How can I eat a high-protein diet on a budget?

Nikkiey's budget list is short and unglamorous on purpose: oats, Greek yogurt, protein powder, chicken thighs, rice, cottage cheese, eggs, ground turkey, black beans, chickpeas and red lentils. She singles out cottage cheese, about 25 grams of protein per cup for roughly $1.50, with a cost per gram she puts on par with eggs and chicken. If you don't like it, she blends it smooth into a pasta sauce, mixes it into scrambled eggs or freezes it with protein powder as a high-protein ice cream. She prefers full fat for women in menopause, saying the low-fat versions save few calories.

Beans and lentils stretch your money further. Nikkiey notes beans aren't a complete protein alone, but paired with rice or corn tortillas they are, and they bring fiber and carbs too. Her go-to is a lentil and ground turkey soup that makes eight servings for under $15.

The bigger shift is how you count the cost. On Ep. 100, Nikkiey calls "healthy eating is too expensive" a limiting belief: when you know your macro needs, you buy what you need, waste less and stop grabbing random restaurant lunches. On Ep. 244, Ashley's family of five buys top-quality groceries, including about 60 eggs a week, for around $500 a week, which Nikkiey works out to about $23 a day. On Ep. 291, Maggie Topham adds that processed foods leave you hungrier so you need more of them, while nutrient-dense food goes further.

Maggie is also honest that it's harder when you're raising kids paycheck to paycheck. That's exactly why the staples matter: you don't need organic or specialty products to hit your protein. You need a plan built on a handful of cheap, repeatable foods.