Is the Vegan Lifestyle Expensive in 2023?

People often wonder is the vegan lifestyle expensive when considering going vegan or plant based and sometimes it’s even used as a reason not to go vegan.

However, a vegan lifestyle doesn’t have to be expensive. Like most things in life, it really does depend on how you approach it and what you specifically buy when you’re shopping.

I wrote a post recently discussing if sustainable living is expensive if you wanted to check that out after this one.

How Much Do Vegans Spend On Food

I really wanted to get some actual data from vegans in the UK and what they spend on food so I ran a poll on Facebook. I asked for the approximate amount they spend a week on food per adult. The pie chart below shows how much they spend on the average weekly shop.

I asked them not to include eating out because I know that not everyone eats out or gets takeaway so I felt like their basic food shopping estimates would be much more useful to gather.

I know people sometimes ask is it cheaper to be a vegan and I thought it probably was based on my experience but I did want to get some information from other vegans to confirm or deny this theory.

The highest percentage was between £20-£30 at 41.6% and the next highest was £30-£40 at 31.4%. I was actually quite surprised about these figures as I live quite frugally really and to a very strict budget and I estimate that I spend around £40 a week and my children probably eat and drink the remaining £30 of my weekly shop.

These is quite a large Vegan UK group on Facebook and I managed to get data from 299 people.

There are of course a variety of different factors that will go into what vegans spend each week on food. Eg somebody who buys a lot more convenience foods and vegan targeted foods like vegan cheese, meat replacements and ice cream: will normally end up spending a lot more on their weekly shop than someone who cooks mostly from scratch and uses mostly wholefood ingredients like beans, pulses and vegetables.

For example the amount I spend on a weekly shop might be higher than others with similar family sizes because I try to avoid plastic as much as I can and choose Fairtrade brands when I can as well.

I’ll go through the comparative cost of certain vegan foods in the next section because it’s easier to see the specific prices of things people buy in the supermarket.

The Cost Of Vegan Diet Vs Meat UK

I thought it would useful to compare some direct prices of meat and dairy products vs the vegan alternatives so you have an idea of how much everything costs in general. I have tried to get prices for similar weights and products, for example only look at Chilled versions of certain products so it is a fair comparison.

The only section I couldn’t do only chilled or frozen with was meatballs but I’ve included it as it’s still good to see the comparison and you should be able to see clearly which is the frozen meatballs.

Cheapest Meat	Price	Higher Quality Meat	Price	Cheapest Vegan	Price	Branded Vegan	Price
Tesco Beef Mince 500g 20% Fat	£1.89	Tesco Finest 5% Aberdeen Steak Mince 500g	£4.00	Tesco Plant Chef Mince 300g	£1.95	The Meatless Farm Mince 400g	£3.10
Tesco Breaded Chicken Fillet 350g	£3.30	Tesco Finest Crispy Garlic & Herb Chicken Escalope 320g	£3.50	Tesco Plant Chef Southern Fried Fillets 250g	£2.75	Vfc Vegan Fried Chicken Fillets 220g	£3.00
Tesco British Chicken Breast Fillets 300g	£2.20	Tesco Finest Cornfed Free Range Chicken Fillets 270g-470g	£5.78	Tesco Plant Chef Meat Free Chicken Style 200g	£1.75	Dopsu No Chicken Pieces 280g	£2.75
Tesco Finest The Proper Burger 340g	£3.00	The Jolly Cow Steak Burgers With Pepper 300g	£3.00	Tesco Plant Chef Meat Free Burgers 226g	£1.30	Beyond Burger Plant Based Patties 226g	£4.30
Tesco Lean Ham 125g	£2.00	Tesco Finest Thick Whole Slices Roast Ham 125g	£2.85	Wicked Kitchen Salted Beast Slice 125g	£2.50	Quorn Vegan Ham 100g	£2.00
Tesco Beef Meatballs Chilled 336g	£2.50	Tesco Finest Beef & Herb Meatballs Chilled 336g	£2.85	Linda Mccartneys Meatballs Frozen 292g	£2.50	Beyond Meatballs Frozen 200g	£4.00
Tesco British Pork Sausages 454g	£1.70	Tesco Finest Cumberland 6 Sausages 400g	£2.75	Tesco Plant Chef 6 Cumberland Sausages 350g	£1.75	Richmond 8 Meat Free Sausages 336g	£2.70

I do think looking at this table that for the most part vegan alternatives are cheaper although sometimes there are branded versions of the meat alternatives which are much more expensive ie Beyond Meat patties. I know from doing my sustainable and ethical brand list that Beyond Meat are a certified B Corporation (people and planet before profit).

Next I wanted to just do a little comparison for Fish products, I’ve used Tesco for all of my comparisons because that’s the supermarket that I use and they normally have quite a good vegan selection.

Fish Products	Price	Vegan Fish Products	Price
Tesco Cod Fish Fingers Frozen 300g	£1.85	Tesco Plant Chef Fish Fingers Frozen 300g	£2.00

I’ve included everything in these tables, even if they show the vegan version to be more expensive because it’s more important for me to be accurate, for you my reader.

Next I thought I’d take a little look at cheeses, I know in general that vegan cheeses are generally in much smaller packs for the same price as a larger dairy cheese.

Dairy Cheese	Price	Branded Dairy Cheese	Price	Supermarket Vegan Cheese	Price	Branded Vegan Cheese	Price
Tesco Extra Mature Cheese 400g	£2.50	Tesco Finest Mature Cheese 200g	£2.70	Tesco Free From Coconut Oil Mature Cheddar 200g	£2.20	Violife Original Block 200g	£2.30
Tesco Grated Mozzarella & Cheese Mix 200g	£2.00	Cathedral Mature Grated 180g	£2.00	Tesco Free From Grated Mozzarella 200g	£2.60	Violife Original Grated 200g	£2.50
Tesco Mature Cheddar Sliced 250g	£2.00	Applewood Slices 160g	£2.20	/		Violife Original Sliced 200g	£2.50
Tesco Soft Cheese 200g	£0.90	Philadelphia Soft Cheese 165g	£1.95	Tesco Free From Soft Cheese 170g	£2.00	Philadelphia Plant-Based Soft Cheese 150g	£2.50

As you can probably tell from the above table, vegan cheeses are definitely more expensive and smaller pack sizes in general as well. I have to admit that I hate most vegan cheeses so I just don’t buy them, that saves me a lot of money! 😁

Dairy Ice Cream	Price	Branded Dairy Ice Cream	Price	Tesco Vegan Ice Cream	Price	Branded Vegan Ice Cream	Price
Tesco Cookie Dough Ice Cream 280ml	£2.00	Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Dairy Ice Cream 465ml	£4.80	Wicked Kitchen Cookie Dough 500ml	£2.50	Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Non Dairy 465ml	£4.50
Tesco Rainbow Ice Cream Cones 4x110ml	£1.10	Magnum Classic 4x100ml	£3.25	Tesco Free From Strawberry Cones 4x120ml	£2.25	Magnum Vegan Sea Salt Caramel 3 x 90ml	£3.50

From the ice cream table it does seem like the vegan ice creams are a little more expensive but it’s not by a huge amount fortunately and the Ben & Jerry’s is even cheaper in the vegan version.

Dairy Chocolate	Price	Vegan Chocolate	Price
Green & Blacks Dark Raspberry & Hazelnut 90g	£2.00	Tesco Free From Honeycomb & Raspberry Chocolate 90g	£1.70
Galaxy Salted Caramel 135g	£0.99	Galaxy Vegan Caramel & Sea Salt Chocolate 100g	£3.00
Lindt Cranberry Almond Hazelnut Bar 100g	£2.10	Nomo Vegan Chocolate Orange Crunch Bar 82g	£2.00
Cadbury Dairy Milk Giant Buttons 119g	£1.25	Tesco Free From Giant Chocolate Buttons 119g	£2.00
Lindt Excellence Caramel With Touch Of Sea Salt 100g	£2.10	Montezuma’s Sea Dog Dark Chocolate Lime & Seasalt 90g	£2.50

The other comparison that I wanted to do was chocolate, I feel like this one has quite a variety of different prices of vegan chocolate or the dairy version. You’ll see that the only vegan one which is quite a dramatic price difference is the Galaxy version.

Phew, I know that was a lot of information but I hope you’ve found it useful to see some of the price differences and to try to determine if it’s cheaper to be a vegan or not.

Is A Plant Based Diet Expensive

Something else I wanted to include in this article was the difference between being vegan and having a plant based diet. Normally people that have a plant based diet do it because of the health benefits and not around the moral issue of eating animals.

I have no issue at all with people being plant based. In terms of the environment – it does make such a big difference adopting a plant based diet because the food items that have the biggest carbon footprint are beef and dairy products.

As previously stated some people also adopt a plant based diet for health reasons alone. I can see the appeal because a wholefood plant based diet is high in fibre and has a focus on consuming a wide variety of fruit, vegetables, pulses, beans and nuts which are all very nutrient dense foods.

However, it’s important to note the nuances between a plant based diet and a vegan lifestyle. For vegans the vegan diet is only a small portion of it, being vegan is an entire lifestyle which seeks to avoid exploitation and harm to animals in every part of their lifestyle.

If you’re eating a wholefood plant based diet only than it won’t be expensive compared to an omnivore diet because a healthy plant based diet includes things like beans and pulses. Which even if you buy the tinned variety (as opposed to dried) they’re really filling and affordable.

I do think it’s worth noting that some parts of a plant based diet might be more expensive, for example nuts and avocadoes if you buy these sort of things. Both of these products are known for having healthy fats but they can be a bit pricier. Normally buying small quantities of these type of things and adding things like flaxseed and chia seeds will keep this diet still reasonably affordable.

What About If You’re Gluten Free Or Wheat Free

If you have an intolerance to wheat or gluten, than being vegan as well can be quite expensive for you. This is mostly because gluten free bread which is also vegan is harder to get hold of and much more expensive. Most of the gluten free breads have egg and/or milk in them so you have to check labels thoroughly.

The same applies to gluten free pasta sometimes. Not always though as some of the Free From ranges that are available in the supermarket are a more reasonable price.

Supermarket Own Brand Wheat	Price	Branded Wheat	Price	Gluten & Wheat Free	Price
Tesco Brown Bread 400g	£0.90	Hovis Brown Bread 400g	£1.00	Bfree Brown Bloomer 400g	£3.00
Tesco Fusilli Pasta 500g	£0.75g	Napolina Fusilli Pasta 500g	£1.30	Tesco Free From Fusilli 500g	£1.00
Tesco Cornflakes 500g	£0.60p	Kellogg’s Cornflakes 500g	£2.00	Tesco Free From Cornflakes 300g	£1.50
Tesco Bourbon Creams 296g	£0.39	Oreo Double Stuff 157g	£1.00	Tesco Free From Bourbon 150g	£1.30

As you can probably tell from the table, the gluten free bread and vegan bread is quite a bit more expensive and everything else is a little more expensive.

If you have other food allergies or intolerances than you would need to consult your doctor or a nutritionist.

What About Clothes And Furniture

So some of the main materials that vegans will avoid when they buy clothes and furniture will be leather, wool, silk and down and feathers which are usually stuffed into pillows coats and duvets.

Leather is quite a popular material for jackets and shoes because it is very strong and durable. However, because of this leather as usually more expensive. The same applies to things that are made from silk and stuffed with feathers.

Vegans will usually choose clothes and shoes that are made from synthetic materials and these items are normally much cheaper in general anyway.

If you wanted to save even more money you can always buy clothes, shoes and furniture all secondhand as well.

Who doesn’t love saving a bit of money with the current economy! 😅

The bonus with buying things secondhand is that it’s much better environmentally than buying brand new items too.

Is The Vegan Lifestyle Expensive

It seems to be quite a widespread myth that the vegan lifestyle is expensive, if you look at the vegan diet, meat replacement are generally much cheaper than meat and then if you use lentils or beans than meals become cheaper again.

Even when you consider the vegan lifestyle overall, unless you buy vegan specific clothes or shoes you should not spend any more than an omnivore on these items. Even not visiting zoos will save you money because the alternative, animal sanctuaries usually are non-profit and free to visit.

Overall it does appear to be considerably cheaper to be a vegan than an omnivore when you consider some of the main things that vegans avoid are meat and dairy products and as we previously discussed leather and wool when it comes to clothes and furniture.

If you’re looking for more information specifically to do with veganism, I’ve made a list with vegan lifestyle books everyone should read.

Vegan On A Budget

It is definitely possible to eat a vegan diet, even avoid any clothes or shoes which contain anything derived from an animal and still be on a budget. However it will take a bit of planning and being very particular in what you buy.

When it comes to food specifically you should try to avoid the meat replacements and just choose things like beans and pulses to bulk out your food instead.

A 1kg bag of dried chickpeas for example would probably provide between 4-8 portions depending on your family and what you’re cooking. It just requires you to presoak and cook either in instapot or a slow cooker.

Some people like to meal prep and use things like chickpeas or other types of beans in their meals so that they have food that they can reheat from the freezer, when they’re busy.

I like to cook big batches of dried chickpeas and then freeze them in jars with a bit of the aquafaba (water they were cooked in). I find this the easiest way of portioning them and then I just defrost a jar if I need them for a meal in the evening.

Lentils are amazing as well because they don’t require presoaking just rinsing and you can add them to anything you’re cooking like bolognese, curry and even soups or stews.

If you’re a vegan on a budget as well, consider buying any furniture, clothes or shoes you need secondhand as well. As previously discussed the brand new shoes and clothes that are specifically made for vegans are really expensive. I quit fast fashion several years ago and due to this my motivation to buy secondhand is more to do with the environmental issue with fast fashion and not a vegan issue.

That-being-said you can still 100% avoid anything that’s wool, fur or leather and still buy secondhand. The bonus is as well that you will save a lot of money from buying used clothing etc.

If you want some more vegan related content, you can check 100+ vegan quotes to make you think.

I hope this post has helped you to determine if the vegan lifestyle is expensive. As you can probably tell there are a lot of different factors to consider when you shop but in general it does seem to be much cheaper to be a vegan than an omnivore.

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