The more I read about budgeting, the more often I come across the same tip and hint when it comes to saving money: have more 'meat-free' days.

Almost every budgeting blog and book seems to recommend this.

Now I'm not much of a carnivore on the best of days and the older I've got, the fewer meat meals I eat.

It's not because I'm a stereotypical long armpit-haired, tree-hugging, animal lover (although I do love animals), and it's not because I don't like the taste of meat (although I do sometimes find meat - bad meat especially - very plain).

Mainly it's because I had been single for so long that somewhere along the grocery line, stopping off at the meat department ceased because it was expensive and something I could do without.

Before you baulk at my possibly low iron count, I can assure you it's fine - I had it tested recently.

Anyway today is World Vegetarian Day so I thought it was kind of fitting to look at vegetarianism from a financial perspective.

(And going from previous blogs, such as this post on Burger She Wrote, vegos love nothing better than a place to rant against us animal killers.)

So as I've said, when it comes to planning meals and budgets, meat generally slips off on every occasion.

The thing is: you pay for what you get when it comes to meat. I really do believe this.

Prime example: mince. Do you go for the cheap munty mince? Or splash out on the twice-the-price, half-the-fat, premium mince?

Well, I tried to give the cheap mince a whirl once when I made a huge batch of spag bol-type mince which I was going to stretch out over a few meals.

The first night was OK, I managed to put enough other nice stuff in the pan to disguise the tasteless mince and when it came to scooping out the final product, I was able to by-pass the pools of fat that had formed on the top.

Yuck.

But come Day Two, I nearly hurled. The container I'd put the leftovers in had this two centimetre thick orange solidified fat on the top.

I chucked the entire lot out there and then and ate toast in place of the meals which I'd put in the bin.

What. A. Waste ... both of food and money. From that moment I swore never again to compromise on mince.

But this is what always happens. Rather than perusing the meat aisles at supermarkets, I prefer to load up on other tasty food and not risk making myself sick on undercooked food (food poisoning is a huge fear of mine!) And yes I know, you can get that from other food as well... the worst I got it from was rice once. (That too is now off the menu for me most days) I just save eating meat to restaurant meals where I'm generally paying for quality.

Although in saying all this, with a meat-loving male in the house now, I'm sure the grocery bill will need to stretch to include his tastes - and hopefully his cooking skills too.

Do you have 'meat-free' days as a way of budgeting? Would you and your family be able to give up your carnivorous ways? Or are you already a vegetarian and therefore rolling around in the money you save on not eating dead animals?

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