Veganism seems daunting and expensive to many people. But there’s ways to save money even as a vegan and today we’re going to give tips on how to be vegan on a budget.
What if I told you that you could be vegan and only spend $100 a week to feed a family of four? Would you believe me?
It seems impossible, especially if you are just starting out. And believe me, if you are new to budgeting then the task seems doubly intimidating. I mean non-dairy milk is $4-8 per gallon, vegan eggs are about equivalent for $8 a dozen, and vegan “meat” products, well that will run you another $7-8 per meal typically. There’s no way to be vegan on a budget, right?
Wrong.
The truth is, you can be vegan and be on a budget.
How do I know?
Because I’ve done it for years now. And today I’m sharing with you 10 tips on how to be vegan on a budget.
These are tips that my own family uses and that I’ve used to help others who want to be vegan with small and simple steps that are easily to understand and follow if you are willing.
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Note: these tips aren’t going to work for every family because there are families that won’t do the steps (looking at you #5). But the more steps you implement, the easier it will be.
10 Tips for How to Be Vegan on a Budget
1. Create a Budget –
The very first thing that you need to do is figure out what your budget is going to be.
For some people it needs to be $100 a week, while others may need to do $200. Maybe you are more or less of those two numbers; however, the important thing is that your budget is something that you can afford and that seems doable to you.
Tip: If you are able to, go a little higher than you think you might need. Then work weekly to bring the budget down to where you would like it to be.
The first few trips that you go to the store, it may not go perfectly. You may spend over what you need, but the more you go and work on sticking to your budget, the easier it will be.
One thing that helps during the first few weeks is to add up the items you are putting in your cart as you go along. You will be able to adjust during the trip as you need. The more that you do this, the more seamless it will be until you no longer need to do it at all.
2. Create a Meal Plan
Once you have your budget, then you are able to make plans around that. When you get really into the habit of having a budget, then you will be able to easily know the round about prices for things that you buy regularly. You will know what types of meals can go on your meal plan without going over your budget.
For example – we know that we can’t eat packaged vegan products (vegan cheese, vegan meat substitutes, etc) every night and stick to our budget. That means that we also can’t have them everyday for both breakfast and lunch.
When first creating a meal plan, sometimes it is helpful to create a list of every single meal that your family likes. If you can list out 30 meals your family likes, then that’s a whole month of meals. That means that you can go 4 weeks without having to have the same meal twice.
If you are new to cooking and/or veganism, then you may not have a list of meals that you really like. In this case, my suggestion would be to focus on theme days. This means that you have the same type of meals every day of each week. For example – Taco Tuesdays, Pizza Fridays. You can set up meals based on cuisines you like, such as Italian, Indian, Pasta, Sandwiches. This was that you know what type of meal you need to plug in every week.
Example with recipes-
- Monday – Sandwiches – Vegan “Chicken” Salad Sandwiches
- Tuesday – Tacos – Lentil and Spinach Tacos
- Wednesday – Breakfast for Dinner – Vegan Breakfast Skillet
- Thursday – leftovers
- Friday – Pizza – No Yeast 2 Ingredient Vegan Pizza
- Saturday – Stir Fry – Pineapple Fried Rice
- Sunday – Roasted Cauliflower and Creamy Garlic Parmesan Pasta
For us, we typically have leftovers 1-2 times a week depending on what we are eating, so one day a week is also set aside for leftovers.
As you can see above, once you have themes, it’s easy to plug in an idea or find an idea to fit that theme.
Creating a meal plan is one of our top tips for how to be vegan on a budget.
3. Shop What’s on Sale
Two and three go together really. Once you have your budget, you are able to create a meal plan, but to get really great at your budget, it’s helpful to look at the sales ads to determine your meal plan.
We typically look at the sale ads of the stores we frequent most often to see what they are going to have on sale and then create our meal plan after that. I can easily see that mango is on sale this week instead of pineapple so I can adjust our Saturday to be Mango Fried Rice instead.
This may save you a few cents or a few dollars depending on what you are swapping. This is great also if you eat a lot of fruit during the week. Getting apples instead of berries on sale weeks can make a huge difference in your budget.
Often this means that you are shopping for in season produce.
4. Stick to Basic, Low Cost Ingredients
Rice, dried beans, oats, lentils.
There are a lot of low cost ingredients that can be used to make many meals. Not only does this help reduce your budget, but they don’t spoil quickly, and can be used to stretch many meals.
We like to combine low cost ingredients with a more expensive produce to reduce the overall cost of the meal.
For example – sweet potato and black bean tacos. The sweet potatoes are the more expensive item, while the black beans are the low cost item. This allows us to also add things like avocado with our tacos because the cost of the meal has been reduced. We can also prepare rice with this meal which is another low cost ingredient.
Using dried ingredients vs canned also saves money – dried beans and making them yourself versus buying canned.
5. Shop at discount stores
By discount stores, I mean stores like Aldi, Lidl, Grocery Outlet, etc. These stores can offer you amazing prices for great quality. Often times, the products are even the same as the name brand products, it just has a different label.
When we personally started shopping at Aldi, our grocery budget drastically decreased. It makes sense why too. If I can decrease the price of canned goods by half, bread cost ⅓ of the price, and the cheapest almond milk around, then it’s easy to see how my budget can get lower and lower and allow our vegan budget to stay low while getting enough food to feed our family.
As you get better with your budget, you may be able to go to bulk stores where often the prices are more expensive up front but often cheaper in the long run. This isn’t always the case though, so double check the price per ounce or pound depending on what you are buying.
6. Limit vegan substitutes
We mentioned this in #2, but when we are talking about how to be a vegan on a budget, limiting vegan substitutes needs to be discussed on its own.
If you have been vegan for more than 2 days, then you know vegan substitutes can add up and quickly. When we say vegan substitutes, we are talking about meat, egg, and cheese subs primarily. Packaged items that are vegan versions of the things you are replacing.
Especially if you have a family and need multiple packages of each thing, these can add up and quick.
Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t ever have these things, but unless you have a $400 a week budget then you likely are going to over spend every single time.
Even with these things those, there are ways to decrease the price – buying vegan cheese and vegan chicken patties from Aldi, will cost you dramatically less than buying a bigger name brand.
7. Make more of your own foods to reduce the packaged purchases
This clearly goes with #6, but we are pulling this part out to discuss it in more detail. Obviously you want to limit your vegan substitutions; however, that does not mean that you still can’t have great things.
For example – I know I can make more vegan nacho cheese for a lower cost per serving than buying a brand in a store.
This isn’t just for vegan substitutes though. This goes for many things. I know that making beans from dried beans myself costs drastically less, so does making our own almond milk or peanut butter when we buy nuts in bulk.
8. Portion control
Listen, we aren’t here to promote a diet culture or shame anyone for your choices. Eat and do whatever you want.
However there are very clear results for budgeting when you eat until full and not over eat. Usually this means that you are eating proper portions for your age, body type, and needs. That’s going to be different for your toddler versus a grown-up versus someone that is pregnant versus someone that is a teenager.
That point of this tip is that you are simply being mindful. Eating all the snacks for the week in a day isn’t going to help you stick to your budget.
For kids, helping them make good decisions to keep them full greatly helps.
9. Choose nutrient dense meals
If you eat something that isn’t nutrient dense or doesn’t keep you filled, then you are either going to want to eat more of that thing or you are going to be hungry faster.
For example – eating cereal in the morning versus oatmeal.
Not only does cereal cost more per serving, but it doesn’t keep you filled for very long. This is especially true if you are feeding a child.
Making a tofu scramble and serving with a tostada is not only packed with vitamins, minerals, lean protein, healthy fat but also cost effective. It will give your body more energy and keep you fuller longer which over time will save your money in your budget.
10. Create a separate budget for eating out
Your eating out, sometimes listed as restaurant budget or entertainment budget, should be completely separate from what your actual grocery budget is.
As you can see from our first few tips, how to be vegan on a budget, for us, focuses primarily on cooking your own food at home. When you do this, you drastically decrease your overall budget.
It’s a known fact that eating out as a vegan can be extremely expensive. Easily $100 for a family of four and that’s not even ordering appetizers or desserts. Of course there are ways to eat out as a vegan on a budget too, but we’ll save those tips for another post.
Your budget for eating out cannot be the same as your grocery budget because you need to know exactly how much you have for each thing. If they are the same and you go out to eat and spend $125, but your total budget for grocery shopping and eating out is $200, you’ve left yourself with $75 in grocery money for the week.
However, if your grocery budget for the week is $125 and your eating out budget is $75, then you not only go into the grocery store knowing what you can spend, but you also know that when you go out to eat you have to stick to $75 with tip.
Alternatively, you know that if you want to go somewhere that’s more than $75, then you can’t eat out until you have more than that saved up.
Bonus: It’s Not Going to be Perfect Every Week
Listen. There are weeks that we spend $75 and weeks we spend $130. Usually, though over the course of the month, things even themselves out. If you are constantly spending over what budget you want to spend then you need to ask yourself – do I need to adjust my meals or my budget.
If you already feel limited by what you are eating, then you need to ask yourself how you can increase your budget to meet your needs. Or if you know you need to spend less then you need to analyze what you are buying and see where you can reduce the cost of your meals.
The point though is that it’s not going to be perfect every single week. Don’t feel guilty, just reset yourself and move on.
We hope you found these tips to be helpful! Feel free to leave a comment, DM us on social, or e-mail us at [email protected] if you have any follow up questions!
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