21 Dollar Vegan Challenge

Some of you I know have heard about Vegan Hope’s 21 dollars per week challenge. The rules basically are to live for a week on just 21 dollars. Using your own spices? Subtract 3 dollars. Using your own oil? Subtract another 3 dollars. This leaves most of us with $15 to eat for the week. Another rule is that you cannot use kitchen gadgets/appliances that cost more than $15 besides your oven and microwave. I do not know how much a  blender costs, but I am sure that you can get a used/older one out there for really cheap, so I will continue using our blender.
I plan on completing this challenge during the week, and I will post everything I eat, breaking it down so you know just where each penny went. It will be fun!
I made up a rough meal plan and already went grocery shopping and this is what I purchased:

• Bag of collard greens : $2.28 (Mom bought this before we went shopping)
• A bunch of spinach: $0.89
• 6 Bananas: $1.19
• A loaf of wheat bread: $0.89
• A head of cauliflower: $2.35
• A Couple Roma tomatoes: $0.50
• Blueberries: $1.75 (This is an estimate, mom bought them previously and froze them)
• Soymilk: $2.79
• Block of Tofu: $1.25
• A huge onion: $1.16
• Celery: $0.93
• A sweet potato: $2.16
• Quinoa: $1.25
• Lemon Juice: Including in Spice/Oil Discount because it was last longer than this one week
• Better than Bouillon: Including in Spice/Oil discount
• 2 Cans of Pinto Beans: 1.38
• Box of Pasta: $1.05
• Can of Corn: $0.59
• 2 Avocados: $1.56
• 10 Tortillas: $1.99
• Apple Juice: $1.99

If you do the math, this comes out to more than 15 dollars. It comes out to a grand total of:
$27.95
However, there are a few things to take into account.
1. I will not eat all of this food by myself. I will not use all the celery, bananas, blueberries, tortillas, apple juice, avocados, etc. I live with my mother and sister, so some of the food will go to them.
2. I think I underestimated the leftovers I should have, so there is a good chance some of this food will roll over to next week.
That being said, that is what I spend on groceries,
I will further break down the cost of each meal to figure out how much money I am ACTUALLY eating.
I may go over the limit in the end, but this is still a valuable learning experience and  should be fun! :D
Do you think you could live on $21 a week? I definitely think it is possible. What strategy would you use to make your money stretch across 21 meals (plus snacks)?

Rice and Beans and Beans and Rice

Food can be expensive. That is a sad fact that we all have to live with.
These days, a piece of fruit can be the same price as a dollar-menu hamburger. The icky, slimy, greasy, dead-flesh food is getting to be more affordable than the good, whole foods! I have two responses to this epidemic:
1. Products usually sell for what they are worth, so keep that in mind when you buy a $1 hamburger.
2. There are inexpensive, whole, vegan options out there!
An excellent and timeless example of this is a bean and rice dish. I made some very rough estimates and found that you can get 5 cups of uncooked rice for $1.69. Taking into account how much rice expands when you cook it, that is a LOT of rice. Dried beans are similarly cheap, and then all you need is a veggie or two to make a tasty, wholesome meal.
I had two recipes I wanted to try out this weekend. They are both from La Dolce Vegan. The first one I actually made yesterday, called Bountiful Beans and Brown Rice.

Don’t mind the pizza. The rest of the family had pizza last night, as they tend to avoid my ‘freaky vegan food’ like the black death.


This was the final product and it was good. It was not complicated at all, took no longer than the time to cook the rice, and it had a simple but satisfying flavor. One thing to note: the recipe also calls for green peppers and jalapenos. I don’t much like green peppers and didn’t have any jalapenos so I left those out. I imagine it is even more flavorful if you leave those in!
I would give this recipe a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
It was no gourmet dish, but it didn’t have to be. It was simple to prepare and made me happy and full, which is all I can ask :)
How do you save money on food without giving up great taste?
If there’s one thing you can’t have too many of, its money- or time-saving tips!