veggie

I was mostly raw for much of college and budgeted like anything else: Find the cheapest sources of each kind of nutrition, get a few *really simple* favorite recipes, and ensure you have time to prepare your own meals.  Some of the cheaper and usually fairly accessible raw foods are: 

• Bananas
• Apples
• Sunflower seeds (Trader Joe's or health food store in bulk)
• Pumpkin seeds (Trader Joe's or health food store in bulk)
• Romaine lettuce
• Kale
• Carrots
• Oranges
• Farmer's market surplus (go at the end of the market--they're usually willing to sell for a discount)
• Tomatos
• Herbs grown indoors
• Flax seeds (usually in bulk at the health food store)
• Other seeds for sprouting

Planning to make a bunch of complicated recipes will ultimately lead to burnout with this lifestyle, so experiment until you find a few good staples you can make quickly and easily.  This for me meant:

• Smoothies
• Trail mix from various home-dried fruits, seeds, etc.
• Zucchini noodles
• Dried fruit/nut/seed bars
• Giant salads

I pretty much never bought nuts because I simply couldn't afford them in my budget.  I never spent more than about $2/lb on fruit.  Buying leafy greens was a "necessary luxury", and I made sure to buy them even though they're relatively low in calories.  There were certain things which were just too expensive for me to justify as sustainable in my budget, and so I never bought them except on special occasions.