Senior in College= heatlthy food expensive and no time

sarah44254

i love being in control and having a handle on everything.

i just entered senior year of college, too, and i am massively stressed and seem to have negative amounts of free time. i am busy, busy, busy.

i haven't given up my half hour a day of video game time for workout out yet. i'm hoping i can stop the busy a little more and fit them both in. time for ME is important.

but most of all, what i wanted to say here is that i have to let go of the control and ASK FOR HELP. my boyfriend has been making a lot of dinners for us lately, and cleaning the house. I feel absolutely awful about it, but he doesn't mind. I want the control, like i said. I want to be the one that everyone depends on. I want to do the dishes, laundry, cleaning, yard work, dog training, errand running, bill paying, college education getting... i want to do it all

but i also want to sleep
and sometimes play a video game
or maybe just spend an hour with the boyfriend just sitting on the couch

i have no time, so i asked for help. you mentioned a fiance which is why i wrote this to you. ask him for help.

hedgiie

there's always excuse in eating crap, but there's always a way to eat healthy. feel free to add me if you like

CharChary

Hey!

I am in my second year of my masters degree so I understand the busy-ness and lack of money HOWEVER eating healthy is so affordable with the proper preparing!

Here are things I do to keep costs down:
I don't buy anything ANYTHING premade/preassembled. By this I mean, frozen meals/prepackaged anything. If you buy healthy foods by the bulk (so like a canister of almonds instead of snack packs), separate into servings not only do you save money, but time too!

pavrg

I don't eat ground beef, I only eat ground turkey and pasta isn't that great for me

Well, there's a problem.

Eating right doesn't mean that you have to purchase whole wheat bread/pasta and ground turkey. It just means you have to exercise proper portion control, which usually ends up lowering people's food bill.

Some easy/quick/cheap ideas:

-Instant oatmeal for breakfast. It's god-like for dieting. One packet with 2/3 cup of skim milk.
-For lunch, have a turkey sandwich with pre-packaged turkey and whatever bread your local store has on sale for like $1.25/loaf. Takes 5 minutes to make and you can pile up to 1/2 lb on there and it will be under 500 calories. Alternatively, find out when soup goes on sale at your grocery store and stock up on your favorite kind.
-For dinner, most meals can be made in under 15 minutes. If you're going the chicken route, it only takes 8-10 minutes to broil it with whatever rub/marinade you choose or heat it up on foreman grill. Pasta is an easy and cheap choice, just learn how to make your own marinara sauce and freeze it. Rice and potatoes are also very cheap for side dishes. Canned veggies can give you all the nutrition of the regular kinds and only take 2-3 minutes to heat up.

I think you'll realize that once you cut out the fad health food and TV dinners, your food bill will go way down. Also, making the above would consume probably 30 minutes a day making food.

_TastySnoBalls_

Where there's a will, there's a way. Make it work

SLLRunner

Thanks everyone for all the great suggestions My fiancé just purchased a crock pot so I'm super excited to try it out!

Welcome. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding.

Crock pots are excellent because you can cook an entire meal in them. Put your turkey or chicken or roast (if you eat beef) in the crock pot with a big of water, add your vegetables and potatoes if that's what you want, and you have a meal lasting for days.

Do you like rice? If so, you can get an electric rice steamer. In my rice steamer, I can stream rice, vegetables, or even steam fish if I want to.

I'm not too much on microwave food, but they are good for warming up all those great meals you cook in your rice steamer.

littleburgy

I plan our (husband and I) meals once a week and try to keep my shopping to only once a week as well. A lot of basic ingredients don't cost much, making meals and freezing ahead of time can save time and money. As does cutting back on eating out, alcohol and things that are just empty calories. Often I buy basic versatile ingredients like chicken, carrots, celery, potatoes, beef, onions, cabbage, peppers, dry pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, etc. I love making soups and freezing them if need be, basic vegetable soup can be cheap and easy. Soup made from a single chicken, carrots, onion and celery can last for days. Stews are great as well. For a quick meal, my mom used to take a chicken breast or piece of fish, wrap it in tin foil with some green beans/asparagus/whatever and bake a potato -- voila, a quick, easy cheap balanced meal. I'm not in college anymore but try to plan and budget -- found that if we plan and shop less throughout the week, it's cheaper and overall better for you than ready meals and processed foods. Good luck!

wiggam17

Pay day tomorrow=Grocery Shopping
I will be attempting to buy healthy food and save money! and everyone that said beef is cheaper just portion it. Well, I hate beef... but thanks

wiggam17

Also, what are some great crock pot recipes. I love chicken or turkey for my meat!

StephenKTHill

<==== College student, married, and working a big boy job. Honestly, a change of eating habits for my wife and I has been significantly cheaper for us.

Add me!

Bugsgettingfit

I eat on a budget of $50-$75 every two weeks. This covers fruits, vegetables (frozen are a dollar a bag and can last about three days!), lean meats (frozen can also be cheap when you do the math on how many servings per bag), eggs, and snack bars like cliff (sometimes they are a dollar each if you find them at the right store). I buy mainly fruits that I can divvy out over a week like apples, bananas, watermelon, and cantelope. A watermelon (in season) is HUGE, and lasts me two weeks!

I also make meals for a week in advance which helps to make the food last longer, and makes eating fast and easy ( microwave vegetables with water to steam, then add spice and wala!) Lean meats with vegetables and rice don't go bad quickly, and are easy to pop in the microwave and cook!

primal_cupcakes

The Hillbilly Housewife is a great blog about low-cost cooking strategies. There are loads of great recipes and advice about menu planning, finding and taking advantage of great deals, crockpot cooking and more.

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/

autumnut

Someone mentioned Aldi and that's what my first thought was too, or Trader Joe's. Do you have one in your town? Hard boiled eggs are good and easy, suger free pudding and jello if this is something you eat (make it yourself and put in tiny plastic containers-cheap), make your own egg mcmuffins and freeze (light english muffins, egg, 1/2 slice of cheese, slice of thin sandwich ham), I love steel-cut oats and you can make ahead of time and portion out for the week (Quaker is expensive but look in the health food section and there are often ones that are actually less expensive. :-)