My £3 per day challenge. How I managed to eat well on a small budget

my Sainsbury's receipt! 

As well as changing people's perceptions about veganism, I really want to change people's view of health professionals with this blog.  

Some may hold the view that health professionals are wealthy, elitist snobs who have no idea what things are like for normal people.  Through my course I've learned that most are just everyday people who have the same difficulties and barriers to eating perfectly that most people face, including financial restraints.

I decided to challenge myself to see how much healthy food I could buy with £21, equivalent to £3 per day.  Here's what I bought:

Organic items: Oats, Brown Rice, Kidney Beans, Mushrooms, Garlic, Onions, Tomato Passata, Lentils, Chickpeas, Spinach, Kiwi fruit.

Non-organic items: Soya milk, Molasses, Mixed herbs, Mixed spices, Rice bran oil, Oranges, Linseeds.

(see my blog http://samanthathesanevegan.blogspot.co.uk/2014_07_01_archive.html for more on why I think buying organic where possible is important and how it can be made affordable)

Here's just some of the many meals I made: 

Oat pancake with molasses &
mixed spice & an orange
for breakfast

Tomato, Onion, Garlic & Lentil soup 
with mixed herbs

Kidney bean & mushroom risotto

I managed to feed myself many healthy, nutritious meals every day with these foods. By the end of the week I had ran out of soya milk and fresh fruit and veg but I still had plenty of everything else left, meaning I could easily have topped up for another week with far less than £21. 

I am well aware there are some people for whom even £3 per day is a lot but it is extremely common for people to spend more than this just on lunch.  A bottle of beer in most London pubs is more than this and a packet of cigarettes costs around double this amount.

Chickpea & Spinach (sort of) curry with brown rice

This does not represent how I usually shop at all.  What normally happens is I go to Planet Organic and get seduced by all the lovely vegan foods on offer and buy things like coconut milk yoghurt, dark chocolate covered pumpkin seeds, cashew nut ice-cream and about 15 different types of tea.  

By the end of the month I end up being like, 'which of my accounts am I the least overdrawn on again? Or should I use my credit card? Hurry up pay day!'

Perhaps I should start taking my own advice!