Vegan On A Budget – 7 Tips

Veganism can be as expensive or inexpensive as you want it to be. It’s surprisingly easy to create a variety of delicious meals by basing your meals around a few basic staples. I plan on setting myself a challenge where I keep track of everything that I spend in attempt to keep it under a set weekly budget (of which I’m undecided on the exact terms yet) but in the mean time I have some quick tips for you that I’ve learned since being vegan.

The Staples
So these are the basics that will go a long way – you don’t need fancy ingredients that you can’t pronounce to make a variety of vegan food. The following is basically what makes up my diet.
Tinned or dried beans/legumes
Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables (if you’re on a really tight budget, tinned and frozen are good in that they won’t go off for a long time)
Basic herbs and spices (if you can, get a plant and grow it on your windowsill)
TVP or soy mince (cheap, easy protein. A little goes a long way with this stuff)
Miso Stock (never buy this from anywhere that is not an asian supermarket or it’ll be well overpriced. Miso doesn’t really go off and it can be used for soups, dressings and marinades)
Pasta and noodles
Rice
Bread
Oats

Healthier + Cheaper substitutions
Wherever you can – substitute white bread or pasta for wholemeal. These are a lot healthier for you and will also help to keep you full a lot longer. Also, rather than buying brand names, always check out supermarkets own brands. If you’re buying a milk alternative, I recommend buying it from the long life section rather than the fresh section – unless you go through a lot of milk. I finish a carton a week no problem now but in the beginning, I always ended up wasting cartons because I didn’t finish it in time.

Hold the Vegusto!
‘Speciality’ vegan items, such as mock meats and vegan cheeses, are generally a lot more expensive. Personally, I only buy these things when they’re either reduced, or on offer. A lot of these foods are processed and health wise should not make up the majority of your diet. You can make things like veggie burgers, ‘meat’ balls and sausages very easily and cheaply on your own – plus they’ll definitely be healthier for you too since you know exactly what’s going into them! Meat substitutes are great for people who are transitioning and still craving meats – but I have maybe one serving of mock meat once a week, and that’s usually only because I can’t be bothered cooking. But I do think it’s a great idea to make a batch of your own veggie burgers or meatballs and freeze them in handy portion sizes.

Leftovers for Lunch and Freezing Food
This will save you from spending all of your time in the kitchen – I purposely make double portions to have for lunch the next day, especially if I know I have a busy day ahead. You can also freeze things like batches of soup, chilli, and curry so that you don’t need to eat the same meal all of the time – and this means you can come home after work to a tasty home made meal that just takes minutes in the microwave – or a few more on the stove. Some people will spend one day solid in the kitchen cooking all of their meals for that week so that they don’t have to cook all week – but I’m not one of them since I enjoy cooking anyway.

Spicing Up Your Meals (Literally)
Herbs and spices can be expensive – it’s generally cheaper to buy in bulk if you can. But they can drastically alter your meals. You can also get some cheap chilli sauce or BBQ sauce to easily bring in some flavour. My favourite marinade for tofu actually is just to water down some BBQ ketchup. Stock cubes are also a good base for rice dishes or soup. Spices can be expensive but sometimes if you go to your local asian market, you’ll get giant bags far cheaper.

Plan your meals
One way to stop yourself from buying way too many things is to plan out your meals in advance. Write down everything you need – and stick to that list. Planning my meals always sounded boring to me until I got into cooking – now I always plan ahead because cooking is a big achievement/reward for me. And whenever my non-vegan family tell me ‘Hey, this isn’t terrible!’ and eat whatever it is that I’ve made, it always makes me feel really good.

Know when and where to shop
As a vegetarian since I was a child, I relied on my mum to buy things, so I never really knew how to shop for bargians. However, I quickly learned that Holland and Barretts would reguarly have penny sales so I now only shop there while it’s on, and that if I went to my local H&B store on a certain day of the week and at a certain time, old stock would be reduced and I’d pick up some bargains. If you’re only shopping for yourself, you can go into supermarkets on the day, grab whatever veg is reduced and improvise your meals based on that, or you can grab what’s reduced and freeze it yourself so you never pay full price for things (this is especially good for fruit). Also, simple things like not picking up that handy prepackaged pack of bananas for £1 but buying them loose and weighing them yourself can get you the same amount for half the price. I once got a whole brocolli from Tesco for 5p doing this!
I’ll leave you with some great budget finds that I’ve found this month:
Tesco Everyday Value Rice Snaps £0.75
Lidl noodles 18p (chuck away the sachet if you want to be healthy, if not these say vegan on them on the back)
Asda Meat Free Savory Mince/Bolognese £0.75 (in my opinion these definite need a little bit of spicing up, but for the price you can’t really go wrong. The burger mix is the best though its £1.50, it makes a lot!)
Asda Smartprice Chopped Tomatoes £0.31 (these are the ones I’ve always used and honestly they taste the same as more expensive brands)
Granovita Shittake Pate £0.99 (Aldi) (various flavours, but this one is my favourite. I make a carbonara sauce out of this with a little bit of soy cream, some onions, mushrooms and pakrika. I make this a good few times a month as I just love it. A tin can easily do enough for 4/5 servings depending on how greedy you are. You can also find these in H&B but they’re usually £1.50 each in there)
H&B Soya Protein Mince (375g) £1.49
Dried chickpeas, chana dal and red split lentils (2kg, found in Tesco World Foods section) £2.99 each or two for £4

If you have any tips and tricks, share them in the comments! I’ve probably missed out a fair few things 🙂