Hello, and welcome back to Eight Years In! If you’re new, this is the blog all about veganism and living a more ethical life. Now, if you ask me, part of living a more ethical life is that it should be sustainable. Which is why we’re here today to talk about budget tips for eating a vegan diet. You won’t be able to stay vegan if you think it means you have to spend more money than you’re able to on groceries. So let’s talk about cutting down our grocery bills into something more manageable!
Why we think eating vegan is expensive
You shouldn’t (and don’t) have to choose between eating a more compassionate diet and having enough money to still pay the rest of your bills. But for some reason, there’s this myth that eating vegan is so much more expensive than just “eating normal”. Well, not for some reason. I get why it is.
The truth is, there is a way of eating vegan that is more expensive than what we’ll call the standard western diet. And I’m not just talking about loading up on saffron and edible gold flakes.
What’s expensive as a vegan is convenience foods and meat substitutes. If you find (for instance) vegan jerky, it’s going to be at least 30% more expensive than your regular beef jerky. Or a frozen vegan pizza may cost you double what a regular frozen pizza would. And meat substitutes? Yep, they definitely tend to be more expensive than just regular meat, and give you less in the package at the same time. So if your diet right now centers around ready-made meals and chicken nuggets and you want a vegan diet that does the same, then you’re going to end up spending more than you perhaps bargained for. But that doesn’t mean eating vegan has to be expensive.
My confession
So I guess it’s time to let the cat out of the bag: I grew up poor. My family qualified for food stamps and reduced cost school lunches for most of my young years, and we needed the help. And yes, some of this financial struggle with food overlapped with me going vegan, since I went vegan 3 years before moving out of the house. I’m so glad I’m in a better place now where I don’t have to stress about how much what I eat costs (within reason, of course), but back then I couldn’t afford to eat the fancy vegan foods that I sometimes indulge in now. And yet, the funny thing about it was it wasn’t that different being a money-pressed vegan as it was being a money-pressed meat eater.
I mean, even as a meat eater, I didn’t eat much meat because it was too expensive for our family. I would have some meat-centered meal at lunch because we got free lunches from school at that point. And when we’d come home, sometimes we’d have fish filets before a big test (because, you know, Omega 3’s and all that). But in general, our family would add a little bit of meat to an otherwise vegetarian meal. Meat is expensive. Just like faux meats are expensive.
And I only had a TV dinner once as a kid. (I’m not exaggerating!) No TV dinners, no kids lunchables, and no other ready-made meals. They were too expensive. Just like vegan ready-made meals. If you wanted to eat something, you’d have to learn how to make it yourself (or with mom most of the time). Because yes, just like anyone, poor people want special foods. And we ate cake and cookies and brownies on special occasions. We just made them ourselves. Actually, I didn’t feel deprived that way. If you find a good recipe, the stuff you’ll make is better than the packaged kind anyway. Maybe I was missing out by not having pizza delivered until that one time when I was 13. I don’t know. But my mom made pizza.
So like I said, to me, before and after going vegan, my struggles hadn’t really changed. And if you’re used to money struggles before going vegan, this post probably won’t be that eye-opening for you. But if you’re here because vegan packaged foods are more expensive than the already more expensive packaged foods you’re eating, read on. I’ve got some pointers that can help you survive and thrive on a vegan diet for years to come.
Cook your food
So like I said, convenience foods are expensive! Have you ever tried buying a vegan cake or cupcake? Craziness. But you know what’s not expensive? Flour. Water. Having a pantry with nonperishables can help with getting all the carby goodness your heart desires. With just a few things you can make pizza, pancakes, bread, cakes–all sorts of zany fun.
When it comes to cooking your own food, the advice I like to give newer cooks is thisas follows. You only need one good recipe. Cooking can seem daunting. There’s so much you could learn. And it seems like everyone’s an expert about everything these days what with the internet and all. But think about it. All you need is one good recipe, and then you’ve got it made.
Go-to recipes
I like to call these recipes go-tos. I have a notebook in my closet where I write down my go-to recipes. The ones that were easy and delicious, without a bunch of weird expensive ingredients. Google search is your friend in this case. All you have to do is type in “vegan brownies” or whatever it is you’re looking for and then you get to flip through loads of people who have different takes on your favorite thing. As far as brownies go, I found my go-to brownies recipe this way about five years ago and I’ve been using it ever since. In fact, I like them better than the brownies I ate before going vegan. That’s right, that happens.
And once you find a recipe for something that you like, feel free to try tweaking it yourself if you’re feeling adventurous. This is how you get some of the best, most personalized foods ever. You can make your food exactly how you like it. Maybe other people won’t like it as much but you’re the one who’s going to eat it most of the time anyway. Might as well make it something you enjoy most. There are little changes you can make that actually make a big difference to a recipe. So get curious, get creative, and take small chances towards making something you adore! I promise, you won’t miss the nonvegan food as much this way.
Buying whole ingredients
When it comes down to it, foods in their whole, unprocessed form tend to be cheaper. A sack of potatoes is cheaper than buying potato flakes for mashed potatoes or ready made french fries. And dried beans are cheaper than canned beans. Basically, the more effort you have to put into preparing the food, the cheaper it will be in comparison.
So mince the garlic yourself. Buy a watermelon instead of those plastic containers of it. Anything you can do to eliminate the amount of work a person or machine has to put into your food before you get it will help decrease the price you pay for your food.
Buying in bulk
Once you get settled into vegan cooking, you’ll realize that there are certain foods you’ll go through a lot of. (It’s different for everyone, but they tend to be things like grains, legumes or spices. Things that you can put in a lot of different dishes. Things that are versatile.) With these sorts of ingredients, you might want to consider buying them in bulk.
You can get pretty good deals buying these foods in larger portions (also known as buying in bulk). Places like Sam’s Club and Costco have made buying in bulk far easier and more mainstream than it once was, but you can also buy in bulk online or in other grocery stores.
The rule I go by is if it’s not going to go bad in a month on the shelf (or the back of the fridge) and I know that I’ll buy more to replace it once it’s out, then I’ll look into buying in bulk. For me, buying oats and rice in bulk makes sense, because I eat a lot of them and use them as frequent building blocks for my meals.
Freeze stuff
And then the flip side of buying in bulk is realizing you have too much. I personally really enjoy cooking, but I don’t like to do it all the time. If you feel similarly, the best way to get around the ready-made foods that come with spotty motivation is to freeze leftovers. I like freezing treats like cookies and cakes. Then I have them when I want them. But I don’t feel pressured to eat more than I want because they’ll go bad. I’ve frozen christmas cookies, banana bread and cakes with great success. And when I wanted something sweet, there they were, waiting for me.
But this works really well with meals too. If you cook up a big batch of your favorite dinner and portion it out for the freezer, that’s a great way around the laziness of the evenings after a long work day, with the flavors that you want while not destroying your wallet in the process. Don’t make things harder on yourself by creating more food waste than you need to.
Cheap proteins
So I’ve mentioned that faux meats (just like real meat) can be quite expensive. Especially if you try to base most of your meals around them. But you do need protein in your diet, so what’s a vegan to do? I’ve got a post all about vegan sources of protein which you can find here if you’re interested. But we’re talking about budgets today, so let’s look at it from that lens!
Expensive proteins (eat sparingly)
The most expensive proteins you’ll find are the faux meats. (Yes, I’m looking at you beyond burgers and gardein fishless filets.) They’re delicious if you like the flavor and texture of meat, but if you’re in a money crunch, they’re not a viable option for everyday meals. A “less meat-like” protein you can try is called tempeh. It’s a sort of fermented soybean cake, and it’s got this delicious sort of nutty flavor. But in the US, I find that tempeh is harder to find, and when you do, still pretty expensive.
Less expensive proteins
So cheaper protein options. If you’re looking for more meat-like things, I would suggest looking into two other soy options: tofu and TVP (or textured vegetable protein). Most people are familiar with tofu and how to use it, although they think they don’t like it. If you think you don’t like tofu, you might just not have had it cooked well before. (I know people say that about a lot of things, but tofu I find can be tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing with it.)
In short, make sure you’re pressing the water out of your tofu before preparing it. And marinate it in your spices and flavors before cooking. And prepare it with other flavorful things. Tofu acts like a sponge, sucking up the flavor of the things you put it with. (If you want to learn more about tofu and what to do with it, you can read my post all about it here.)
Textured vegetable protein is also made from soy, and it comes dried in the package. Rehydrate it with water or vegetable stock and cook it with spices and sauces, almost like you would with a ground beef (it’s a similar structure). You can use this to bulk up chili or to add to pasta. Put it in tacos, enchiladas or a homemade ravioli. No, it’s not ground beef, and you won’t be fooled into thinking it is. But it’s meaty, it’s got protein, and it’s pretty delicious when done right.
Another protein in this category is nuts. Adding nuts to salads, stews, stir frys, baked goods or just eating them as a snack is a good way to add vegan protein (as well as healthy fats) to your diet. Now some nuts are more expensive than others (I’m looking at you macadamia nuts), but when possible, they’re a fun addition to vegan diet, and very good for you in moderate amounts.
And then there’s good old reliable canned beans. I would say this is how I get most of the protein from my diet because for me, they’re the sweet spot of easy and affordable. If you go to a store that’s more budget friendly you can get a can of beans for 60 or 70 cents, and when you add that to whatever you’ve got cooking up for your family, that’s a great, economical way of adding protein and bulk to your meal. Personally, I don’t love the extra work of using dried beans. I’m terrible at remembering to soak them the night before I want to make my dinner, so they’re a very good middle ground for me. I like to make beans and rice, stews, chili, pasta salad and curry from canned beans. It’s cheap and delicious and I leave the table feeling satisfied and energetic.
The last protein in this category is seeds. Again, some seeds are more expensive than others, but overall I would put them in the middle category of price. I like to add seeds to salads, desserts, and smoothies. My personal favorites are flax and chia seeds, which I like to add to my morning oats. But you can find hemp, sunflower and pumpkin seeds in your grocery store too. All of these seeds are good for you, add protein and healthy fats, and honestly just make you feel good after eating them. I don’t know about you, but I love the feeling I get after eating something vitamin rich and satisfying.
Cheap protein
And the cheapest protein you can buy, I’ve lined up for this last category. You’ve got peanut butter, dried beans, and making your own seitan. (Peanut butter is quite cheap in the United States, but if you live elsewhere that may not be the case.) Just as peanuts are the cheapest nut, peanut butter is the cheapest of the nut butters. Although technically a legume, I still categorize it with the nuts because it’s crunchy and fatty, with some protein, just like nuts.
Dried beans are the simplest protein you can find as a vegan. They’re incredibly cheap. Even when you don’t buy them in bulk you get a good amount of servings in the package for very cheap, which makes them the perfect base for many meals. Remember to soak them overnight (and for me, I also soak them all day before preparing them at dinnertime–that works best) or else they will give you gas and possibly a stomachache. And also, make sure they’re fully cooked. If your beans are too hard, they’re not going to be as fun to eat, and they won’t soak up flavors the way that fully cooked beans do.
Then the most interesting cheap protein, seitan. If you’ve never heard of seitan, I guess you could call it wheat meat. You make it by kneading the heck out of a floured dough until the gluten is developed. Basically, it makes it firmer and tough. More like meat. And from there you can experiment with all sorts of seasonings and marinades. Seitan, again, probably won’t trick you into thinking it’s meat. But if done well, it can be very “meaty” and very delicious. If you’ve never tried it before, most people put it into the same category as tempeh and tofu. Delicious, hearty, and protein rich. Not meat. But for how cheap you can get a bag of flour for, I’d recommend every gluten-friendly vegan try it at least a few times to see if you can get the hang of it, and if you like it.
Cheaper produce
And since we’ve talked about getting in cheaper proteins, let’s cover how to get some fruits and veggies into you without breaking the bank.
So first of all, let’s talk about availability. If something doesn’t naturally grow in your area, it’s going to be more expensive. For instance, if you live in a cold environment, getting tropical fruits can be tough. But even things that do grow in your area will be cheaper if they’re currently in season. (Not to mention, more delicious.) Basically, if you’re looking for fresh produce, do some research into what is naturally growing around you and when. When it’s time for your favorite fruits to be in season, then capitalize on it.
When you take this approach, you find yourself eating more different kinds of produce, which is good for both your body and mind. The produce you eat will be more delicious and nutritious if it’s in season. (Another plus.) And yes, it’ll be cheaper.
On Sale
There are other times when produce is on sale for cheap, because the store has too many or they’re about to go bad. This is something you can also use to your advantage, if you know what you’re looking for.
When thinking about sale produce there’s two things you want to consider. First, how much of a deal is it? What does this food usually cost, and how much of a discount are you getting? Sometimes sales tags will simply tell you the item is on sale, but they won’t mention how much off it is. There are people out there who will buy anything that’s labeled on sale, at the idea of what a great deal they’re getting. So much so that sometimes stores will just tell you something is on sale, then take maybe a few pennies off the price to incentivize you to buy. And so keep an eye on the ingredients that you buy so that you can guesstimate if you’re getting a good deal or not.
And second, you want to be able to tell what state the produce is in. (This one can be a little trickier and you can’t always tell, but do your best.) You want to get better at knowing what a ripe, delicious piece of (insert whatever produce here) looks like. If something’s a really good deal and they’re obviously trying to get rid of it, see if you can figure out why. Is it overripe? Or is it somehow mangled or gross looking? (For instance, sometimes avocados will get moldy on the outside and yet never ripen. And when that happens, they’re pretty unusable.) This is something that you’ll get better at over time, but if you’re interested and determined, you could also do some research on it.
Basically, are they actually on sale or are they just labelled that way? And if they are a good deal, is it because you’d need to use them today or tomorrow, or are they just not a good bunch? With those two things in mind, you can make some really good buying decisions on produce sales with very little regret.
Preservation
And the third thing about getting your produce in is all about preservation. Sometimes it’s what you can do to preserve your picks, and others it’s about buying them that way.
For instance, if you get a really great deal on a bunch of bananas but you know you can’t use them right away, you can go ahead and freeze them. Frozen bananas are great in smoothies, and you can defrost them and use them for banana bread just like you would their fresh counterparts. You could even try dehydrating them into banana chips if you had a dehydrator. That way you’d have a healthy snack that would stay good for longer. You can apply these principles to a lot of different foods, actually, like I mentioned about the leftovers earlier. But I find that freezing produce is particularly helpful for me because of my small household. We can’t always eat the produce we buy before it goes bad. And so freezing is a really good option for us.
Preserved produce you buy
But it’s not just about preserving the fresh produce that you got on sale. I also suggest that vegans who are low on cash invest in some preserved produce from the getgo. Frozen fruits and vegetables are often more economical, and the quality is better regulated for people who don’t necessarily know how to tell if, say, that peach is ripe or overripe. Now, you’re not going to use frozen produce in all of the same ways that you could use it fresh, so I do recommend buying a mixture. But it’s good to have some canned fruit in your cupboard for desserts and some frozen fruit in your freezer for smoothies (one of the ultimate vegan treats, if you ask me).
And you want to prioritize your vegetables too. If you’re in need of a healthy weeknight meal on a budget but you’re lazy or can’t find the vegetables you’re looking for, canned and frozen vegetables can be a great option to chuck into a casserole or stew (or in some cases, even a stir-fry, like with bamboo or water chestnuts). Both of these things keep for a long time and don’t take long to cook, on top of being easy on the wallet.
For adding flavor to things, you can get some pretty decent dried vegetables like dehydrated onions or herbs. The fact that they’ll keep longer means you can use them at your own pace, and you don’t have to worry about losing money on food spoilage, but you still get the option for tasty homemade meals.
Shop around
And then my final tip is to not shop at just one store, if you can help it. There are certain stores that will carry some things cheaper than others. I will shop at the all-around cheapest stores for most of my stuff, just so that I get the overall cheapest prices. And then for certain items like vegan replacement foods or exotic produce, I’ll go to places that have more of those things, like the more expensive grocery stores and asian markets, respectively.
This will take some know-how and extra effort, but if you’re able to stock up on things you know you’ll be able to keep for a while and then have one main store you go to for most of your groceries, you get the benefits of getting good deals as well as adding in some much-needed variety.
If you’re someone who uses Facebook, check out the “what broke vegans eat” group. This is a good place to share tips, information and ideas. And it’s nice to be able to get some emotional support for something that’s important to you.
Thanks for reading my tips. As always, I’m proud of you for wanting to take the steps toward veganism. Remember, this world needs more imperfect vegans. Be sure to share any tips you have for eating vegan inexpensively with the rest of us in the comments below! And have a great day. (Now it’s time for me to go make some pancakes.)