My husband and I both work full time jobs and we have 5 kids in the house (sometimes 6 when our oldest daughter’s boyfriend stays for dinner). One of the tricks I have learned to quick vegan eating on a low budget is this. Take a day off ever 2 weeks or once a month or whatever suits you. Use that day for cooking. Cook pots of several different kinds of beans (we usually do black beans, garbanzos, pintos and navy beans). Once they are done cooking, let them cool a bit, drain them, then put about 2 cups worth into freezer bags, label with the type of bean and the date. Pop into the freezer and there you go. You now have numerous bags of beans ready to add to whatever recipe. I don’t do this with lentils, however, because they don’t take too long to cook. You can also do this with rice. Cook the rice (gotta love the rice cooker), spread it on a cookie sheet in a single layer and put it in the freezer until frozen. Then fill freezer bags with the amount you will use later in the week/month. You can put the entire bag in boiling water to heat it. I buy mushrooms at the store that have been discounted (anywhere from $1.50 to $0.50), slice them up, boil them for about 5 minutes or so, freeze on cookie sheet like the rice, then bag them up as well. I also buy organic bagged salad and spinach that has been marked down to $0.99. This produce isn’t bad, it’s just coming close to its “sell by” date. If you are using it right away, it’s a good way to save a buck on fresh produce as these things usually cost around $4-$5 or more per bag in my area (Kansas). Another thing that we tried for the first time this year is Lambsquarters. It might seem a bit hillbilly (No offense to anyone out there who actually IS a hillbilly) but we were learning about wild edibles this year and decided to try this one. We found a field where it was growing like crazy, picked a bunch, washed and stemmed it and sauteed it with vidalia onions and added feta cheese. The kids loved it and I didn’t think they would. So I was thinking, during the spring, why not pick a bunch and freeze it for the rest of the year as you would spinach. A completely free green veggie that is quite good for you. Perhaps add it to vegetarian lasagna in place of the spinach?

Another thing you can do is shop at those “discount stores”. I don’t know what else to call them. We have one here in town that sells slightly expired food or perfectly good food where the box has been damaged somehow and the regular grocery store won’t take them. This might seem odd to buy expired food but it’s all boxed or canned and we have yet to have a problem with any of it in the 5 years we have been shopping there. We constantly come across canned organic soup ($0.99), organic whole wheat pasta ($0.75), organic olive oil ($2), cascadian farms organic cereal ($1.75)… things like that that are rather expensive in regular stores. It’s well worth looking into if money is tight.

There are a ton of different things you can do to eat vegan/vegetarian for cheap, you just have to think ahead, and plan a bit. It’s well worth it.

I totally agree with staying away from the meat substitutes. They are expensive and they aren’t good for you because they are processed to death! I use to buy “Fantastic Foods” brand mixes, such as taco filling and such. Yeah they tasted good but my stomach paid hell the next day, which tells me they probably aren’t too good for me just because they are labeled “Vegan”. I have never really understood why people would decide to not eat meat but then buy meat substitutes and “pretend” to eat meat. That just seams silly to me. Although, when I first started out that’s exactly what I did because I had no clue what I was suppose to do. My food bill more than doubled because of this and we ended up going back to a meat diet. It took a long time to understand and educate myself about these things. I am still working on my family with it though. My husband and I will decide to go ahead with veganism but then I come home from work and see that he’s feeding the kids vienna sausages and doritos with cheese dip. WOW!!! Someones getting a bop upside the head .

Likewise, for information about agism and abilism, please consult:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disabilism

Why did you feel the need to insert the racist comment, when your website actually warns not to write such things?
“white folks”? It would have been perfectly fine without mentioning that. And just because someone else says it and you repeat it, does not excuse it. That my friend is a stereotype, and one based on race. I would be interested to know if I repeated one about black people would you be okay with that? Or is it just white people who you are happy to perpetuate steroetypes about.

The only thing more annoying/worse than people writing things like “white folk”, or warning people not to be racist, is people who do both of those things and don’t seem to notice the problem.

Also is the ageist, ablist (is that evena word?) etc warning meant to be a joke? I am sure I have broken some rule just by speaking normally.