Going plant Based on a Budget with Tony Akimoto.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are replaying a listener favorite from several years ago about going plant based because it is such a great way to save money on groceries. Because meat is the most expensive thing in most of our grocery cards. It might not be the only reason that you want to go plant based, and you already are, and you're looking for more ways to think critically about how.
You spend money. Maybe you are wanting to make a couple of meatless days a part of your meal plan. You just need a diet change. We know that that can be one of the biggest barriers people recognize. Sure, there's plenty of ways to reduce my grocery bill, but what about when I have a special diet. And so this is one of those episodes where we turn to an expert. So it is a replay of an old favorite, but we think it's a good one. So we're excited to share it with you. But first, this episode is
brought to you by saving money. It's what we're all interested in. It's what we google. It's the reason we give for not doing something, or shutting off the lights or eating beans and rice at home. But what if you could identify ways to save more, spend better, even track your debt payoff goals, all from your phone. You can, and you can do it the Frugal Friends way with our new mobile optimized Spending planner. It's beautiful, it's simple, it does math, it's easy to navigate from your phone.
It's inexpensive. You can save money, track money, spend money, get good at money. Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash planner.
Yes, amen, Amen, and nothing more to say. For a few more days. I'll give you this for a few days. At the end of this is a Memorial Day sale. At this point, May fifty will get you an additional fifty percent off that planner.
Ooh, feeling generous.
We're not advertising that everywhere. We are really only advertising it on the podcast. So you are special. This isn't something that we're just doing for everyone.
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Do it, Try it, see what happens.
Save money all right.
So we are in our save Money on Groceries era and we are doing lots of episodes. Our next episode is about saving money on meat, so we encourage you to listen to both. Whether you are plant based or carnivore, We've got something for you. We want you to get healthy food, nourish your body, and not be angry and not go broke doing it. And so that's what this episode was all about, because sometimes plant based living, going vegan, all that stuff can be associated with privilege and high prices.
And Tony is such an accessible like food blogger, instagrammer, plant based recipe creator. We love her and we know you will too because our listeners several years ago loved her.
Yeah, so let's get into it.
Tony, thank you so much for joining us on the Frugal Friends podcast. This is going to be a really fun episode.
I think, yes, welcome, welcome.
Thank you so much. I love saving money and so your podcast is like my jam yes love good to hear that from my Yes we love JATSA definitely jam us up.
All right.
So you are an expert ongoing plant based on a budget, so our first question for you is what's the biggest misconception about going plant based? The biggest misconception about going plant based for me and for what I hear often is that people believe it has to happen overnight and it has to be all or nothing. And for me, it took six years to become plant based. I gradually, very slowly moved away from the foods that I was
very familiar with and very comfortable eating. And I still feel as plant based as the next person.
It just took me a little bit longer. And I also made sure that I set myself up for success long term. And I know that doing something before you're completely comfortable can set you up for failure. You can think, oh, well, I messed up, tried it didn't work for me, instead of continuing on little by little by little by little. And I also feel like that's about money saving too. That could be applied to so many different things.
That's such a good point. The familiarity aspect that can be such a barrier for many of us. It might not be that oh I would never like it or I couldn't sustain on that. It just might be I'm not familiar with it. I've never We kind of stick to the things that we know, but oftentimes when we're willing to branch out try new things step by step, we learn more about ourselves and we might be open to things we didn't think we were open to. So
I love that point about it. I think applies to a lot of different aspects of life too, not just our diets.
So true.
Actually, it reminds me of the time the very first time I went to a vegetarian restaurant, a friend who as vegetarian brought me and said, order anything you want and I looked at the menu, didn't know of any of the things on there, and I was like, I'll have the white rice. And I literally only ordered white
rice because I didn't know anything on there. And for me, becoming plant based what really opened my world and my palate up to all of these different international cuisines and different types of ingredients because I didn't have a lot of courage to venture out before that.
Yeah, it also has this element of like the all or nothingness that we're so used to. It's either I'm all plant based or I'm all nothing, well, all not.
Plant based, you know, I eat everything.
Yet it's yeah, it's that identity thing, and I think your journey to, like over six years to slowly become fully plant based that gives permission to a lot of people, like I'm not a Aian anymore, but I eat like probably two or three plant based meals a week. So that doesn't make you wouldn't think like I don't identify as that anymore, But it doesn't mean I can't incorporate
it into my life exactly. And in fact, I've surveyed my audience and about sixty five percent of people who are part of my community eat everything but want to incorporate more plant based dishes. They realize that it's healthier for you to have very vegetable heavy, fruit heavy meals in your life and want that for their families.
Could we take a moment just to define some of these different words. I know that like we use vegetarian or plant based, or but I know that there's differences between all of these things and some overlap as well. When you talk plant based, Tony, what does that primarily mean for you? Or maybe what's it's the spectrum that you've seen.
This is a really, really heated subject for many, but for me, it's not you can really if I don't ever judge anybody. So if you want to call yourself vegetarian like I did, and pick the pepperoni off of your pepperoni pizza and just not eat that par like you do, you That's how I started. And so vegetarian is not eating meat, and there are some ingredients that other vegetarians don't eat as well, but they tend to eat eggs and cheese and other dairy products. And then
there's vegan. Vegans often are a little bit more on the ethical side, but there are other vegans who are not, and they just want to eat less animal products or no animal products, but that tends to be more of a lifestyle, so no leather, no fur, They try to buy cruelty free products tested on animals, and so it's more of a lifestyle. And then plant based, this is the one that's a little bit tricky. I know people who are plant based and are die hard plant based,
but they still eave meat sometimes. There are still there are people who are plant based who they believe that they don't need oil. I believe oil came from plants, and I use plant based synonymous to vegan. So there are there's like a whole spectrum of just the word plant based. And I feel like, if you want to eat more plants and you feel comfortable labeling yourself plant based, us you do.
You that's amazing. I just want to stick to the basics of plant based, meaning plants. Then that's yeah, that's.
How I feel. That's how I feel.
I eat food that was made from plants and that that is a very very vast range of food.
Yeah. So for someone hearing this and realizing great, I can, I can intersect with this concept, this way of eating and living on a variety of ways. What would you say is the easiest way for someone to get started if they're also considering their budget.
I know that Jen has a lot of thoughts about this with meal planning, because that's always where I start.
I feel like having a plan with saving money period is going to get you far and really taking stock of what's in your pantry so that you're not buying ingredients that you don't need and not finding it, not finding recipes that are online that require a whole new list of ingredients that you have to spend money on and maybe don't go together, so you can't use the salary that you have leftover in your soup because now you're making a pasta and pasta doesn't have that salary.
So being a little bit thoughtful and smart about your planning and then using that planning at.
The grocery store, because grocery store is.
Like a very hard place to navigate when you're on a budget. I know. Yeah, the marketing is so fantastic. They've got colors and beautiful signage. And what we don't know as consumers often is that there is a lot of paid placement at the grocery store. So when you go in and you see this big like sale sign tomato sauce is one dollar, you're thinking, oh great, this
is I needed tomato sauce. But often that's not the cheapest, and it's better for you to avoid that intro section and then also the end caps and go straight to the aisle look for your tomato sauce. Don't even look just in your line of sight, look all the way around because that could be paid placement too, And look for the cheapest by price pernounce. So often that's label, but still do your diligence and make sure that's the cheapest.
And there are so many hacks like that when you're at the grocery store, just shopping smartly, making sure that you've eaten before you've gone, so that you don't purchase impulsively, make sure you have a plan, so that you're not randomly grabbing ingredients because they're on sale, or because they look good, or because you just want to try them, and stick to the plan.
Yeah, it seems like such a misconception that going plant based would be more expensive when the reality is that meat is what usually costs us a lot of money. Although I know, even for myself, if we're starting to talk about cutting dairy, then then there's a lot of other alternatives. And sometimes I see that those alternatives to whatever recipes are going to call for that might have
dairy in it, the alternatives might be more expensive. And so I'm cure vious your thoughts on how to begin, Like if someone were at that end of the spectrum with I also want to cut out like the dairy and the cheeses and the eggs and all of that, and yet trying to find some reasonable alternatives, how might they go about, Yeah, planning for that well and wisely within their money.
I've found that sticking to plants, like Whole Foods is going to be the cheapest option, and you can still have a very delicious and familiar experience with tastes and textures with your seasonings. And one thing that I go back to all the time because I come from a family of meat lovers and I don't eat meat. But I've also been on a budget for my whole adult life. I lived under the poverty line until maybe in the past four years, and so I was on a tight budget.
And one meal that I kept going back to our lentil tacos. Lentil tacos are my favorite. You use all the same thing. You wouldn't put cheese on it, but it's still delicious, and you would cook the lentils instead of the beef, and you'd flavor them the same you'd use. I use a taco seasoning packet, But if you use all the if you make your own blend, that's fine too. With some onion, lettuce, tomato, and corn tortillas. Oh my gosh, delicious. My meat loving family loves it, so it doesn't have
to be a sacrifice. And also, if you give food a try without the alternatives, because those can get pricey, you'll find that with the right seasonings, it's so filled with flavor and it's healthier for you.
Yeah, and we're all about values based budgeting and spending anyway, So if this is a decision that we want to make with the way that we're feeding ourselves and interacting with the world, then we can find room to do that and cut in other places as well. But also it's it's like anything else, like going minimal or you name it, where there's a way to do it expensive and there's a way to do it within our means, and both can be really amazing and really great and
really tasty. I find the people who like our primarily plant based eat that way. They make incredible food. I think maybe because like there's more time and not maybe not a ton of extra time and effort, but like you care more about like the main if a main dishes, eventually we just actually use rice. Like if you're cooking meat all the time, if you're like, you don't have to do that, but then you never get really good at cooking.
Yeah, that's so true.
I when I first started my cooking journey, did not know how to mix the different spices and blend different ingredients and I grew up. I had two faces of my life. I was brought into this world by teenage parents, but my dad went into the Navy full time right after he found out that I was went to be born, and I lived with my grandparents during that time. They were retired and they both were very interested in food.
My grandpa was a Japanese gardener here in the Central Valley and my Central Valley of California, and my grandma was a Mexican woman who took his food and made us delicious meals from scratch, and so they were very rich in plants and fresh foods. But then I went and moved in with my dad, and we ate like bachelors. So I moved in with him when I was eleven years old, and I loved hamburger helper, I loved hot dogs with chili. I loved top ramen, mac and cheese,
you name it. We ate like bachelors. That's just how
it went. And so I didn't develop the cooking skills because I was too young when I was living with my grandma, and I relied heavily on packaged foods, and so going into learning how to cook vegetarian and then Blint based later on, I had to experiment, and what I did was I would go to the library and check out books, and I would invite a few friends over for we called it Womanly Wednesdays, and we would watch a rom com and make food together where we
all brought different ingredients because we were all very budget conscious and trying to save money and didn't have a lot of money, so we would cook together and make these huge meals where maybe it would be like a big pot of vegetable soup with a loaf of bread and a salad, and everybody brought certain ingredients and we shared the costs, share the food, and also had a meaningful time together. So it was a really beautiful experience. But it allowed me to play with things in recipes,
like ingredients in recipes that may be too expensive. So if cale was called for, but spinach was what I had on hand already, I would say, hope this works and give it a try. And so that's really how it happened all the time. Yes, and in Plant Based on a Budget, Quick and Easy, my new cookbook, I actually have lines in every recipe that just say my tips, and therefore the reader to customize each of the recipes based on their own preference, because that's how I cook.
I take something as a guide and I change it up based on my family's preferences based on what I have on hand, and I'll say things like woo, well that didn't work, try to swap this out, or or it did work.
Yeah.
I love the tip of doing this with a community exploring something, especially going back to what you said at the beginning about familiarity being a barrier sometimes to trying new things or exploring a different way of life or eating. But then when we bring other people into it and we can do it together, you've got that element of familiarity.
And then also just like sharing the cost together and having fun cooking together, probably learning new skills, trying new things, like there's so much that I love about your womanly Wednesdays. It doesn't have to be called that, but oh it's so amazing.
And there are a lot of other ways to do this too, like food sharing. I love food sharing. That is my love language. I want to feed you and I want to celebrate your birthday by making you a
big cake. So that is how I express love. And there are a lot of ways to save money and time in the kitchen by using those practices, whether you're cooking together and making a big, giant, giant batch of food, having your friends bring their tepperware so that they can take them home for leftovers and you can have leftovers. Or another thing that I've done in the past is if I'm making a dish for dinner, maybe I'll ask my coworker to also make a double batch for dinner
and we can swap the other one. So if I'm making two cast roles and you are making two cast roles that are both different, you can swap the next day so that you're not having to make two separate dishes, buy two separate recipe ingredients, yet you still share food and cut back on the labor and time in the kitchen.
Yes, yeah, Oh my gosh.
We get a lot of our single listeners asking like how do I meal plan and make like this full recipe and then I don't want to eat it for the next five days. What a great idea, And like just emphasizing further the value of community and doing this thing in community to be able to like, hey, I'm just going to cut it in hay, and then we can like swamp.
Like Yes, I also have a tip for the single listener and maybe the single listener who's an introvert and doesn't have or maybe want a big community. So I actually have had that experience one hundred million times where I've made a big pot and then I hated it five days later. And one thing that I've really loved doing, and I include some notes on this in my book too, are if I make a big batch of chili or soup, I'll take split piece soup, for example, i will make
it very plain. The first day, it'll be very plain, and then the next day I will take a ladle and I'll spice it differently with nutritional yeast, and now it's got a cheesy flavor. The next day, I'll take another ladle and I'll put some hickory smoke in there, and it's gonna have a smoky flavor. Now the next day I'll take another ladle and I'll put lemon juice and some serachia and maybe some pepper, and now it's
got a tangy, spicy taste. And so you can put in the effort make a pretty plain dish and change up the flavors every day. So that you really have a slightly different experience and not hate it.
Oh I thought you were going to say, you make a bunch and you put some in the freezer, which is still a really great tip. We love the freezer. But you're blowing my mind right now to.
The next level.
I think you've just done a like you have beautifully emphasized how eating more plant based does not have to be more expensive that it can. There are tons of ways that it can save you money. I feel like in the times where I've seen people spend a lot on it, it's like the times where they're trying to replace like product for product, So like doing the plant based pizza buying the ready made frozen one, it's like
obviously going to be more expensive. But also I think and I am I have been guilty of this in my early days of doing like procrass to spending so like instead of oh yes, adult.
It was.
It was inspired by a friend of mine who like wanted to get back into running, and so he bought new running shoes, new running shirts, shorts, everything, and then
never got back into running. But he thought he was doing something because he was spending money on the thing, and that was the same with like like going vegan or vegetarian is okay, I'm gonna buy all of these foods that are vegan and vegetarian and totally do an overhaul of my kitchen and get ready and then ever follow through and they feel like they've done something because they've spent money on it, and I have done this before, and that's where that's where we find ourselves thinking, oh,
this is too expensive. But the reality is that in going small and doing these just small common sense things like oh it is, it saves you so much money.
I love I love what.
You just said because it reminds me of a book that I read quite some time ago called Born to Run, and it was pretty much the same thing. Stop buying fitness gear, get into running first, Yeah, try it out, see if you like it, and then maybe fifty miles one hundred miles after of running later, get new shoes first, then put in another fifty miles or one hundred miles, then get new pants.
Like it doesn't it doesn't.
Have to come before the actual doing of the thing, And so that's such a good comparison.
Yeah, the lentils, try the black beans before the tempe and thew and satan. Yeah, start small and not all at the same time, like one plant based meal. Also start and then keep trying because I hated brown rice. I had never had brown rice before and I did not like it till like the tenth try. So sometimes you have to try it like ten times and then you might like it.
They do say that. I think the research I'm using air quotes is you have to try something eleven times before you acquire a taste for it if it's a new thing.
Also, it takes you like ten times to figure out how to make brown rice. I think like ten times of making it to start making it. I make it like pasta now, so I'll just put a lot of water in and then drain it at the end it Then you never run.
Out of water. You never worry about it being to dry.
Wow.
So that's my that's my brown rice.
Okay. Wow.
So let's talk a little bit about the time involved with plant based because especially for following these tips for the less expensive foods that are not the prepackaged, that are not like necessarily the pre prepared, Like, how can we cut the time cost of going plant based or does it even do you even find that it costs more time it can.
When I started plant based on a budget, I had very little money. I was negative a lot of money, and then the cash I had in my life was very little, and so I made a lot of the food that I ate from scratch. I made my bread, I made my pasta sauces, and I really if I wanted to eat that way, because I just I had more time at that point in my life. Then I had money, I made it work. But now I have
more disposable income than I do time. I feel like I'm super stressed, strapped for time, and I splurge now on a can of beans instead of making my beans from scratch. Not one hundred percent of the time, but that's something that's a good example of what I would splurge on now, even though it's so much more economical to make them yourself, and they taste better.
So I.
Will say, you can spend a lot of time, but some of the ways to avoid that are thinking simply. It doesn't have to be an elaborate meal. You can make maybe a pot of brown rice for the week and throw things together like a hummus rap or a burrito with a cann of beans and your rice and some tomatoes and some lettuce and salsa, and that's your lunch for the week. Or put some hummus and vegetables,
so that's something that's quick and easy. Pasta with frozen veggies, a can of cannellini beans and red sauce also very quick, easy, familiar. It doesn't take more than fifteen minutes to throw any of those meals together, So that's one I am on the go. I tend to or trying to get out of the kitchen as quickly as possible. Those are the meals that I rely on. But the style of eating that I do at home the most is cooking a legume and a grain and then mix and matching those
throughout the week. So I'll throw them in a soup with veggies. I'll throw them in a burrito. I'll do some fried rice with some brown rice and some vegetables. And I use tofu. I use beans, I use lentils, I use split peas. I use different types of lentils, red, brown, green. There are a lot of protein sources that are very inexpensive, and you can play with those to decide which ones
you like better. But I use one of those a grain and then either a storebot sauce or a sauce that I make plus some vegetables, and I throw them all together and mix them match them throughout the week. That's my style of eating. But there are a lot of others. You can do the one pot thing that I mentioned earlier with the soup or chili and change it up. You can do the freezer friendly meals that you mentioned earlier. And there's a way of meal prepping for everybody.
Again, it sounds like a spectrum of however you want to intersect. You can find a way that doesn't take a lot of time, and you can find a way that takes a ton of time. And I also like how you're giving yourself permission to trade off time and money. Sometimes we don't have a surplus of both. Sometimes we have a surples of neither. But sometimes it's you know, you've got more than one than the other, and so figuring out what kind of trade off works for us.
Maybe we've got a little bit more money than time, so I'm willing to pay for convenience, Or I've got more time than money, so I'm going to do a lot of the things myself and That's just a really helpful kind of foundational concept here.
I love that you said that because it also puts your head into thinking what actually costs more and if you value your time at a certain amount, and then you look at the thing. We'll say, beans or pizza dough is two dollars at Trader Joe's and can sometimes I can put together two personal pizzas with that versus it will take me about an hour to make pizza dough if I do it from scratch and I let
it rest. What am I valuing my time at and making those decisions based on what's going to actually cost you more?
Yeah, speaking of a spectrum and making decisions. I resonated a lot with you when you were describing like growing up and the difference between being with your grandparents and then being with your dad, and kind of what the eatings landscape looked like. And I think you're describing a lot of people's households now when you've got maybe one spouse who wants to eat one way and another or
partner who wants to eat a different way. And I can kind of relate just to personally with the way that my husband enjoys eating now don't get me wrong, like I am down for like a good mac and cheese, but there are times when I'll go a little bit more healthy, plant based, and sometimes he's on board, sometimes
he's not. So like for someone like me or anyone else who can relate to that situation, do you have any advice for maybe one person wants to go plant based with the partner loves meat or loves bachelor eating that you just can't get away from there, ramen and hot dogs. I have.
I have a different scenario in my house where even though I eat pretty healthy ish, my husband eats super ultra healthy and doesn't use oil and doesn't like salt and all the things I think are tasty. And so the way I get around that is I make a way that I think you can do this if your partner wants to eat meat or cheese, is make a make a meal that is pretty plain again, and then I take the we'll say pasta and sauce, and in mine, I can really flavor it up with what I want.
I can saute my own veggies if I want, But in his, I've used the same pasta and the same sauce, and he can be responsible for what goes in that. I can put some vegan cheese if I wanted that, I can put in you name it. Whatever he doesn't like, that's what I can do. I hate mushrooms. I know I'm the worst vegetarian, but in his he loads his up with mushrooms. He'll put nutritional yeast for that cheesy flavor,
and I don't want that pasta. So you can make the same base and then take it and create your own preferences using.
That base negotiation station. I love that that your tip isn't here's just how to manipulate them into your way of thinking and doing. But here's a way that you both can get what you want and need and value, and there's space for that. That's wonderful.
Yeah.
I have been vegan for sixteen years now, and there's one thing I've learned is that you cannot force anyone to do anything. You can only be kind and loving and hope that they will support you and accommodate you. And I have found that approach. My friends want to make sure that I'm included, so often they'll look for a vegetarian restaurant, or they'll make mostly everything, all the sides at Thanksgiving vegan except the protein on the table
so that I can enjoy all of them. So that has been my experience, and I've tried a lot of different approaches.
That's the one that works.
It's really hard to try to push someone into something that they don't want to do, and they can resent you, they could make life harder for you. But if you just say, you know, this is what I'm doing, if you want to change yours up, I'll give you the meal before I dress mine in the way that I
want to. Yeah, we had a similar experience because I was a vegetarian when I met my husband and for the first I guess five six years of our relationship until I got pregnant and I craved a Chick fil a Chicken sandwich and I pregnant and that was it, and I just I would cook only vegetarian. And he never stopped eating meat.
Like he would eat it if he went out somewhere, but I wouldn't buy it. If it was in the house. He bought it and like or it was leftovers. And he was very I mean, I'm very lucky in that he was very you know, okay with that happening, He's He's like, I wouldn't eat healthy on my own, so this is kind of like the only way I would eat healthy. And sometimes he says he misses it, and then other times he says, I'm glad you cooked meat.
So I don't know, but.
Yeah, I do like cook half like vegan or vegetarian meals every week. So but yeah, I think it was really if he wanted meat, he was on his own, and it's not like I was like, oh, meat can't be in my house, but yeah, I wasn't going to cook it. That's how my best friend from childhood she told her husband, this is what I'm making, and if you want to do your meat, if you want to cook your chicken, you can do that and add it to the meal that I make if you really want to.
And he was gung ho about it for like five seconds and then realized how much effort it was to put in the time. To one, he bought this like big giant costco pack of chicken, and he was like, I'm never going to eat this.
If you're not eating.
It, it's like it's taking up so much space. So one he was thinking, gosh, I did I wish I didn't buy that big thing because now I don't want to do it.
He did the runner thing.
He bought the product before he realized he did not want to cook, before he gave it a chance.
Yeah.
Yeah, for crass to spending.
Do you know what? We always give a chance and it hits all ends of the spectrum.
Never procrastinate this one, Mmm the bill of the week.
That's right, It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is Williams.
Maybe you've paid off.
Your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the.
Week, Tony.
Every week we invite our listeners and our guests to share with us a bill that they love, hate, lost, gained, whatever, it's vague for a reason a person named Bill Honey, we would love to hear yours.
I very very rarely go to Starbucks. But I went there and and someone before me paid for my bill, and I knew that that was a thing that happens to other people, And it's like something you here exists.
But not to me.
And I almost hug that person. We weren't like post COVID times, and people were a little bit weird about hugging, like the wait for me, I probably, I couldn't believe it. It was so nice and it made me want to be in a place where I could do that too.
Oh that's great. What did you end up getting?
I got a hot chocolate with soy milk.
Yeah, I don't.
Know why that sounds like so adorable to me. I don't think I've heard like a grown adult talk about getting hot chocolate so long, and it's so endearing.
It was delicious, and especially with swy milk, because I still order swy milk at Starbucks.
I know it's like in anymore.
But oh, it's not a trend anymore.
Not old school about it too.
Yes, wow, well I'm not a big Starbucks fan, so that'd be the only way to get me there is if someone else bought mine. So I'm here for it. I'm here for that bill, just in a different perspective. Oh man, if anyone listening has a bill or someone else may be paid for you bought you your hot choco chocolate milk or your you know, we're here for the people named Bill. We don't get enough of them. Visit Brugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill, be a bill or leave a bill.
The choice is yours.
And now it's time for the light Round.
All right, for this week's Lightning Round, we will all take turns answering this question.
Tony already answered this like a ton of times, but I'm so excited for her.
What's your favorite inexpensive plant based meal to make? Tony, this is the vulnerability for vulnerability around. It gets a little vulnerable when we have a guest.
But I love soup. Soup is so comforting to me. And some people say that they love soup and soup season, but here in Sacramento it gets like one hundred and ten degrees and I'm still eating soup.
Yes, yeah, I know, I can't.
I have a soup season, and so there's only a few months a year that I can eat soup.
The closest I get to eating soup is chili, but then I got to have it with rice or something.
But I do love you. I love soup. Yeah, yeah, what's your two? Right now?
Right now?
I've been loving super vegetable heavy but with a like a clear broth, and I do a little tofu cube so that I can feel like it's chicken noodle like. And I'll put an apasta or something like that to make it hardy or white rice. My like a like a chicken and rice type soup with white rice. That's delicious too.
I love the word hardy. If you tack on the term hardy to any meal, I am here for it.
I love a MINESTRONI miniestrone, however you say it with a little shell pasta and veggies.
Yes, what about you?
Jen?
Okay, okay, So I don't want to toot my own horn, please.
Don't for us.
But I feel like I have perfected two things in the kitchen, and only two things. I am not a chef. I have perfected the kale set salad.
Yeah you have.
So in salad.
Season, I am making delicious kale salad.
Yeah you have.
And I will do this like kind of mayonnaise based dressing. I make my own dressings and you use like a plant based mayonnaise with my gosh, it's just use the mayonnaise instead of oil, and then like an apple cider vinegar and other stuff and strawberries and walnuts.
Yeah.
Oh sounds delicious.
Oh, yes, my stomach literally just grumbled. I wish I had my my Yeah, I really, I really grumbled.
You might go back and listen to it.
If I hear it a hearty kales, I love, it's so much better. The next day, you just got a massage and count to sixty massage your kale or if it's not salad season. I have also perfected crispy tofu, which.
Is hard to do. Yeah, it is, so I.
Will put tofu in everything, and even my husband loves it. Even, yes, so i'll I will mix it. The secret is, and I got this from I Think Cookie and Kate. The secret is a tablespoon of soy, a tablespoon of oil, and a tablespoon of corn starch. Just make up that slurry. Toss your cubes in bake.
Yeah, that is slurry, slurry, slurry.
I like that word too.
Yes, you can use like liquid aminos too if you're not on gluten. But like, yes, like that is that is everything.
I'll put it in the kale sell the other day, warm.
Kale salad with the tofu, and oh my gosh, I put I roasted some butternuts. She had some keen wah and some almonds. I think, yeah, maybe Pepita's. I don't know, I don't know. Oh gosh, yes, And so it was warm when I served it, and then next day.
For leftovers, it was a cold kale salad.
So it was like, that's that's that's Tony's things, right.
But my husband did call me the next day and was like, should I microwave this? It feels weird to microwave salad. I'm like, no, I mean it should feel weird.
No, you should know.
You want to know what jens real response was, because she was at my house and I heard her on the phone with her husband. She's like, these are the kinds of decisions you need to be able to make on your own.
I'm like, what what.
Thing? She's like, yeah, that was Travis?
Like, why was it joking? Okay, I couldn't tell.
I don't know if you could tell.
I was just telling you.
I was like, I was like, dude, you guys like you got to make these decisions for your life, you know, like you got you gotta know thyself.
For me, it's like a chickpea rice bowl with all sorts of other goodies into it. But I love what can happen with chickpeas with a variety of oh yeah, seasoning baked, they get just a nice crisp to them, and and then other veggies thrown into there, and that's fun for me.
Yeah, I did a chick pea and sweet potato curry last night.
I'm just saying, oh, oh nice, I just made this recently. And then I saw you that night. We went like midnight bowling and which was fun, and my husband was like, oh, no, I'm really hungry. Why am I so hungry? Like, well, because normally we're not up at this time and your body's just now like expending energy. But also I did make just a vegetarian meal. He's like, I think because there wasn't any meat in the night. And then Jen sitting there, she's like, no, it's because you didn't put
enough protein in your meal. And that was fun that little.
Exchange just recently.
See. That's what happens I think sometimes is there's like these ideas around what it means to be plant based.
You're not going to get enough food.
But you can, you can get enough food and all your nutrients, you just don't stay up till midnight bowling. That's the trip.
Really, when you said midnight, I was like, Yeah, anybody's gonna need animal they are.
This one's pregnant, so I know she was the real hero.
I spent all day conserving my energy for that outing.
It was a special occasion.
So well, Tony, thank you so much for joining us. Please tell everyone where they can find more from you, find your book.
Et cetera.
Thank you so much for having me and I loved our conversation. People can find me at plant Based on a Budget dot com. My book is called plant Based on a Budget, Quick and Easy, and it's available anywhere you buy books and at plant based on a Budget cookbook dot com. And I'm on Instagram at plant based on a Budget.
Amazing, just everywhere plant Based on a Budget.
There you go, It's easy.
Thanks for being with us, Tony, thank you, Thank you again. I enjoyed talking to her. That was a fun one.
Yes, and I'm I'm still into kale salads. I'm gonna bring it back. A good massaged kale is such a hearty green, It's so good, so filling, and with a crispy tofu. That's a good protein right there. I mean, I'll do it with other proteins, but I do so being vegetarian was a big reason we were able to spend so little on food when we.
Paid off debt.
This was a good reminder of how much I love chickpeas. I have not made chickpeas in a long time or done something with them, but it's funny. Just this week I put them back in my meal plan. I'm going to make a chickpea, heart of palm and beat salad.
Wow.
Yeah, because I have all of those cans in my pantry from the hurricane. I went a little nuts, so during the hurricane this past season, didn't and just bought all kinds of random stuff that I'm like, oh, maybe this will feel elevated if we are without power for weeks on it. It didn't ever end up eating them, but now I just have like a can of pickled beets and hearts of palm and chickpeas, and like, what do I do with this? Anyways, I'll probably talk about
it in the Sunday reset. So if you're not subscribed to our YouTube channel, you definitely need to be, because we give six recipes every week. We talk about our meal plans. The recipes we liked so you can know they've been tested by the Frugal Friends. So I'm going to end up talking about that in our Sunday reset perfect.
Well, thank you so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode as much this time around as you did the first. And if you have listened to the show and enjoyed it, we would love if you would leave a rating and review on Spotify. If you've read our book by What you Love without Going Broke, we would also love if you would leave it a rating
and review on Amazon. That's the place most people go to determine if a book is worth reading, even if you don't buy it from the platform, which we would encourage you to buy it from bookshop dot org. Like Jennifer Carney left this Amazon review five stars. An absolute gem of a book that's focused on spending. I loved this book so it's a breath of fresh air from other personal finance books. The focus is not on budgeting or baby steps, and instead is on understanding values and
all the things that trigger spending. If you already have your budget, this book is the next step to think more about spending habits. It's worth coming back to reread and reference Jen and Jill's words. The writing is non judgmental. One of the biggest takeaways retail therapy can feel like one thing we can control when things are chaotic. Wow,
that is a good takeaway. I love that that was one of your biggest takeaways because we very often think of a lack of self discipline with spending as some kind of failure or lack of control, when really it is a small thing we can control when other bigger things are outside of our control.
So way to go.
I appreciate how some people look at our book as like a great place to start, and other people find it to be helpful when they've already begun and kind of dig deeper like I, Yeah, it's I do think we offer both to people. Wherever you're at, you can find something for you. So thanks Jennifer for that, and thank you all for listening. If you have not yet listened or rated this show, please do that wherever you're listening. If you've not yet read the book, feel free to
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Bye.
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. So Memorial Day is coming up, right? Yeah? It is my kids last week of school, well one of them. The other one's in daycare and he gets to go through. But two and a half more days.
Until summertime and the living's easy. No, something tells me that's not going to be your experience. Yeah, no, all right, tell me all of your plans, hopes and dreams for you and Kai.
Fun fun Boy Summer I, Fun Boys Summer I. Okay, coined, I am definitely going to go to the gym more because I'm going to be out of the office much more so. I actually switched gym memberships to one that has a daycare, so I'll be able to have Kai there and move my body a little bit more, which will feel better in this time of like height and stress and anxiety for me and getting outside in the mornings. Just kind of having an excuse to be lazy and not feel.
Guilty about it.
Yeah, So probably clean the house more, do laundry more consistently.
What if you fall in love with fun boy summer.
No, I don't force that.
For the silver linings.
Yes, I'm looking at the silver lining, but I will miss the office, and I will look forward to getting back to the office. I already have a plan to put cut, like to do the YMCA thing the before school.
I'm going to get him in that next.
Year doesn't cost a lot, so I could drop him off earlier, so I have like a full work day instead of.
Just to get busted from the YMCA to school.
No, it's at his school.
Oh, the YMCA posts up at school. Yeah, that's schools.
Yeah, they didn't have that if at your schools or your mom just like was able to take you to and from school like a like a regular mom.
I don't remember my childhood. I don't know. I was homeschooled for a year. I went to private school for like a year. I went to public school for a year. I don't if we're going to remember what happened, all right, my mom.
Had a regular job, so she had to drop me off the YMCA in the cafeteria in the morning so she could get to work at nine, and then I had to go there after school too.
Yeah, I think our school. Our school had a program in the morning. I don't think it was run by the why though, it was just the teachers. Some teachers were there early and that was that nice. Yeah, so okay, cool.
Yeah, we'll see how fun Boy summer goes well?
What hold on?
Though? These are all like what you're going to do? What does would Kai have an answer to what he's looking for forward to this summer?
He's looking forward to whatever.
I'm looking forward to laundry working out perfect yet him, but that is his answer. Fun Boys summer starts in two days. Whoa