Living frugally as a vegan

Vegan university student Laura Beaulne-Stuebing gives her tips on how to live frugally as a vegan in “Being Vegan And Being Cheap” an installment of her Vegan University column.

As far as eating affordably as a vegan goes, I don’t think it is different than any other lifestyle. The same general principals apply:

1. Start off with basic ingredients and make things yourself whenever you can.

2. Learn the prices of the things you buy at the stores near you.

There are a bazillion money saving tips, but I think that these two ideas alone will produce 85% of the value.

This is a fun topic so feel free to add all of your money saving tips in the comments.

Switchbike

Back in May I wrote about the superiority of the recumbent bicycle as well as my experience with it:

https://beforewisdom.com/blog/?p=104

Now there is this cool “switchbike”, video courtesy of Dag:

The switchbike was shown at the Holland Innovation show, although it’s not currently in production. By flipping a switch on the handle, it converts quickly from a regular city bike into a recumbent bicycle. Ron de Jong, the designer is still looking for a company to take his bike into production. Wow.

Swedish Cowboys & Indians

stockholm4x4deflating

If you think Americans are the only people buying ridiculous vehicles while the world approaches peak oil and irreversible global climate change, think again. According to this article on ecostreet.com the Swedes are doing it to.

A group calling themselves the “Swedish Indians” is going around deflating tires on SUVs. Another group has formed to fight them, calling themselves the “Swedish Cowboys”. Here is a copy of the letter that the Swedish Indians leave on each SUV that they deflate the tires on:

Your SUV kills!

We have deflated one or several tyres of your SUV. Don’t take it personal. It’s your car we don’t like. You are certainly aware of the large amount of fuel it consumes, so we don’t have to enlighten you about that. But either you are ignorant of, or you don’t care about the fact that all the gas you consume by driving around in your SUV in the streets of the city has devastating consequences for others. Scientists are entirely sure that we are very close to pushing climate change over a threshold, into a phase where it will be totally out of control.

There are real, social contradictions in the field of climate change between those who emit carbon relentlessly and those who suffer the heaviest losses, and bringing these to light is crucial for any progress. Not everyone will fight climate change. Not everyone will give up their lethal privileges voluntarily.
— The Indians of the Concrete Jungle