Not sure where you're located but in the US food prices have increased dramatically across the board

There has been serious global droughts. The last time I was at Aldi prices hadn’t went up much yet if there is one near you or you find somewhere that prices are not completely crazy yet. Stock up on pantry stuff with high shelf lives. my freezer is now packed full with berries and tofu and veggies too. 

Yeah, every time I go to the grocery store it feels like I'm being robbed.

Gardein used to be $3.50 a pack, now it's $8. Fried seitan prepacks were $3.99 and now it's $9.50. Earth balance too.

I can't even buy Beanfields chips anymore.

I keep it in the freezer, it's good there for months and it's not wasteful!

Same. Rice, lentils, couscous, peas, corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes, black beans...I'm probably healthier for it all, but damn. It's pretty dystopian when you don't want to shell out the money for some fresh spinach or a fucking avocado

Make sure to switch up your grains, and add in barley, quinoa, wheat berries, spelt, millet, etc. because rice is high in arsenic (unless it’s grown in CA).

I don't have a car so a big weekly shop and being selective in the stores I go to are both out of the question.

I usually go every 3-4 days as needed to either the Albertson's I can walk to or the Sprout's I can bike to (usually after checking sales). Sometimes it's less often-I've acquired a lot of longer lasting veg so I'm trying to work through those right now vs shopping more.

I buy most dry goods in bulk online for the same reason.

I eat what’s on sale that week. Using Flipp app helps because if I really need brown rice for example, it will tell me who has it in their flyer and price so I make a note of who has what. I usually go to a couple places in a week but they should be on route to somewhere else so it doesn’t cost anymore to get there. I also make meals with whatever is on sale and freeze the leftovers in portions so I always have something on hand to it if there’s not much I need on sale that week.

i go weekly ish to the supermarket. i try to buy produce based on whats on sale and create meals around that. i am single and i never do anything complicated tho. bowls, pastas, sheet pan veggies + a protein, & wraps/sandwiches are a lot of my meals because i cant be arsed to cook actual complicated recipes for one person. i like cooking but during my normal life it's more important to me to make things that are easy and dont use like 5 pans than to make a fancy recipe.

I would love to do this but never got around to it

I try to do it all on one day of the weekend.

Usually about 2 stores.

I rotate the stores to get the cheapest price on some items. For example, I go to Trader Joe's about once a month to get reasonably priced tempeh, canned soup, and organic sweet potatoes.

I tend to spend less if I make it a rule to not buy food unless it is weekend.

I don't always keep that rule. :-)

I stopped buying milk and soda. We drink water and tea. I buy locally butchered meat, it costs just under what the store does and tastes better. I buy it in bulk and freeze it. I buy a pound of shredded rotisserie chicken instead of the whole chicken. It costs more, but we get more meals from it. I use rice as a filler for lots of things.

Don’t shop based on what you want to cook/eat, shop based on price/value and build your menu around what you can get

I stopped buying milk when I got divorced and just needed to save money then realized I was breaking me out. Giving up soda was easy too. I have an occasional coffee at work, but I don’t have to pay for it.

Planning meals and buying things that complement each other or create variety. For example, I will make lentil tacos with salsa then make taco salads and taco bowls with rice. I also recommend souper cubes or any other silicone tray about 1 cup or so for leftovers to reduce food waste and create your own frozen meals that don’t take forever to defrost. I also keep a whiteboard on my fridge to track what meals I wanna make what I’m running out of and what I have in the freezer or as extras from previous meals.

Seek out your local Asian/Mexican/middle Eastern/Indian stores for prices that'll blow your mind if you have only ever shopped at places like Kroger 

If you use a lot of fresh herbs, try growing your own. I've got rosemary and thyme on my back porch, and it's growing a lot! It can seem like a high initial investment, depending on where you get them, etc., but if you use fresh herbs enough, it will definitely save you money in the end.

"Its got dead animals in it so you don't want it"

"This is the seafood section, we don't do that fuck you seafood"

I am stealing these, ty

Holy clickbait title

Trader Joe’s has a great variety of plant-based options! I like the kimbap as a quick snack/small meal.

I also determine if products are vegan or not based on cholesterol % on nutrition labels. That and the “may contain” section below. And somehow still end up reading the whole ingredients list at the end, lol.

Great video! Thanks for sharing! I wish I saw videos like this when I was a new vegan to give me ideas of where to grocery shop and what to buy!

The was a study that showed giving meals and ingredients interesting names made them more likeable. E.g. calling a broccoli "a little tree" made kids and adults more likely to enjoy it. Or calling a chickpea curry by its original name Malasa instead etc

Buying dried goods in bulk is a great money saver. Lentils, rice, oats etc

Avoid processed foods, for stuff kids will eat get them to help in the kitchen kids like to eat food they make even if it’s just helping to mix or measure or wash veggies.

Pasta e ceci, tomato white bean soup blended smooth, quesadillas with refried beans (Rosarita brand vegetarian refried beans are vegan), with salsa and sliced avocado inside), DIY stuffed baked potatoes with tomato based baked beans and whatever other toppings the kids like

Generally a rough meal plan, some prep ahead, and taking advantage of sales and in season produce saves a lot. Buy bulk dry goods online like lentils and rice and oats

I mean…it might sound bleak, but it’s an undeniable truth that self stable rice and beans are affordable and abundant just about everywhere in the world. Yes fruits and veggies are too, but they will tend to be a little more expensive overall, not keep as long, and ultimately will shift greatly depending on season if you’re say hitting a farmers market.

All of that is without even factoring in the cost of supplements or anything else that might restrict things even further. That said, yeah we don’t need to sound so bleak about it. Rice and beans can be made a million different ways and have such a wide selection in and of themselves. I do appreciate seeing what you spend on and vary y’all’s diet. That’s awesome and practical advice. I feel ya about the tone we use sometimes when we make eating vegan out to be this boring thing tho. Shame, as some of the vegan food I’ve had has been absolutely bomb as fuck.

Counterpoint: rice and beans are practically manna of the gods.

Look, I eat a wide variety of foods that make me happy, but if someone is coming at me with "veganism is expensive!" and "but protein though?", I'm not going to talk about fruit, I'm going to sing the praises of the humble lentil, every time.

An interesting point to consider is that since becoming vegan, I actually have more variety in my diet. Look at the "biodiversity" in a butcher shop versus a greengrocer. The butcher shop has maybe 5 distinct species (cow, pig, chicken, sheep, goat), while the green grocer has hundreds of species of plants and fungi.

Stopping eating meat only amounts to "giving up" the few species of animals that are culturally allowed to be slaughtered and in return opens up the doors to eating dozens of new species of plants. Thus, it is a complete misnomer that a vegan diet is less varied than a traditional Western European diet.

The fallacy is that a omnivore may say he can theoretically eat more variety than a vegan. But in practice this is not so, because the human appetite is finite, so if the omnivore eats meat, it will necessarily mean that he cannot eat as many plants as he could have eaten if he did not eat that meat. Thus, in practice you can actually achieve more variety in your diet by being vegan.

Yeah sure but where's the vegetables? Where's the fruit? The variety? I have cooked professionally, I'm a fantastic cook..which is why i wouldn't limit myself. Just because I can make rice and beans a hundred ways, why would I want to? Lol. This is about nutrition as well as ethics. I think people can get so lost in the tag of "being vegan" that they forget you actually have to at least attempt to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Just because it's vegan, doesn't necessarily mean it's good for you. It genuinely baffles me the amount of people who are afraid of vegetables 🙃

Find vegan versions of your favorite meals and start with those. MinimalistBaker.com is a good site for vegan recipes. The nutrient deficiency things you heard isn't true. Cost of food is entirely dependent on what you eat. Rice and beans are a staple in many countries across the world for a reason, they're filling and cheap.

Well you can look at r/veganknowledge for how to avoid deficiencies. There's r/Veganforbeginners and r/vegantransition to go with that too.

Well if one's overwhelmed - the first step is to make life more manageable - for me, that means heavy research on topics to know what's vegan and what's not before going in.

Unfortunately - I don't have one of those lists - but maybe one day.

Once you build up pantry stuff - corn meal, flour, spices, oatmeal things like that, it will get easier. All you have to do is add fresh or frozen vegs/fruits/tofu/tempeh

I respect vegans so much. I wish I could be one but if you’re vegetarian maybe slip in vegan substitutions. I do it as often as I can.

I've been vegan for 17 years.

I read books on evidence-baaed vegan nutrition ("Vegan for Life" is very good).

I take B12, vitamin D, and iodine daily (the vitamin D I'd probably take anyway).

I get my blood tested annually for vitamin levels (one year my D was low so I switched to a stronger supplement, no other issues).

I try to eat a variety of nutrient-dense foods (while still enjoying some other foods).

If you feel unsure at first, an app like Cromoneter can help you see what nutrients you're getting, but don't feel pressure to hit 100% every single day.

I spend much less than I did before (adjusted for inflation, of course). Things like seasonal vegetables, legumes, frozen vegetables, and grains are affordable in many parts of the world (not sure where you are). A good basic cookbook helps also if you need help figuring out how to make meals out of the affordable plants in the grocery store. I do eat some speciality vegan products, but they're just a portion of my diet.

The hardest part, IMO, is the first couple months while you're figuring out what's vegan and what meals you like.

Plan your meals and do it in a way that lets you piggy back recipes. Choose meatless protein options. You can half the meat in a dish and supplement with something else (IE: ground beef +black bean tacos). This definitely isn’t for everyone but I don’t ever write a grocery list. I just go, find out what’s cheap and then build recipes out from there. If you’re used to preparing a variety of things it’s easy and I feel like I spend less than if I locked in my choices before getting there. Here’s how I do it:

I went grocery shopping today and my SO had two requests - tacos and pudding. Ground Beef was cheeper than turkey today so I got that. I keep black beans in the cupboard and had some shells left from last taco night. Had cheddar cheese already too. Bought a bag of shredded cabbage to use as topping. I won’t use all the cabbage with tacos so my next quest was to choose another dinner to use it - stir fry. Chose tofu for protein because it’s cheap and good. Bought broccoli and carrots and cauliflower to go with. But what about the left over veg? Cauliflower and some carrots will be used with chicken tikka masala because I already have most the ingredients. The rest of the carrots will go with the celery in my fridge to help make a bolognese sauce (with some of that ground beef I got). All I had to do was round out the r copes with some dry and canned goods that are inexpensive. I’ll be able to use all the ingredients with no waste and plenty of variation of flavors.

ALWAYS compare price per pound or ounce. Use a calculator if you must. You will be SHOCKED!!!

Buy marked down meat and freeze it if not using it that week.

You're not weird at all. I don't love day to day grocery shopping, but I love bargain hunting, so that's how I manage to make it fun for myself. Going to the same stores and talking to the staff to find out when killer sales happen and when stuff that's still good quality gets put on clearance because it's the end of the day. My weed dealer from high school works at the store near my house, so he clues me into really good deals on fish.

Menu plan, make a list, stick to the list.

Same! A couple of our grocery stores put brightly coloured 50% off tags on meat, produce and other things that are going to "expire" soon. I try to go multiple times a week to get these deals. I either use it right away or prep it and toss it in the freezer. It doesn't allow for a lot of meal planning, but I like to get creative and I can't deny the savings!!

Adding to this: try to quit eating junk food. It’s not only a waste of money, but a waste of calories. You’re just gonna be hungry again in a few minutes!

I make a list, stick to it, and then if I crave something during the week I’ll just go get it. 9 times out of 10 I am not going back out after work just to get a snack, which stops me from wasting my money

Edit: Flipp app is also great for looking at all the nearby stores’ fliers. You can even search for a specific item and it’ll show you all the deals in your area.

I did buy an assortment of instant pudding mixes - I’m not a monster! Plus, there was milk that needed to be used.

If you can buy it in bulk or bigger packs, the price often comes down and you can portion and freeze, don't forget to use unit pricing to be sure you're getting a good deal. Markdown? Even better.