Grocery Budget for Vegetarians

well i'm not 100% vegitarian but pretty close haven't had meat in a week or two but i do eat chicken every now and then. but i have recently discovered dried beans (mostly chick peas) i add them to everything and they are pretty cheap. i just spent $35 stocking up on millet, buckwheat, sunflower seeds, almonds, granola, etc and most of it was organic (i just couldn't justify spending $5 a lb on organic sunflower seeds)...i have to travel about an hour to get to a store that carries it (and it's in bulk) and it'll last me about a month if not more.

so $100 a week for 1 person does sound expensive to me. i didn't even spend that much on a family of 5 (1 is a nursing infant though) this week. i'd change up your menu some don't be so set in 3 avacodas etc...every week go with whats on sale or in season.

i make a pan of chick peas every 3 days. and a pan of millet or what ever grain every few days as well. then for lunch i add what ever i fancy. today was millet with sunflower seeds, almonds, and chick peas no dressing or anything added. if i have veggies left over from dinner the night before they can get chopped up and added.

That's quite expensive in my opinion. There's only me at my house too, so I could never afford to go anywhere or do anything if I was spending that much on groceries. I do purchase either raw or frozen vegetables. Of course the veggies can be frozen if you purchase them raw and use them for stir fry or smoothies at a later date. You can also freeze any beens and such if you prepare your food ahead of time. I don't eat eggs and diary so I don't have the problem of stocking up on those items. I'm strictly plant based. I would suggest maybe planning your menus out and taking a day to prepare what you have for the week. You may be wasting some things buying too much at once. Or maybe you need to expand your menu so that you are eating things that don't necessarily have to be purchased weekly like beans, pasta, rice, etc. My two cents....

Hey y'all

I feel like the majority of my money goes to the grocery stores. I cook all my own meals and I always bring a lunch to work. Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Hannaford are all within a block of each other and circle my office. I'm spending about $100 on groceries a week and I'm just one single vegetarian lady!

I REFUSE to eat processed crap just because I'm broke but produce is very expensive. For example; I go through 2 bags of baby spinach, a bunch of bananas, 3 avocadoes (they're over $1 a piece here), tomatoes, 3 oranges and lemons and 2 sweet potatoes a work week...every week. This is about $25-$30 depending on the store before I even get staples like bread, eggs and yogurt.

I'm trying to cut corners with my finances to pay off credit card debt from travelling...so I can travel more.

My questions for fellow vegetarians:
Does this seem incredibly excessive to spend this much?
How much do you spend on groceries a week?
How do you spend less?
Any recipes that freeze well and can be used for a few days at a time?

Thanks!

Are there any cheaper stores like Aldi and are you eating a wide variety of foods or the same ones on repeat? Have you priced up different fruit and vegetables per 100g? Veg tends to be cheaper than fruit, frozen dried or canned tends to be cheaper than fresh, root and seasonal veggies cheaper that the soft juicy ones which are easily attacked by insects or fungus, easily bruised or otherwise have a short shelf life.

Here in the UK the cheapest produce includes dried mixed fruit (sultanas and raisins), frozen rhubarb, fresh pineapple, fresh red onion, whole red cabbage, fresh carrot, frozen sweetcorn, canned tomatoes, frozen broccoli, frozen green beans. I tend to have frozen spinach in smoothies or hot meals because that is less than a quarter of the price of bagged baby spinach, my winter salads might be based on mixed beans or chunky homemade coleslaw which is cheap to make and nutritious.

Wholegrain bread is getting expensive here too if you look at the price per 100g and consider that is the cooked weight; dried beans or lentils, barley or brown rice may be cheaper, these can be frozen once cooked. Another option is to purchase a breadmaker if you can get a cheap one and bake your own.

I spend $30-50 a week for two people.

I'm spending $50 a week for two - and this is a recent development; until recently I was spending $75-$100 for two. I do the foodie thing and I won't buy crap, but it's easy to save a lot if you comparison shop and plan your meals around what's on sale. The biggest change I made was to start actually reading those grocery store ads that show up in the mail every week; when I can get broccoli for $1 a head, broccoli will be present in at least four of my ten planned meals. I buy whatever fruit is on sale for breakfast. I also have started shopping in two places: generally, Sprouts for produce, cheese, and bulk items and Central Market for shelf goods like beans and salsa. I get the most bang for my buck that way. Coupons are good too!

Our groceries for two averages out to about $75 -100 a week for two some weeks more some less depending on what staples we are out of. Food has gotten so expensive! I dont buy alot of processed food - mainly meat and veggies, but not too much of it is organic as I can't justify $6 for one organic pepper. we have a ton of grocery stores nearby so I try and see whats on sale where and go there, if its convenient on my way home from work etc. I find the trader joes frozen fruits and veggies to be cheaper than at the grocery store, but I think their other produce is pricier. Dollar stores if convenient can be good places - dollar general in my area just had muir glen organic tomatos for $1 a can. the expiration date was next month so you cant buy too many, but good deal otherwise

Also, sites like this are great for ideas: http://budgetbytes.blogspot.ca/

Not always the healthiest but you can make adjustments if you know what's generally good for ya

I probably spend about $50 a week, maybe more, on groceries each week. I've been vegetarian since January. I did used to spend more, but once I started meal planning, that pretty much locked me into a cheaper monthly amount. If you can plan your meals for the week around the same general ingredients, you won't need to spend as much on different assortments of food.

For example, I love lentils. And I love that I can make the whole bag and use it over the course of my work week. This past week, my meals were set up like this:

MONDAY
Lentils with poached eggs

TUESDAY
Lentil spaghetti with mushrooms

WEDNESDAY
Burrito - Black beans, mushroom, avocado (half)

THURSDAY
Lentil spaghetti with mushrooms

FRIDAY
Scrambled eggs with lentils and tomatoes

I'm also pretty in love with oatmeal, so I generally eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast. Sometimes I shake it up with huevos avocado or avocado toast (yum) but it depends on the week and how many avocados I'm going to need!

I'd highly recommend meal planning and organizing around a staple ingredient or two. That should help you plan your budget and keep costs down.

Hey y'all

I feel like the majority of my money goes to the grocery stores. I cook all my own meals and I always bring a lunch to work. Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Hannaford are all within a block of each other and circle my office. I'm spending about $100 on groceries a week and I'm just one single vegetarian lady!

I REFUSE to eat processed crap just because I'm broke but produce is very expensive. For example; I go through 2 bags of baby spinach, a bunch of bananas, 3 avocadoes (they're over $1 a piece here), tomatoes, 3 oranges and lemons and 2 sweet potatoes a work week...every week. This is about $25-$30 depending on the store before I even get staples like bread, eggs and yogurt.

I'm trying to cut corners with my finances to pay off credit card debt from travelling...so I can travel more.

My questions for fellow vegetarians:
Does this seem incredibly excessive to spend this much?
How much do you spend on groceries a week?
How do you spend less?
Any recipes that freeze well and can be used for a few days at a time?

Thanks!

I spend $90 a week for five people, 4 who eat a standard American diet and then me who eats a mostly whole foods, plant based with a bit of non-whole foods in moderation. So yeah, what you're spending is a bit mind boggling to me

You can take a peek at my profile for a link to my food diary but I eat a green smoothie every day and that usually has fresh spinach, kale, chia seeds, a banana, frozen blueberries that I picked at a U Pick farm this summer ($1.25lb!), and then another fruit. I recently discovered that Dollar Tree has added frozen foods and I can get bags of frozen fruit, with nothing added, for $1 each and one bag breaks down into two smoothies. So far I've gotten strawberries, mango, mixed berries and peaches.

For off season growing months (like now) I get the spinach and kale at Meijer, which is a midwest chain. A huge bunch of organic kale is $2 or $1.50 for non-organic. Spinach is $1.50 for a large bunch. I usually buy two bunches of each week (go back to the store halfway through the week to get the second bunches). The chia seeds I get at a local health store and a container costs around $8 and lasts me a couple months (at a tbsp a day, per smoothie).

Then everyday I usually have a large, dinner plate sized salad-veggies and then either warmed up organic refried beans on top with hot sauce, black olives and ground flax seed for a 'taco' type salad, or one with veggies, croutons and regular ranch dressing (I like mild pepper rings on this one). I get veggies are that on sale and also hit up the reduced produce rack-I get most of my bananas from there, for .19lb. During growing season I get produce really cheap or even free through the farmers market, hobby farmers, u pick farms and relative's gardens. The beans I get are canned and cost $1.09 and it has 2-3 salads worth in each can.

I've been pairing up the salads with large sweet potatoes lately since those are in season yet here-I top them with a cinnamon sugar mixture (nothing else).

And then a grain-usually brown rice with veggies and mushrooms mixed in or oatmeal with lots of different add ins (the possibilities are endless-this week I tried a pumpkin banana almond combo and it was amazing!).

I don't eat eggs and dairy is limited to when we go out to eat usually, then I'll have a bit of cheese. I don't usually eat bread type things, except for an occasional whole wheat English muffin that I get for $1.09 a package at the bread outlet, and then I do a lot of baking and will have homemade muffins that I make with wheat that I grind myself and usually has fresh fruit or things like grated carrots in.

For me alone, I spend around $30 a week on groceries.

Maybe shop around a bit more in your community. I loved living in Vegas because the Hispanic markets were always dirt cheap! My mouth drops open at the mark up Whole Foods does...too expensive for my blood.