This is a tactic that anti-vegan leftists use to make veganism sound reactionary so they can feel more leftist for supporting a form of oppression (speciesism) rather than less. I'm glad it's harder for them to use it against me specifically because I'm a black vegan. They'll go haywire the moment they can use it against a white vegan, though.

And for the wealth part? I'm making more money doing work now than I was before, but even then, I didn't need to be wealthy to be vegan. Even when I was poor and mostly relying on mutual aid until I could get secured in a job, not once did I think that I would have to purchase animal products when I got groceries. I was able to eat simple meals that were still nutritious, cheap, and ultimately delicious. Something quickly accessible always was hummus and veggie sandwiches, and the hummus especially helped with the protein.

If I needed to make something that's more of an actual meal, I'd usually take a protein like tofu, beans, and I'd pair it with a starchy item like rice/potatoes/pasta and a vegetable like broccoli/asparagus/carrots. Mushrooms go great with this stuff for a great burst of flavor too. None of these food items are even remotely expensive, and all of them are cheaper than what you'd need to make a typical animal-based variant of the meals that I ate. Hell, even B12 supplements are affordable!

It seems like this viewpoint comes from carnists seeing very expensive mock meats and thinking that those mock meats are the only way veganism can be enjoyable. After all, these are people who are okay with animal exploitation simply because of taste pleasure, so the fact that they think veganism can only be "worth it" if they have big bucks to always eat things that taste very similar to meat isn't surprising.

As someone who definitely grew up in a household that hold no shortage of meat, dairy, and eggs in our meals, the only way these carnists can stop making such silly arguments through a lens of "what about my taste buds tho?" is to actually understand the premise of animal liberation and understand it well, and if I could have come to understand it, I don't doubt that anyone else could do it so long as they genuinely have the capacity to care about animal lives beyond cats and dogs.

Could be that they want the avocado toasts for themselves?

Even here in the SStates, a vegan diet is objectively cheaper. It cracks me up because every time I see the argument to the contrary, it's some knucklehead bringing up Impossible and other plant-based meat substitutes. Like, I still eat those but those are more treats than anything else. Tofu, TVP, and beans are super cheap, and absolutely loaded with protein.

A lb of Tofu is about $2.15 where I am at, and a lb of ground beef is about $5-6. I mean, I can get a 25 lb bag of dried beans for like $15. It lasts forever.