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The household budget represents a substantial part of most families’ expenditure and of that the greatest part of the bill is for food. Meat probably forms the largest part of that food bill too, so you would be forgiven for thinking that you could save a lot of money by giving up meat. You would suppose that becoming a vegetarian would save you some money.

However, that is not always a fact. You can save money by taking up vegetarianism on a budget, and it does not necessarily work out that fashion without some effort on behalf of the vegetarian. The fact is that vegetables, on their own, often appear boring to someone who used to enjoy a decent steak or barbecued spare ribs, so food manufacturers have come up with all manner of accoutrements to liven up vegetarian dishes but these are not normally all that cheap.

Even some of the fairly regular vegetarian staple foodstuffs like nuts are not necessarily cheap, particularly if you want variety. After all, you can not just eat salted peanuts, not that all that salt would become decent for you anyway yet while you begin to purchase macademia nuts or pistachio nuts for a modify, you will find them dearer than meat.

Eating out at vegetarian restaurants is also relatively costly, because the market is relatively small. There are not many restaurants that refuse to cook meat and the percentage of the population that is vegetarian is still pretty small. This all leads to higher charges, and that is if you can find a vegetarian restaurant outside a large city. A sandwich bar is around the closest you will get to it in most towns yet there will be meat on the premises as well.

The cost of vegetarian food is made worse if you insist on eating organically grown food. Eating only organically grown food can add 30% to your food bill making vegetarianism on a budget impossible. So what can you do to reduce the price of your food bill if you are a vegetarian?

The first thing to do is decide if you really believe the whole organic story. Some do, some do not. Either way, you could attempt growing the expensive vegetables in your garden, your greenhouse or in an allotment. If you can not do that, you could offer to buy these vegetables from friends, if they will grow them for you. Lots of pensioners take up gardening and lots of pensioners would be happy with the extra income.

Another method is to shop at farms or farmers’ markets. I know that time is valuable, yet if you can only go to such a shop once a week, you could purchase enough food for three or four days without it going off. Buying in bulk like that ought to be cheaper too. A sack of potatoes will last a month and it is far cheaper than buying a couple of pounds at a time from the supermarket.

Another method of reducing costs is not to purchase your fresh fruit and vegetables from supermarkets at all, because it easy to be enticed to buy the latest fad fruit or vegetable from halfway around the world at an exaggerated cost ‘just for a change’. Stick to locally grown fruit and vegetables that are in season and you might just about manage vegetarianism on a budget.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with French dip sandwich recipes. If you want to know more or check out some special offers, please go to our website at Vegetarian Sandwich Recipes.

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