habits, improve your wellbeing and monitor your overall progress. The app provides access to ongoing support and information 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Download the app for Apple ➔
Download the app for Android ➔
For more advice see our Cost of Living hub, or check out our student support hub for more information.
