Going plant-based is way cheaper than I thought!

Going vegan is expensive, they say.

I carried with this belief with me for many years until I was able to prove this wrong. I guess it's going to be about 4 or 5 months since I shifted to a more healthier diet. Well, I don't want to use the term "vegan" as it means that one should totally ditch the meat. I still eat fish.

However, most of my meals now consists of raw vegetable and fruits. I also eat twice a day now. Thanks to @discoveringarni who introduced me to her salad recipe! I started to fall in love with making salads too! And I'm going to prove that it isn't expensive at all!

Going to the wet market is now one of my favorite chores since I started living alone. It gets me excited to see the variety of colorful vegetables and fruits laid on market stalls and having to pick one for my meals. Being able to chit chat with the friendly vendors also makes my visit more fun.

After a couple of visits to our local wet market here in San Remegio, I now have my own go-to vegetable stall. They "almost" have everything I need such as cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, and watermelon. I even brought @ybanezkim26 with me here during his visit here last month. However, I wasn't victorious in converting him to a plant-based eater. 😆

Today, I visited my favorite vegetable stall and decided to share with you what I bought and how much it cost me!

The first thing I would always look for is cucumber! It's my main ingredient for my salad! Then I would add in tomatoes and apples. I wanted to buy an iceberg lettuce but they don't sell it here at our local market. I'm able to buy one if I visit the next town.

For my fruit shakes, I have two recipes. One would consist of watermelon, apple and carrots - fruits with orange and red colors. And the other recipe would be yellow fruits such as banana, mango, and pineapple. Since I still have leftover pineapple from my previous buy, I didn't include that in today's shopping.

As much as I wanted to buy a lot, most vegetables and fruits expire in a couple of days. I've already experienced throwing out some fruits if they aren't consume in a week. 😅 Now, I just buy what I need for a span of 3-4 days.

So here is the breakdown of items that I bought today and it's cost:

ITEM	QTY	PHP	USD
Banana	3	21	0.375
Tomato	6	27	0.482
Mango	1	38	0.678
Watermelon	less 0.5 kg	40	0.714
Apple	5	50	0.892
Cucumber	4	43	0.767
Carrots	2	23	0.410
	Total	242	4.318

So for my shopping spree at the local wet market today, I was able to buy vegetables and fruits (good for 3 to 4 days) for only Php 242 or $4.318! Way cheaper than I've always thought. Some days I would spend more than Php 300 or about $5 but I would never go beyond Php 400 or about $7.

Having a minimalist lifestyle helped me transition to healthier and better choices in life. The environment was also a huge factor that influenced me to stick with my plant-based meals. It's less time consuming and easy to make! So if you are still having doubts of going "vegan" or plant-based or healthier meals because of the cost, then this is just some proof that it ain't!