poor, poor college student

These are awesome for getting your veggies in: http://greenmonstermovement.com/

I started with their basic recipe and decided to kinda do my own thing afterward. I like to throw in a couple handfuls of spinach, a couple bananas, mango, carrots and, depending on how good the (cheap cheap cheap) fruit I bought tastes, maybe a teaspoon of honey or a couple tablespoons of peanut butter. They're so energizing and a great way to make sure you get your servings of veggies. You can throw all sorts of things in, so long as you put something in there to contrast it. I'm going to start adding broccoli and see where that takes me

You can get an awesome blender from Goodwill for like $15. Fruits and veggies aren't too expensive; bananas are affordable, as are carrots and spinach. Mangos will cost you, though =/ (I just bought several three for $1.)

Also, sandwiches are pretty good. I don't know what kind of stores are on the east coast, honestly, but when I go to my local Fred Meyer (owned by Kroger) or other store that may be somewhat cheaper than the hoity-toity types I can get whole wheat bread (without high fructose corn syrup!) two for $3 quite often. Whole wheat is totally better for you, and personally I'm not keen on HFCS. It's REALLY not all that much more expensive than the "cheap" bread. To me 50 cents is a fine amount extra to pay for healthier bread.

Anyway, you can get some pretty good deli meats for relatively cheap sometimes. Just watch for sodium on those kinds of things ... I'm a big fan of peanut butter and jelly, even though PB is high in fat. (And you have to watch for HFCS in your jellies/jams.) Apple sauce is a great snack, but another HFCS haven.

Salads are great and chicken is even greater. Chicken is extremely easy to cook and turns out pretty well. Just don't fry it. You can bake some chicken and throw it on a salad with some sauteed veggies for a nice warm salad. I don't know, to me these things aren't that expensive, but I'm going with a $200 budget per month. I remember having only a $50 budget, and now that would only feed me for a week, and I ate terribly.

In college I spent a lot of money on booze, though, so y'know. Priorities! (... Booze is not one )

And you never know ... you may become a good cook Personally, I love to cook and really enjoy making dishes that are really tasty, but fairly low in calories. I started cooking when I was 19, started with hamburgers, steak and fried fish. I moved on to omelets, chicken, casseroles, more inventive versions of my previous dishes, healthier fish meals ... Now I make almost EVERYTHING from scratch (pretty much everything but my cereals that I get for ease sometimes, and I don't make gravy yet, though I should). I cook things more from base than my mom does, and I grew up thinking she was the best cook in the world. I even typically cook more things from base than my grandma and I thought she was also a really good cook. So you could get there.

I'm an extremely picky eater, also, and I find myself cooking the same things a lot. I make some great tacos that have a pretty good level of your veggies in there, with a great taste, though they'll cost you a little more than if you just wanted to buy a couple pounds of beef and throw a pack of seasoning in there (which would be higher in sodium than mine).

If you want some recipes and specifics on how to cook them, PM me I'll give ya some things that even a college student can cook, I think! (Although, I have to worn you that my concepts may have changed, because even hamburgers take me an hour to prepare and cook ...)

but as long as you stick to your cals and EXERSICE you can really eat anything!