This blog has been on the back-burner, but I wanted to post it because there’s another new blog – Plant-Based On a Budget – so maybe “thrifty vegan” is a trending topic.
I thought it might be good to track a week’s worth of groceries. I did this partly because the groceries look delicious. I’m not sure my pictures do them justice, but feel free to feast your eyes. I also just had no idea how much things cost. It can be enlightening to simply track expenses. This seems to be an average week, but this isn’t intended to be scientific. Also note that there are two of us, about average-sized, both active with maybe two meals eaten out weekly. So what we find is a pretty solid distribution with about $150 total for the week’s groceries.
Does $150 make sense? The Census reports the cost of a “nutritious diet” on thrifty, low-cast, moderate, and liberal level. the “liberal” cost for “nutritious diet” for a family of two is just over $150 for 2009 and 2010. The “thirfty” plan for a…
family of two is only $80. Just with a quick adjustment, removing ProBars first, pre-made Whole Foods Lentil Soup, deluxe chips, deluxe orange juice, and hummus, the total plummets to just $83.07. Obviously one might swap some hummus with sprouts and add some lower-cost staples (beens, split peas, etc) to replace the calories from the ProBars (which is on the order of 6 days of calories). However, we also compare this diet with nearly no effort to reduce costs.
Jo notes that the census data indicate that a male and female living together spend about $25 more in food living together versus separately. “I guess married people do put on weight…”, she says. The census also reports average food costs. Oddly, they provide three kinds of meats and dairy, but nothing for lentils and beans, thus acknowledging no vegan alternative for protein intake.
In any case, this is a small sample size. A vegan diet, at least for us, is no budget-breaker, but it doesn’t seem super-cheap either.
Thanks for sharing, always interesting to see! I like your brussel sprout bats 🙂
Nicole ❤
The two adults in our house eat all meals for about $50 per week. We do not buy a lot of processed vegan foods and don’t buy much meat analogs. We do buy organic blue corn tortilla chips, Cascadian Farm or Kashi granola bars, hemp milk, tempeh, and some organic tofu. The rest are beans, lentils, fruits, veggies, 12 grain bread, pita bread and tortillas. We shop for bread at the bread outlet store which is 1/3 the price of grocery store bread (but the same bread). We have a small garden and have popped in plants like lettuce and swiss chard in with our flower garden. We also have green beans, black beans, squash, sunflowers (seeds, yum!), armenian cucumbers, cantaloupe, kale, cilantro, parsley, various lettuces, carrots, peppers, tomatoes. We use raised beds and containers and I fertilize very little and use organic methods including hand picking slugs and relocating those little buggers (can’t kill em, they have to go live elsewhere). We rehydrate and pressure cook organic dry beans, make soups, stews, hummus, etc. I also find eating whole foods doesn’t leave a lot of room for junk food. It’s not convenient as processed ready to eat food but I like knowing we are eating real food that’s healthy and nutritious.
Another trick is to make one pasta/veggie salad for the week, one regular salad, and one soup/stew. We add in other foods to this basic meal and make it work, including making wraps and sandwiches from leftovers.