Tips for a college food budget?

Cafe Society
1

Hey guys–I apologize if this has been done before. I tried to use search and really couldn’t find anything specific on this.

Next year, instead of the dining hall (thankfully) I’m going to try to just cook in the apartment. I might have, say, about $200 per month that I want to spend tops.

I should be able to arrive with some staples, like peanut butter and oatmeal, but I know I can’t last on those forever. We have a bus system that I can ride, since I won’t have a car. Any advice on how to spend my money wisely and healthily?

2

$200 a month is really reasonable for a single person; some of my broke-ass friends in college very pointedly managed on less than two dollars a day. Try to avoid out-of-season fruits and veggies, and make sure to get down to your local farmer’s market, if you’ve got one, because things are extremely cheap there. Potatoes make a good, dirt-cheap staple. Stir-fry with rice is also cheap, easy, and quick. Eggs are inexpensive and there’s a lot of ways to prepare them. A lot of the trick to eating cheaply without being bored to tears by your food is in preparation and spices; for instance, crushed red pepper is very cheap and adds a nice kick to whatever you’re making. Water is free, but if you want an alternative, tea and iced tea are extremely cheap.

Really, the only way I can see not being able to manage on $200 a month for food is if you eat out frequently.

3

Grains, pasta, and legumes are all cheap and can be prepared in a myriad of ways so you don’t get too bored. I also recommend trying different herbs and spices. They are a cheap and effective way of making bland food taste good. Root vegetables tend to have a good shelf life so you can save by buying in larger quantities.

4

Look at the sale flyers for your grocery store and only buy meat that is on sale that week. Plan your weekly meals based on that. Cook on the weekends and freeze stuff for during the week so you avoid the fast food temptation. A Thermos full of soup or stew fits well in a backpack and is great for long winter campus days when you won’t get back to your apartment until late.

5

Going economic vegetarian (loosely defined) is pretty cost effective. Go to Costco and buy a big bag of rice, beans, eggs, oatmeal, etc. Make big pots of chili, curry, stew,etc and freeze extras in individual portions.

Learn how to make bread. The no-knead bread is a great way to have dough in the fridge if you want to make pizza, breadsticks or a small loaf with minimal effort and good results.

6

Make friends. Lots and lots of friends. That way you can take turns cooking for a group, and get more mileage out of your supplies, as well as variety in your meals. Cooking for one is an exercise in frustration if you aren’t careful. Cooking for a group is fun.

7

Buy regular (long-cooking) rice, whole lentils, and split chickpeas. You can cook all three of these together in the same pot (in the microwave even) without pre-soaking; follow the directions for rice, but use a large excess of water, and add a couple of minutes to heat the excess water. I cooked the mixture in a 1:1:1 ratio by calories. You might have to try a couple of brands before you find chickpeas that are split thin enough to cook without pre-soaking. For flavour add a large tablespoon of curry powder to the cooking water, then when it is finished cooking, mix in a little cock sauce, or that black stuff that goes in a Caesar. This diet is great because it is very cheap, and not too monotonous if you buy different brands/types of curry powder every now and then. Furthermore, it is a complete protein and high in fibre. Additionally, it is a one-pot meal that only requires a microwave. The downside to this diet is that you will eventually start to stink of tumeric; however, this may not be noticeable depending on your discipline. As far as I am concerned, this mixture is bachelor chow.

Spaghetti is just as cheap and healthy (Taubes is an idiot). I lived next to the warehouse store that only sells Superstore products. It sold spaghetti sauce, olives, and misc sauces in restaurant sizes. I dreamed of being able to afford to shop at Costco.

Oh, try Textured Soy Protein (TSP) once. You will find it in the Indian foods lane. My colon didn’t like it, but if yours does it is a good source of protein that has a nice texture. Cook it with OXO. My colon can create a prestigious quantity of methane from the smallest lump of TSP

8

Dollar stores, specifically the 99 Cent chain. They have TONS of fresh, cheap produce, and I’ve seen some that looked absolutely amazing, and better than what was in the regular grocery stores. Hell, they have a cookbook! It’s not a place to pass by, if you have the opportunity to shop there.

You haven’t said what cooking options you’ll have; you say ‘apartment’, so I am assuming you’ll have a stove, in which case you should be quite good to go. :slight_smile:

9

Eggs are great, as a number of people have already suggested. I also suggest going to goodwill and getting a used crock pot. You can use the crock pot to cook cheap cuts of meat and make soups. Chicken thighs are also great. Check out the Poor Girl Eats Well blog for some awesome inspiration on how to eat healthy on a tiny budget and spend only about $25 per week on groceries.

10

The 5 dozen egg box

Top Ramen is way better with hot sauce and an egg cracked into it.

Egg sandwiches, my roommate and I used to joke about our “pre-meat sandwiches”. We never had enough money to afford real lunchmeat sandwiches so we ate pre-meat.

11

Agreed with Amasia. Crock pot FTW! You can do a pound of black beans in a crock pot and eat off of them forever.

Freeze things! Whenever we make soups, we end up freezing a couple of quarts of it. Same thing with spaghetti sauce. If your freezer is full of delicious homemade things, it’s much easier to resist the temptation to stop at a restaurant on the way home from work.

As for budget, $200/month sounds very reasonable. For three people (including a toddler), we spend about $450/month, and that includes all groceries, not just food.

12

Not if it’s just for himself. I’d suggest a max of 2 eggs as eggs (as opposed to being part of a cake mix, for instance) per day. Unless he wants to be constipated.

13

When I was going to college, just about every building had food and drink vending machines around, except for the library. Avoid these machines. There’s almost nothing healthy in them, and the stuff is usually overpriced. Instead, take a thermos of iced tea with you. Avoid sodas. Avoid designer coffee and tea in coffee shops (Starbucks).

You are going to have to trade time for money in most cases. That is, you can spend time to make old fashioned oatmeal for a small price, or you can quickly grab a breakfast bar for a larger price. In some cases, though, this doesn’t apply. For instance, you can frequently buy a roasted chicken at the store for about the same price as an unroasted one.

Try NOT to cook too much at one time, unless you have a lot of freezer space. You might love beef stew, but if you have it for lunch and dinner for a week, it’s going to lose its appeal as well as its flavor. On the other hand, if you brown half a pound of ground beef with half a chopped onion, drain, and add a full jar of spaghetti sauce, you can easily freeze the sauce in single serving portions and just cook up some spaghetti or rice when you want some.

And if you are lucky enough to have people ask you what you want for a gift, ask for either groceries or gift cards.

14

Got a freezer? Frozen vegetables like peas, carrots, corn and spinach are quite good and keep well in the freezer for some time. A 3 or 4 pound bag of frozen vegetables will set you back just a few dollars.

15

and get a frappe machine if you like the starupchuks garbage foofoo coffees. You can make them yourself a hell of a lot cheaper.

Warning, if you want to make a decent chai latte frappe, it needs to be done in a separate machine from the coffee ones. Coffee oils permeate the plastic and make the flavors go wonky.

16

At $200 a month you’ll make it if you restrain your buying into weekly $50 and don’t spend it early unless something is an amazing price that you eat a lot of. Buying a 3 month supply of something is going to take away from your normal food you can by that week. Set an amount for the highest price you will by stuff for and stick to it. Don’t buy stuff you will waste by not eating most of it, and don’t buy a lot of toppers for food. A hamburger may be in budget, Buying ketchup or mustard still in budget. Buying ketchup, mustard, pickles, cheese and the $3 bakery buns instead of the $1 cheaper buns will deplete your budget quickly and of course you have to buy those chips that are about $7 a pound to go with it. Splurges for extras should come out of what you saved from the last week’s budget.

17

$50/week is a LOT for one person for groceries. Yes, you’ll burn a lot on condiments and other basics the first week but after that, you will not be on a “rice & beans” type budget, you’ll be on more of a “well, if I buy the $1 rolls, I’ll have more leftover for beer” type budget.

The good news is, having to buy groceries by bus will have a tendency to restrain you anyway (been there). Make sure you sit down, decide what you’re going to eat that week, and buy everything you need, because if you forget an onion or whatever, it’s a HUGE pain in the ass/time suck to fix it.

Meat can be a real wildcard at supermarkets. I’ve lived places where meat was essentially a loss leader that was always on ridiculous sales (2 huge London broils for $4! Chicken thighs for 69 cents/lb!), and others where it was constantly expensive and nothing seemed worth it. If you can buy chicken breasts in a big sack in the freezer aisle, it’s usually a good value when meat is on the pricier side at your store.

Don’t think you’re going to be super diligent and make a completely from-scratch meal every day. You won’t. Build in some convenience foods that are’t too unhealthy (like the frozen stir-fry packs, or frozen ravioli with spinach), even if they cost a bit more. If it stops you from saying “fuck it” and ordering in pizza, it’s a savings in the long run.

Get a copy of “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman.

18

I own this book. The title is apt; one time I wanted to know a good way to make a grilled cheese sandwich, and the recipe in the book is awesome. Unfortunately, now my wife makes me cook all the grilled cheese sandwiches in the house!

19

Make soups. Water’s free and everyone could use more of it. Best of all, you can make a whole pot in only two hours and eat it for a week.

  1. Boil a chicken for an hour and then strip it. Toss the meat back in the pot.
  2. Add chopped carrots, celery, onion, parsley, ginger (you may want to boil that separately and/or strain out the ginger root), corn, green beans, and a decent amount of chicken bouillon.
  3. A half hour later, eat it. Freeze what’s left over or just stick it in the fridge and finish it within three days.

You want to make a big batch at a time because that’s the only way it’ll be worth your time. But seriously, you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. It’s hearty, healthy, and tasty.

The other trick- salsa! You can make your own with tomato paste and chopped peppers w/ onions, or you can buy 16 oz. for $3 or less. Dump this on fish, chicken, or beef and you’ll save calories as well as money on expensive sauces. Melt some cheese over it for an awesome “fake chicken parm”.

20

If you’re a meat person, buy a proper lump of meat for a full-on roast dinner at the weekend, then use the leftovers. We still eat this way, and spend very little on food in general. Once you’ve made the initial outlay of money for ingredients and time in roasting the meat (which doesn’t require your input, so you can do laundry or work while it’s in the oven), the other meals only need as much preparation as you can be bothered with. A fried meat and onion sandwich takes two minutes when you’re starving and exhausted (and a sachet of sloppy joe mix stirred in as an occasional treat will cheer you up and remind you of home); a gourmet curry from scratch could take a while if you want it to (but no-one will mind if you use a curry paste or powder, either!).

For instance:
Day one, roast beef, proper gravy, Yorkshire puddings, potatoes, vegetables.
Day two, sliced beef heated in the gravy, with bubble and squeak.
Day three, stir fry with stripped beef, fresh vegetables and noodles.
Day four, beef tacos/fajitas/burgers.
Day five, stew and dumplings/cottage pie.
Day six, beef curry with rice/pasta with beefy ragu/pastry-topped pie.
Day seven, whatever - if there’s beef left, I’ll do something with it, if not we’ve had our money’s worth from the joint. And the carrots, parsnips, potatoes etc you bought on day one to go with the roast will be good all week.
On day eight it’s time for a different piece of meat!

Of course if you decide you’re sick of beef, you can make it into stew, ragu or curry and freeze some portions for another week when you’re sick of chicken. That seldom happens to us. I know it’s the same meat every night, but it’s different vegetables, spices, herbs, presentations, accompaniments, condiments… It works well, saves a lot of money, and when we were students we were the envy of our friends (when we weren’t actually feeding them!).

I don’t know much about the cost of living where you are, so I can’t comment on $200 a month. I know I don’t spend more than £30 a week (I have no idea exactly how much, but £30 is very much a top-end estimate) on groceries in general, not just food, including sometimes buying lunch for myself instead of making it. And that’s feeding two adults.