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Have you ever wondered how you can possibly be a vegan on a budget? Or be a vegan on a budget and still feed a large family? The fake meats, cheeses and other vegan foods are so expensive!
Let me show you how I have fed my family of 7 on $600.-800. month. You can seriously save money on a vegan diet.
NUTRITION SHOULD ALWAYS BE IMPORTANT EVEN ON A BUDGET
Nutrition shouldn’t suffer when you’re low on cash, but often it is one of the first things to go.
For example, let’s say you’re grocery shopping. . . buying jelly and peanut butter. Sounds simple. You have options. Too many options if you live in the US. Jelly can range from under a dollar to ten bucks, depending on where you’re shopping. So, on a budget, what do reach for? The 97 cent squeeze bottle of strawberry jelly, of course.
Here’s where things fall apart. Your jelly isn’t made of real fruit, real sugar, real colors, real flavors, or real . . . anything. You’re buying a 97 cent bottle of fake food. It is better for your health to completely omit jelly, than to buy a 97 cent bottle of counterfeit food. (Or just make it a peanut butter and banana sandwich). 🙂
Part of being healthy is eating healthy. Part of being vegan, is to be healthy. But, not everybody is rich, and not everyone can afford to buy pre-made vegan mayo, meat substitutes, 7-grain bread, vegan, frozen pizzas and Kashi ready-made vegan bowls.
If you are unfamiliar with what a vegan even is, and are just now learning, please check out my blog post “What is a Vegan?”
When you are on a budget, and especially with a large family, you have to get basic with your nutrition.
LEARN TO COOK FROM SCRATCH
If you don’t know how to cook, learn. It is not really impossible. It is just like any other type of hobby or skill, it takes time, you’ll burn yourself and your biscuits, but in the end, there are too many YouTube videos and Pinterest tutorials for the, “I can’t cook” excuse to be a valid excuse for years and years. You may never be a chef or a genius in the kitchen, but even those who hate cooking can cook some pretty tasty, basic, vegan food.
Cooking from scratch opens doors to all sorts of inexpensive.
I made a meal for 8 people the other day with $30. I also got food for a group of 20 people and fed them all on $49. worth of groceries.
When you cook, the trick to “inexpensive” is to utilize (brown) rice, beans, and potatoes, etc. These items are not expensive, are filling, wholesome, and can be used for a base in a lot of recipes.
Fresh foods are good for you and should be eaten daily, but go sparingly if you’re trying to feed a large family on a budget. Carrots, cabbage, spinach, collards, and veggies/fruits in season are the best way to go when cooking with fresh foods on a budget.
BUYING IN BULK IS EASIER ON THE BUDGET
There are a few things that are best bought in bulk. Wheat, oats, cashews, other nuts, and seeds are best bought in large quantities. It cuts down on cost in the long run, and provide less trips to the grocery store.
A 50LB bag of wheat can cost you $50. – $85 bucks, but if you make 2-5 loaves of bread a week, that one bag of wheat should last you 3-4 months. This also depends on how much baking your’e doing in regards to other things that use flour. But, you’re probably paying less than a dollar for a loaf of bread that is fresh, homemade and taste better than any loaf of bread you could ever buy on a shelf. (You can buy nearly brand new bread machines from goodwill for 6 bucks and it’ll do all the hard work for you!)
Same goes for oats. I make granola about once a week at most, sometimes every other week. We eat granola regularly for breakfasts. I usually buy a 25lb bag of quick oats and sometimes a 25lb bag of rolled oats, and my oats will last me 4 months. A times I only get one 25lb bag and that bag still lasts forever! But buy granola at Whole Foods, or another grocery store, and you’re looking at maybe two bowls of granola for ten bucks? Try feeding a large family on that and you’ll go broke in a week!
Here are some must-have items that make cooking from scratch and using bulk foods, much easier: A blender Wheat grinder Bread machine Crock pot/Instapot or Slow cooker. Food processor
MONEY SAVING TIP: Believe it or not, scratch cooking isn’t as popular and therefore these expensive items can be purchased at a second hand store, typically brand new/never used, for under 20 bucks! So look there before you go to Amazon and spend $100-250. on each item!
A VEGAN ON A BUDGET HAS TO SIMPLIFY
Your meals don’t need a lot of variety to be healthy or even taste good.
Choose 3 items for a meal. Your main dish, (lasagna, beans and rice, potatoes, etc.) a fresh food, and a cooked or steamed vegetable. That is it. Choose vegetables and fruits that are in season, (corn on the cob in season is $0.25 a piece in the summer!) and you can feed a large family of 7 plus people on ten bucks.
When you bake muffins, cut the sugar and make it less of a dessert and more of a main meal. Make a quadruple batch, and cut up a bunch of oranges and you’re set for one meal. All you need for breakfast is a bunch of muffins and a fresh fruit. If my kids are still hungry, I always have granola in the cupboard. This might cost you $5-10 bucks, max.
Simplifying what is served saves so much money. I always cut corners on appetizers and desserts. This also helps with portion control and weight control, as well as money control.
Nobody needs dessert. Nobody needs an "appetizer".
What you need is your main dish, your fresh food and a cooked or steamed veggie. Maybe add a slice of bread, but that’s a complete meal. And that meal should feed the family of 7+ easily on $5-15.
CUT THE GREASE AND CUT THE COST
Vegetable, coconut, olive, peanut and other oils are expensive and unnecessary. I don’t like my food to taste bland, so I don’t omit when I know it’ll change the flavor extensively.
Sautéd veggies in water not only cuts on cost, but cuts on trans fat and weight gain. For healths sake, no sautéing should ever be done in oil, and frying should just never happen. Ever. So making the change from sautéing in oil to water sautéing could save your life and your budget. Make up for the flavor change with herbs. Allow time for your taste buds to change. It can and will happen.
Pancakes, waffles, muffins, some cakes, biscuits, and similar items can be made substituting applesauce and water instead of oil and milk, and the taste doesn’t suffer, and you’ve just cut down significantly on your budget. When I am trying to save money (or milk) I use water in place of milk, pretty much always. And honestly, it’s more of a mental thing than a taste thing anyway. Water doesn’t make pancakes, muffins or biscuits taste much different. In fact, usually when I don’t say anything, the fam prefers how biscuits turn out best with water.
Go here for more on how to lose and maintain healthy weight.
DON’T DRINK AWAY YOUR CASH
Juice, milk, and other beverages are just a waste of your health, teeth and money, and what I call a “treat”.
In our house, we drink water. Always. That’s it. I buy a filter and use water from the tap. We save the environment by cutting out plastic and our health by hydrating strictly with water form the tap in a nifty filter pitcher.
On special occasions, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays or movie nights, we’ll buy a bubbly drink or I’ll make apple cider, but typically, we don’t drink anything with our meals anyway. If we do, it is water.
Drinking with your meals isn’t good for your digestive system. Juice and other drinks aren’t a “need”. They are simply a “want” that the budget doesn’t need to suffer from.
PASS ON THE SUGAR
Sugar is expensive, especially when you buy organic, raw, cane sugar like I do. (Which is the healthiest option for baking). There are few things that really don’t need sugar at all. Experiment with this and save money. A few things I have added and omitted sugar in, are waffles, pancakes and cornbread. Muffins you can cut back on, but they are tricky and it takes a little tweaking. But pancakes don’t need sugar, and cornbread doesn’t need much (if any) either. Same goes for bread. I make 5 loaves of bread with less than a cup of sugar.
Sugar in excess will put weight on you, so for weight management, leave the sugar out where it is not a “need”.
TO BE A VEGAN ON A BUDGET, PASS ON SNACKS
Snacking adds a significant amount of calories to your daily diet and weight to your hips. They are generally pretty expensive and generally non-nutritious
and full of preservatives. So, leave those for the weekend. Or for holidays.
At our house, we have “snack night” every Saturday night. That is our tradition and has been for years. It is the only night we ever have chips, crackers, and other snack-like foods. If I am not careful, I can drop a hundred bucks on snacks for one night!
Eat your meals at regular times and fill up on whole foods and complex carbs. Don’t snack between. You’ll save money and extra weight.
For more info on how cutting down on snacks helps reduce belly fat, read my article, How to Reduce Belly Fat Naturally!
KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A NEED AND A WANT
When grocery shopping, cooking and feeding your family, keep in mind that there are wants and there are needs, and often the expensive things tend to be wants. Expensive things are either salty, sweet, fast or unhealthy. So use these items for special occasions.
For more on how a vegan diet is the best diet for weight control and health, read Why is the Vegan Diet one of the Best Diets?
CONDIMENTS, CREAMS, CHEESES, AND TOPPINGS
Mayonnaise, butter, nut butters, cheeses, dressings, dips, whip creams, and other extras are very fattening and expensive. I used to make my own mayo, mustard and ketchup. I still make my own whip cream. Dips we just don’t use. For two reasons, one, I don’t make appetizer, and second, we just aren’t used to it so it’s not something we miss. It saves so much time in the kitchen, money in the pocket and fat on the body.
STORE BRANDS, COUPONS, BUY ONE GET ONE
Look for store brands instead of name brand labels, it saves a lot of money. Just be careful when buying store brands. Read the ingredients. Sometimes store brands aren’t even real foods. Often these brands also have high fructose corn syrup added. I pretty much know what does and doesn’t have added sugars and salts in it, and this is something you learn as you go.
Coupons can save you about $20. a trip. Look for coupons in your junk mail (I know this isn’t food, but get toothpaste and deodorant coupons in my junk all the time).
At my grocery store, they often have buy one get one free, so I always look for these items, and I tend not to buy them when they aren’t having the special. Most likely, it’ll happen “tomorrow.”
DON’T GO SHOPPING WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY
I think we all probably know this but here’s a reminder, don’t go shopping when you’re hungry! You are more likely to buy something fast, something expensive, and something unhealthy.
For more help on how to grocery shop for healthy food, check out my blog post How to Grocery Shop for Healthy Food.
PLANT A GARDEN
If you live in the country, plant a garden. I used to have 2 raised beds. It was a small enough garden that it was easy to manage and not too much of a headache to weed, but big enough that I had plenty of squash, cucumbers, herbs, and most used in-seasonal veggies, for free.
If you have a garden your spending is going to go down significantly. Fresh food costs the most on my grocery shopping trip. I usually spend anywhere from $40-$75 on fresh food per week. When I have a garden that drops significantly!
As a side note, gardening is fantastic for several other things, too. One is earthing, which has shown to improve sleep. I write all about that, here. 🙂
I would love to hear how you have become a vegan and are doing it on a budget! 🙂 Or maybe how you want to and your ideas on how you plan to make it work.
If you have any questions, I would be glad to answer to the best of my ability! And if I don’t have the answer, I’ll either find the answer or someone else that can give you an answer. So please don’t hesitate to ask! I am on Facebook, Instagram, E-mail, Twitter, Pinterest and balance8life.