Live Alone Vegan Weekly Budget

That seems like a lot, especially if the majority is in Aldi.

If I'm just flinging things in the basket, I'd spend about 50 a week on groceries including toiletries and cleaning products. If I'm being conscious of it, planning meals ahead etc. I could eat very well for a spend of below 30, I buy local/Irish where possible but I'm not bothered with organic, that would push things up alright.

First thing to do is actually track your spending, and your wastage.

Frozen berries and vegetables are a good idea, it means you don't waste any such foods anymore.

For me, having go to comfort foods to hand for dinner means I'm less likely to pop into a shop on the way home from work or order something even. For example, I'd have the Tofoo Southern bites, Quorn frozen breaded chicken or some doner seitan always in the fridge or freezer as sometimes I feel like a comfort food after a long day like a burger or wrap with wedges/fries. I always have cashew nuts in the press as well for my creamy/cheesey pasta sauce craving. Having the tasty comfort food at home saves me giving in to picking up something outside of the meal plan I had shopped for at the weekend. Whatever your comfort food craving is, if you have a version of it at home which you can prepare easily it will save you from giving into spending temptation during the week.

Eat your own porridge for breakfast and dress it up with flavour, seeds, fruit etc according to your taste. Even spending €3/4 on breakfast adds up.

Look at the deals that are available in supermarkets prior to shopping e.g. Tesco are selling ripe avocados for 49c a piece at the moment. Half an avocado, toast, tomatoes and some salt and paprika made at home would cost around 40c but is delicious, would keep you going half the morning and would save you €6+ if you bought it from a cafe.

As said in a post above, the main thing is to track your food spending. Do you spend much on eating out? Takeaways? Doing a weekly shop hit then popping into the shop several times during the week? Try to give up takeaways and, as set out in my note above, have the ingredients you need to create your own comfort food at home.

Ah now, that's a lot in fairness. Our grocery budget for a family of 4 is 500 euro a month, or 120 per week, and I bring most of my meals to work from that.

What are you buying that is high cost do you think?

We have a well stocked cupboard with lots of lentils, beans, pasta, rice and these are all low cost foods. Bread, crackers, peanut butter for lunches with fruit.
Seasonal veg is not expensive. At the moment root veg (carrots, parsnips, beetroot etc), onions, leeks, fennel. Apples and oranges are in season now.
When we cook dhals or pasta dishes, those are all typically vegan, and are some of the cheapest meals we do.

We have eggs, cheese and fresh meat/fish too in our budget, along with toiletries and are nowhere near what you are spending

I'm trying to think what you could be buying that is very expensive. It must be the bars and processed quorn stuff?
We typically grow our own salads, maybe your cost is there?
Are you adding imported high mileage exotics?

Jjjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

Did a 36 euro Aldi shop including shower gel etc and I made a nice stir fry yesterday and used a tin of red kidney beans from Aldi instead of quorn pieces. (how does this compare for protein??)
It was fairly nice I must say! So have another batch left for today - will steam potatoes/boil rice to go with it and have another batch in the freezer which is something I've never done.
That way I can move on and start to use my other veg (cabbage) and not end up throwing stuff out.

I still have to go to supervalu to get quorn slices for sandwiches. I can't seem to get satisfaction from sandwiches unless I have something like those slices, or vegan sausage or something replacing meat. Sometimes I just go with lettuce, tom and vegan cheese slices but never feel full enough after.

You need to bump up the protein in the sandwiches. I'm a fiend for sandwiches and a typical one for me would be like hummus, something pickled, green leaves, sprouted lentils, nutritional yeast and toasted seeds.

Something else that might work better to directly replace quorn would be just getting a big block of firm tofu (if there's an Asian food shop near you you can get really good value), slice it, drain it, marinade it and bake it. You'd probably get four or five servings from a 300g block, you can freeze them or they'd keep for about 3-5 days in the fridge.

Mess around with different sandwich/lunch type things, keep the focus on getting a lot of high protein food in if you find feeling full is an issue. Seeds, nuts, lentils, beans. Toast them, mash them, sprout them, you can get plenty variety.

You might find that the need you feel for quorn and the like is mostly psychological, I'm not dissing that food it can he very handy but I think it's safe to say it's not as nutritious as a lot of less processed lunch alternatives. If you're replacing it with something like the above you shouldn't be left feeling hungry. Try and cut it out for a month and see how you get on.

Alaina Important Tiller wrote: »

If I'm being conscious of it, planning meals ahead etc. I could eat very well for a spend of below 30, I buy local/Irish where possible but I'm not bothered

Sorry to interrupt but would anyone know if there's a forum/thread for ideas like this? I'm not a vegan/veggie but was just passing sorry