Poor vegan, cheap living

[fiamma]

Hi Cptain,
note also that all vegan cookbooks are not the same! Rose Elliot, for example, is a great British vegetarian cookery writer and she uses very simple ingredients that you can find anywhere. Or Sarah Kramer's books - How it all Vegan or The Garden of Vegan. Or try looking for recipes online - Vegweb and Allrecipes are good sources. Good luck!

[Glen]

What Vegan food isnt cheap?

My advice would be: Get yourself a cheap vegetable steamer; it is the best purchase you will ever make. Then buy lots of fresh veg, carrots, peas, potatoes, you know the score. They are all pretty cheap and all very nutritious.

Ah beans. You can never get enough beans! There are soooo many types! Dried are best as they are cheapest and go a long way. If you dont fancy soaking them for so long then even the precooked tinned ones are cheap.

I also wouldnt reccomend eating too much soya/TVP/ready made sausages etc as they can be both expensive and unhealthy.

[paulvegan]

grow your own fruit and veg.(well some of it.at least)

hanging baskets on walls etc.

try buying seeds and pulses in bulk, whole sale.

[twinkle]

I second (third) the sprouting suggestion. You can also sprout almonds - I know they're expensive but soaking them for 24 hours swells them up so you need less, and makes the nutrients easier to digest. And they're taaasty :)

You could think about getting an allotment and growing your own vegetables if you don't have a garden. You can also grow herbs on your windowsills - stuff like parsley is easy to grow and full of vitamins.

[Justin]

Tis is probably a bit lo-fi, but I take all the veg I can find- canned, frozen or fresh and stir them up in a big pan, add half a jar of sauce (someone's normally doing a two for one deal), a little water and serve over rice. pretty easy to cook, always tastes different and it only costs as much as I put in. hth

[Melanie]

A quick note on homemade cleaning products; Use a diluted tea solution on a cloth to clean windows/mirrors/glass. Put on with the cloth and buff off with a dry cloth.
:)
Edit; Damn just noticed that this is an OLD topic, hope that's okay...

[Korn]

noticed that this is an OLD topic, hope that's okay...
Sure. :)

[Melanie]

Sure. :)
Phew ^-^
Thanks
~xx

[focus]

Thought I'd share this website. I use it a lot and every recipe I've created has been inexpensive, tasty and healthy too!
http://www.veganlunchbox.com/loaf_studio.html

[cedarblue]

what an interesting and useful site, thanks focus.

i may have posted this elsewhere before but heres a christmas idea for those interested.

if you send christmas cards, either:
a) cards that you have received from the previous year, just cross out your name and who is was from and re-send it on to someone else the next year with a little note about your new policy of reusing and recycling (you can even just slit open the envelopes and reuse those too)

or

b) cut the back part of the card off so you are just left with the front picture peice. then write your christmas message on the back of that and send it as your card, again with the reuse and recycle message (using the same envelope)

for christmas labels for gifts;

cut out last years cards into label sized pieces and use on your gifts.

i make gift labels, punch a hole in them and put a bit of ribbon through, then i put them into bundles of 10 and sell them to friends and pass the proceeds onto a charity.

[herbwormwood]

It's years since I bought an envelope. I buy re-use labels and stick them on the envelopes which come through the door. I even stick them on the addressed envelopes which come with begging letters from charities. Or I use sellotape and a peice of scrap paper and make my own. Sellotape is vegan, I am not sure about the cheaper substitutes but a large roll of sellotape goes a long way.
As for food, I am in a small local co-op which buys directly from Suma, a veggie wholesaler. We save on the shop mark up price in retun for a little work with the food co-op a few times a year, sorting the goods and other admin work. I also buy from a Pakistani food shop where spices and pulses and other veggie goodies are much cheaper than supermarkets.
On another economising note, I was recently introduced to the thermostat on my hot water tank. It had been set 20 degrees hotter than it needed to be, for the past 10 years, so I have saved a lot already on my gas bill since turning it down!

[Melanie]

20 degrees hotter! That's rather a lot, isn't it?
I made a really nice soup tonight, consisting of some lentils, other pulses and some leftover veg. (You know the stuff, it sits there for ages, looking sorry for itself... sorry... i'm personifying the veg again...)
I wager it cost about 30p or something to make, AND it's yummy.
I even had enough to freeze some.
-Looks suitably pleased with herself-
~xx

[flying plum]

i realised when i was going veggie that it was a hell of a lot cheaper to buy things like lentils and other 'ethnic' foods from shops where the ethnicity to which they are a traditional food also shop. fortunately for me, i live in london, so this is not hard to do. when i lived in waterloo, there was a thai supermarket near me that i used to buy massive bags of rice from that would last me forever and also things like tofu and vegetables. the big supermarkets put such a markup on things like that.

also, i've noticed in the few occasions that i have stepped into tescos in the past that they have 'ethnic' sections in a lot of their supermarkets where the same products, but different brands, are cheaper. even things like peanut butter, which counts in the 'african' section.

on top of this, it is always cheaper (if you're in the supermarket) to buy nuts and raisins etc from teh baking section, rather than the 'wholefoods, look we're so on-trend yuppie' section.

as an impoverished student, i sympathise!

amanda

[foxytina_69]

buying produce that is in season, buying from bulk, and only buying everything else that is on sale.

we never buy anything that isnt on sale usually.

and trying to focus on whole foods, because theyre so much cheaper.

i also notice that tofu is much cheaper than meats, and i can pretty much make anything out of tofu, so its definitely a staple.

thats how i eat cheap.

i also make my own all purpose cleaner, and stretch out any food i have. like if ive got old veggies, i make soup with them. etc. i try to not throw out any leftovers. they can always be thrown into something.

[Ginger]

This is a really good thread :)
Just got our gas and electric bills and really need to make some savings somewhere :confused: . I was surprised how high they were cos I'm always running round turning stuff off and don't have heating on unless we've got jumpers on and it's still cold (I'm a mean mummy:( ).
I cook regularly for 5 or 6 people who come and go at different times which is awkward so I recently bought a slow cooker but then thats switched on for hours and hours :eek: so I feel I can't win sometimes...

[Stezzy]

My weekly shop doesn't cost much at all especially as I can't tolerate any processed food so my diet has to be simple. I can't eat fruit at the moment either so I only buy fruit for my 5 year old. I always have dried beans, lentils, chickpeas, split peas, chopped tomatoes, creamed coconut and a variety of flours and grains in the cupboard so I can knock something together at any time. All I buy weekly is:

Soya milk
Rice milk
Vegetables and potatoes (which I get delivered in a box from a farm)
chopped tomatoes
hummus
porridge if run out
brown rice (usually needs a weekly buy!)
Pasta (as above!)
tofu
rice cakes
rye crackers

A lot of my budget goes on extras for my son such as bread, soya cheese, strawberry and chocolate soya milk, soya deserts etc. Even that really doesn't cost awful lot as we eat pretty much the same meals, just that he has a desert and I don't:(

Using dried beans, peas and lentils really keeps it cheap. The downside is obviously the time and hassle it takes to cook them so tinned is better if you need to cook something quickly, but I don't work and make all my meals from scratch, and it's nice and cheap!:)

I spend a bit more on toiletries as I have allergies to a lot of chemicals. I usually buy my supplies online and get natural shampoo and condtioner. Like other people said, I tend to water it down as it gets low!

[harpy]

We get veg and fruit delivered too, but this week there was no fruit (they'd run out apparently).

I need to go out and buy some but there's very little in season at the moment - if I limit it to stuff that's both local and organic I think it's pears, and that's it (and I already have some pears!).

What do other people do about fruit in winter?

Edited to add - sorry, perhaps I've posted in the wrong thread, but Stezzy's post made me think of it.

[herbwormwood]

This is a really good thread :)
Just got our gas and electric bills and really need to make some savings somewhere :confused: . I was surprised how high they were cos I'm always running round turning stuff off and don't have heating on unless we've got jumpers on and it's still cold (I'm a mean mummy:( ).
I cook regularly for 5 or 6 people who come and go at different times which is awkward so I recently bought a slow cooker but then thats switched on for hours and hours :eek: so I feel I can't win sometimes...

Do you have gas central heating with a hot water tank? If so try turning down the thermostat on the hot water storage tank, this reduces the temperature of the water coming out of the hot tap, I did this and I saved a lot on my bills. Also the TV, kettle and computer use a lot of power. Just boil water as much as you need. Don't leave the TV and computer on standby.

[paradoxsund]

oh! also, if you live in a place where there are outdoor food markets, sometimes going afterwards gets you free food that otherwise would've been discarded. we got a huge thing of pears and cabbage last time

[Heartsease]

i make my own soya milk which works out at about 8p a litre as opposed to between 65p and £1.45 in a carton

Wow! I thot I was the Vegan Queen of economizing:eek: . Please can you tell me more about the 8p trick? I buy my food wholesale so I cud get my soya beans super cheaply.

[Gorilla]

i don't actually use my soya milk maker any more - it was a lot of hassle and i couldn't get the milk to taste very nice.

[thecatspajamas1]

I've found out recently that a bag of brown rice is 89 cents. Awesome! And it lasts me forever too, because there are so many servings in a bag. I usually makea serving of the rice and add some steamed cauliflower or brocolli and sometimes veggie "beef" crumble or chickpeas.

[BlackCats]

I have been going through my finances recently and am horrified by how much I have been spending on food since I became vegan. I think its because I have been buying mostly organic and from Waitrose which is really expensive.

I have found this thread useful, I am going to start buying in bulk the stuff I use all the time, like soap, rice, crisps etc.

I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but there is a website (in UK) called Money Saving Expert that tells you how to save money by transferring credit card balances or switching suppliers or whatever.

This sounds really anal but I have started writing down everything I spend daily on a notepad which lets me see just where my money is going.

[Mystic]

I don't think it is anal - My husband and I have just had to look at our finances. Between us, we make ok money and for some reason, we never have any! We are about to start building a house so we are about to have a big mortgage. We have set up a budget where we each get an allowance for eating out/entertainment/extras, an amount per month for food/groceries and the rest will go to our costs of living and mortgage - so we too will be monotoring every cent we spend. We just keep blowing our money on crap.

[cobweb]

I have been spending far too much on food and specialist Vegan products (e.g haircare, etc) :( . Over 50% of the family budget was going on food! :eek: . So I have to start shopping in Lidl again. The stuff is fine but it bothers me greatly that it's not organic - I'll just have to wash it all thoroughly and keep my fingers crossed, and grow what I can myself (which isn't much right now :rolleyes: ).