college student budget

I would start with a fruit bowl and fill it with apples, bananas, oranges. For the store cupboard ...fortified breakfast cereals, porridge oats, tins of tuna, baked beans, kidney beans, soups, packets of ryvita crispbreads, marmite, peanut butter, wholewheat pasta, brown rice, teabags, coffee, a small bag of flour & sugar.

For cooking ....olive oils, salt and pepper, garlic bulbs, chilli powders, parsley, oregano, sage,paprika, thyme, rosemary, stock cubes, lemon juice, worcester sauce, soy sauce, .

For the fridge....wholemeal bread, eggs, low fat cheeses, skimmed milk, sliced meats. Vegetables in the bottom drawer, such as potatos, onions, carrots, greens. In the salad drawer lettuce, cucumber, tomatos etc.

It can be expensive to buy in large quantities and varied ingredients for one person, would you be able to shop with a college friend and split the goods and cost?

My ideas for different breakfasts would be fortified breakfast cereals, porridge, toast, grapefruit, yogurts, boiled eggs for breakfast.

Lunches out of the house ...fruit, water & sandwiches filled with tuna, egg, sliced meats, peanut butter, etc.

Lunches at home....soups, sandwiches, grilled toasted sandwiches, tins of fruit, tinned tuna salad, egg salads, ham salads, filled bagels, yogurts, bananas, baked beans on toast, things on toast, eggs on toast, omelettes with various fillings.

Easy dinners ... 30 minutes or less.

1/ Baked chicken breasts in foil, drizzle with olive oil & herbs and bake for 30 minutes . At the same time in another tin, roast/cook/uncovered/alongside the chicken ...quartered potatos, red onions, bell peppers.

2/ Tuna, sweetcorn & pasta bake.

3/ Grilled pork chops, with mashed potatos & green vegetables.

4/ low fat sausages with baked beans.

5/ stir fry vegetables (you can buy bags of this cheaply) with stir fried cubed chicken or pork.

My tip for keeping costs down is to make enough dinner so that you have lunch the next day, can freeze the excess, or have enough of the ingredients to make a completely different dinner/recipe the next night.

For example minced/ground beef, 400g of minced beef makes enough spagetti bolognaise/cottage pie/chilli con carne to feed 4 to 6 people, especially if bulked out with grated carrot. You could either buy the beef loose at the butchers so you could buy smaller amounts or cook the whole 400g and freeze the extra portions, or eat over 2/3 days in the fridge. Or you could make a meat sauce and have one night with pasta and another night with say rice.

Same with a chicken, I would roast a whole chicken one day, serve the next day with vegetables or salad, any leftovers would be made into a soup, stew, stir fry etc

athelete2010 wrote: »

neldabg wrote: »

Hey! I'm also a college student, and for me, a rice cooker has been my savior. I can steam veggies and meat AND simultaneously cook rice without having to watch over everything. My rice cooker (Aroma) has a delay timer meaning that I can put everything in the cooker in the morning and set it to be ready by the time I come home from classes. The cooker works for all meals, but I also have easy-to-make stuff always at hand such as cereal and bread. As a bonus, rice cookers can cook almost EVERYTHING. Just Google it. I've made both scrambled and hard boiled eggs, macaroni and cheese, toast, etc. and I use the steam function to boil water for tea or jello.
Twice a month, I spend one hour seasoning enough meat to last two weeks. I put the meat in bags an freeze them until needed. Usually, I don't defrost my meat. I just put it in the rice cooker, and it's usually ready within 30 minutes.
I highly recommend Save-A-Lot. Generally, they're cheaper than even Walmart, with the one catch being that you must bring your own bags to carry your groceries home.

OMG I never heard of a rice cooker!! Your awesome and I'm so happy a college student replied! I'm going to add you if that isn

I'm glad I could help, and I accepted your friend request. ^_^

athelete2010 wrote: »

RodaRose wrote: »

Search online for the nutritional information of the fast food places and other restaurants near you so that when you go out you find options that fit into your calorie and protein goals.

Yes I just started doing that now and believe it or not is has helped a bit.. Although I'm trying to ween myself away from fast food... I mean a sit down place I don't mind.. But I am really trying to keep fast food at a minimum unless I really really have to.. Lmao and lately it's been a lot lmfao

Do you have a Wendy's near you? You can get a small chili and a baked potato for decent calories.
Or skip the potato and get a large chili.
I like a McDonalds cheeseburger when I need some quick protein.

BudgetBytes.com

Do it now, thank me later.

I was a college athlete too, and while our dining hall was actually great, I lived in a townhouse 2/4 years and we did cook. I was a lightweight rower so I stretched a lot of things out with chicken stock, V8 and frozen vegetables. But I think having "elements" or "modules" and being able to combine is still what I do. Like having big bowls of cooked protein in the fridge, along with (one of my favorites) steamed green/red/yellow peppers....As far as protein, I love buying a big bargain pack of chicken breast, marinading it, and broiling or grilling it all on the weekend. Then it can just go into plastic ziploc bags in your fridge.....Big batches of cooked ground turkey, also. That and the chicken -- you can take a million directions with sauce or additions. Italian or thai or tex-mex or whatever you feel like. If you put on the rice cooker in the morning, then it's just five minutes of picking things out and throwing it into the microwave.

Another funny thing I like is the individually plastic wrapped sweet potatoes for the microwave. I also used to make a lot of "cup muffins" -- flaxmeal, a little oil, an egg, spices and blueberries, zapped in a coffee mug in the microwave. It makes a very low carb "bread" (if you care about that) and the flax is great for you.

I'll second the rice cooker. I have a pretty fancy one (zojirushi) but it's SO worth it. Makes perfect rice or oatmeal, and it will keep it hot and perfect for HOURS after it's cooked.


Do you have a food scale? It seems like *so* much work and overkill and I resisted it for the longest time. But it's easy, and it's a great way to know how much (particularly) protein you're having.

The cup muffin thing is actually officially a South Beach hack for having something bread-like. It's not particularly low in calories but it has a lot of good things in it.
I just fired up my rice cooker actually. The food scale is actually a much easier thing to use than it seems, and boy, I got religion about chicken breast vs ground beef once I started using it. The chicken just seems like it doesn't add up nearly as fast

College student here. I usually only have time (patience) to cook a really nice meal on the weekends. For me, microwaving veggies to get them cooked and raw plain fruits are my lifeline. Pretty boring, but filling and relatively inexpensive. Canned food is my weakness. So simple! Soups, veggies, fruits, you name it. Open it up, nuke it for a minute, and a (relatively) healthy meal for under a dollar. I can't do any eating out. Even fast food is usually more expensive than eating in for me.

Some food life hacks that work for me in the 'low money, no time, wanna be healthy' times.

1. Growing the herbs - I'd second skinny malinky. Fresh herbs are costly, but beyond easy to grow. Great way to get flavor at little cost.

2. Groceries -
- For some staples, if you have any grocery stores that are for certain regions of the world (Asia, Africa, Polynesia, Mexico) those can be a great resource for cheaper prices or bulk buying for items that are common in that area of the world.

For spices, I have got the best prices on spices, in bulk, from Indian groceries. Seriously, I would highly recommend hunting one down if it exists in your area. Really good spice resource.

For nuts, some mediterranean grocery stores have had good prices for these sometimes in my experience, especially pistachios. some good spice prices there, too, and other items.

We used to get corn masa, rice, and/or pinto beans in bulk from the Mexican grocery down the road, and sticky rice, soy sauce, rice noodles, won ton and spring roll wrappers and certain more exotic vegetables were super cheap in large amounts from the Asian grocery store.

- Sales on meat. If you eat meat, seriously - buy what's on sale. Whatever it is. Even if you've never eaten it before. You can figure something out, truly. And it will seriously save your budget.

- as you are getting a slow cooker, I would buy beans dried, not canned. HUGE budget saver, and you just soak dry beans overnight, put them in the cooker in the morning before school, on low, and they are done by the time you get home. Does enough to freeze some for later use. Except don't do this with kidney beans - they actually have to be cooked at higher heat or they can be poisonous. I had no idea this was a thing until an acquaintance ran into this! http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/food-poisoning/red-kidney-bean-toxins.html

3. For vegetables and fruits -
- Chopping up veggies and keeping them in the fridge for snacks for the next few days gives you something easy and healthy to eat when you get peckish, so you're less likely to eat junk food, you know? Some veggies store best in water, like chopped carrots. Keeps them firm and crisp. I tend to pick one time of day to do this - right before bed, or when I'm just getting up, for example - and just take about 5 minutes to chop up a pile of veggies for a couple days. You can keep something healthy around to dip them in and get a pretty filling snack, if you make it protein based, like cream cheese (can mix in a few herbs and make it into a dip) or hummus.

- fruit bowl - always good to keep stocked with foods quick to make

4. Nuts and nut butters -
- nut butters, if you can find some healthy ones cheaply, can make a good, filling addition to soups. Check out various recipes from some regions in Africa, where nut and sweet potato dishes are more common. Very tasty and inexpensive.

5. Eggs -
- very good not too expensive protein source. Quick to cook, so if you haven't tried cooking eggs much, just a week's worth of cooking and you get pretty good at it (I cannot eat eggs, so never cooked, them, and suddenly had to start doing so for kids. Took me a week before I was making omelets. Seriously, super easy to learn, with help from the internet). Can also cook a few days in advance, like a bunch of hard boiled eggs, say. A quick breakfast can be leftover veggies or meats from the night before mixed in with scrambled eggs or an omelet. If you haven't made one, an omelet takes, oh, 5-8 minutes to make. The lower side if you have the veggies already from the previous night.

6. Bentos-

I'd highly recommend checking out bento meals. Japanese lunch boxes, where the lunch box is the box and the plate all in one. The premise, though, is to put in a lot of little things - usually a grain plus veggies and a protein source (like eggs or meat, typically) - in the meal. So many times, people will save left overs from the night before, or two nights before, that are small and might not normally be save. Like one meatball with a teaspoon of tomato sauce, with a few teaspoons of the broccoli salad, plus rice, plus a couple chopped fresh veggies, and so on. It's a nice way to use leftovers instead of eating that 'last bite' to not waste it. It's also quick, easy to carry, and tends to be pretty nutritious and can be easy to make. This website is a good resource to start off with:http://justbento.com/handbook/bento-basics





Recipe and food prep ideas:
For freezing:
muffin tins, and small size muffin tins, are awesome - grab a few at a thrift store and use them to freeze small portions of things you can use later, like mash potatoes, sauces, small servings of things. When frozen, pop them out and store them in a plastic baggie for later use. It's a quick way to make something healthy that you can thaw quickly later, you know?

wax paper - if you put wax paper on a cookie sheet, and then dole out small portions of something mushy in texture (oatmeal, mashed potatoes) onto it, and freeze it, you'll get small portions that will freeze in that shape, and then can be put into a plastic baggie and stored for later use.

Ice cube trays - also great for storing small things for use later.


Quick chicken marinading - If you get a bunch of chicken breasts in bulk, or any meat, here's something you can do. Put each piece of meat in its own plastic baggie. Then mix up a few different quick sauce, marinades. Some easy ones are soy sauce plus a little brown sugar or chopped garlic, tomato sauce with a few spices, lemon juice and olive oil plus salt, and so on. Then add some of one of the sauces to each baggie. You end up with a few baggies of the same meat, but with different sauces, all ready for future use. I have heard some people leave that overnight in the fridge, to marinate the meat, and then freeze it and you can thaw the meat later, already to be cooked with its own sauce. I have heard some freeze it right away, and then let it thaw for over a day, so that they have thawing + marinading time. I don't know if one works better than the other, but useful, anyway.


Hummus - Hummus either takes a little while to make, or a little more money to buy. I make mine from scratch. You can buy canned garbanzo beans, which are already cooked, but they are more expensive so I buy cheap, dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans), soak them overnight in water. The next day, I cook them on the stove until very, very soft. This can take an hour or two, or 3-4, depending on age of the beans and your altitude (so usually a weekend day is best). Unless one has a food processor, you can blend up in a blender until smooth - cheap to get a blender used at a thrift store, usually. If it's too thick to blend well, add a little lemon juice or olive oil here. Pour into a bowl. Mix with (possibly more) olive oil, salt, and lemon juice until desired consistency and taste. You can also roast any veggie until soft and slightly browned, and blend up as well and add to the chickpeas when partially blended.

Most hummus uses tahini as well - sesame paste - but it tends to be more expensive in the states unless you can find a mediterranean grocery store. I got my recipe from a man who lived in the middle east and where he lived, according to him, tahini was cheap, but olive oil was expensive, so it was a status symbol to make hummus with only olive oil and no tahini. :-)


Sauces

pesto - the pesto we're used to is the basil leaves, olive oil, pine nuts, salt, and a bit of cheese, all mashed up/blended together. But you can make all sorts of combinations of things and use like you would a pesto sauce, even if you only have a blender. A lot of them don't use cheese at all, and many may just use olive oil + something green. Nearly any fresh herb blended up with olive oil and salt works well. Sometimes small or soft vegetables work as well. I've seen one that was olive oil, broccoli florets, and roasted walnuts (the walnuts added to the cost of the dish, though). It's not too hard to make, and when you do

Veggie - Most roasted vegetables, like roasted peppers, you can blend up and either use as-is or add combinations of: olive oil, garlic and/or onion, powdered chile, herbs, lemon juice. Can add broth to thin them out, if needed. One nice one I've found was roasted peppers mixed with a little chopped hot chile pepper and chopped garlic, with a teeny bit of lemon juice. Chicken broth to thin it out. You can use these on pasta or over meats, or as a dip for other veggies, even.


...and that's all I've got right off hand. I know there's some more, but I'm totally blanking, I'm afraid.