Hi, I\u2019m Rachel. Though certainly inspired by and supportive of Brooke\u2019s latest obsession with couponing, I\u2019m going to be blogging here from a slightly different perspective: that of a notorious cheapskate and health conscious vegan.\u00a0 Over the years, I\u2019ve noticed that I have the ability to remember the prices of\u00a0 regularly purchased groceries at every store I have ever gone to (like, literally I still remember that Amy\u2018s Mac and Soy Cheese (not vegan) was $2.50 at\u00a0 Grand Union in VT when I was in college there almost ten years ago). I also really enjoy going to grocery stores\u00a0 when I visit different cities on vacation just to see what they have and how much it costs. Not sure how normal it is. Anyway, some notes to accompany my entries: I do not eat any animal products, which includes all meat, dairy and eggs. I also try to avoid processed and frozen foods. As of the past year, I have given up buying refined grains and any products containing corn syrup at the grocery store. Additionally, I have recently become conscious of \u201cthe dirty dozen<\/a>\u201d AKA produce that has the most pesticide residue after being washed. My current (neurotic) struggle is how to reconcile avoiding all the bad things with being really cheap, as I eat a lot of fresh food and don\u2018t like the idea of ingesting weird chemicals, but also don\u2018t love the idea of paying $3 for a single organic bell pepper. If you\u2019re still with me after all of this, awesome!! Long story short, I avoid 90% of the grocery store and am probably ineligible for 95% of coupons as a result, but I\u2019m hoping to be a voice of the every day cheapskate and \u201cpicky\/conscientious eater\u201d who still likes to eat well around here.<\/p>\n I believe I have a valuable perspective to contribute in terms of weekly deals at Fred Meyer as well as at some of the specialty stores around Portland. Since the idea of doing regular \u201cvegetarian nights\u201d seems to be catching on lately among non-vegetarians, I\u2019m hoping to share some creative and cheap ways to prepare really good and healthy vegan food that doesn\u2018t suck and won\u2018t break the bank. If Brooke doesn’t fire me for making an entry like this, I\u2019m planning to update here periodically with my shopping scores around town and the meals that result, so keep checking back!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Archives Hi, I\u2019m Rachel. Though certainly inspired by and supportive of Brooke\u2019s latest obsession with couponing, I\u2019m going to be blogging here from a slightly different perspective: that of a notorious cheapskate and health conscious vegan.\u00a0 Over the years, I\u2019ve noticed that I have the ability to remember the prices of\u00a0 regularly purchased groceries at every store I have ever gone to (like, literally I still remember that Amy\u2018s Mac and Soy Cheese (not vegan) was $2.50 at\u00a0 Grand Union in VT when I was in college there almost ten years ago). I also really enjoy going to grocery stores\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[973],"tags":[1029,1037,1050,101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brookegeery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}