This As They Told It essay is based on a conversation with John Goldstein, a 75-year-old retiree from Newark, New Jersey. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Like the vast majority of retirees in our country, I live on a fixed income.

I live with my partner, who is also retired and on a fixed income, and thinking too much about the cost of food is not an option.

And it’s not just about the cost of food. Housing and healthcare costs have had a huge impact on us. Paying the Medicare premium eats up any cost-of-living adjustments Social Security provides.

I don’t think I’m much different in that sense from many retirees on fixed incomes when prices go up. People’s incomes are nowhere near keeping up with inflation.

Food costs are a big part of what we can control.

We can’t control the cost of healthcare, but in the case of food, much of it is discretionary.

I have friends who like to hang out at the bar and that ends up costing a lot of money. We don’t do that anymore.

We used to eat in restaurants four or five times a month. Now it’s maybe four or five times a year.

My partner was a Pescatarian when we met 14 years ago and giving up meat has saved us a lot of money. If we still ate meat, we probably would have stopped eating it because the price has gone up so much.

I also changed how and where I buy food.

The local Portuguese markets, when I moved here to Newark 15 years ago, were the cheapest markets around. Now they are like Whole Foods, with prepared foods and expensive products.

I also used to go to Whole Foods from time to time, and now I go there maybe twice a year, if there’s something I can’t find anywhere else.

I now make a weekly trip to ShopRite and am careful to keep track of coupons and deals.

I typically spend about $150 a week, of which about a third goes on fresh produce, a third on dairy products like yogurt and cheese, and a third on staples like nuts, beans, olive oil, and anything else I might need for cooking.

The other day I was shopping because all the kids and grandkids were visiting, and I think my grocery bill was $250 and I had saved almost $100 in coupons.

I also found smaller ways to save.

We used to eat a lot of fresh fish, but it has become very expensive, so I end up buying frozen fillets or canned fish.

We also started eating a lot more beans for protein instead of fish. Canned beans were about $1 a can, but the same amount of dried beans cost about $0.25, which is a significant savings.

We don’t buy packaged products like cookies and cereals, and we buy very few processed foods.

I’m also growing some tomato plants and some herbs and spices. Instead of buying a bunch of cilantro, parsley, and basil at the store and having most of it spoil before I use it, I can choose what I want.

I don’t think I’m saving much money with the garden. Mainly it gives me the pleasure of having a homegrown tomato, rich and tasty.

We don’t spend much, but we still eat well.

We are frugal, but living well doesn’t require spending a lot of money. We live extremely well. We eat great meals and we do it on a very reasonable budget.

I love cooking, which is an important part of this.

The happy place for me is when I can cook and watch a football game at the same time. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

If you can accept that changes (in what you buy, what you cook, or what you eat) are not punitive, but are decisions you make, you can find ways to make those decisions highly desirable.

I am also aware that this does not work for everyone, but it is important to overcome the fear of cooking and things not being perfect in the kitchen.

Don’t be afraid to burn something. You willpower burn some things.

Don’t be afraid that sometimes it won’t turn out perfect, because sometimes it won’t.

Even if you’ve eaten the same thing for many years, don’t be afraid to try something new and look around for inspiration.

When I make a meal at a restaurant that I think is amazing, I say, “I can make it at home. I’ll figure it out.”

I once went to a restaurant in San Francisco that had trout stuffed with spinach and feta and it was delicious. Ten years later, I was still thinking about it, so I taught myself how to debone a trout.

It doesn’t have to be that complicated, of course, but it’s not too expensive and tastes really delicious.

Breaking the chains of the foods you’re used to eating and branching out can be exciting, it can be rewarding, and it can also help you think about how to do it in an affordable way.