A College Student's Guide to Saving Money on Food and Still Eating Good

Let's face it, you're getting tired of the 10 cent pack of noodles and water. College students deserve to eat right, just like anyone else. We need to get up early for school in many cases (noon is early for some) and stay up late studying. Not to mention there are plenty of friend gatherings to attend to. So what to eat?

I love to cook, but I am also pretty lazy and pretty cheap too. So I am just going to lay out a few tips from my college experience on what saved me money without going hungry.

Avoid Chips, Cheese Puffs, Crackers, ect

I absolutely love all of the above. And it's not because I am trying to suggest you to eat healthy, it's because they are expensive. A bag of chips can be around $3. And though that seems cheap, it is very easy to go through a bag of chips. In addition, if you have roommates they may find it easy to sneak a hand full or two from time to time. Your bag will easily disappear, leaving you to get another. It's kind of an unnecessary expense.

Try Adding Rice to Your Diet

Remember on Survivor how they gave them nothing but rice? Pretty bland if that's all you're having, but if you add a cup of brown rice or white rice to your meals, it is actually quite filling. Soy sauce can last a long time and you can add veggies and chopped up chicken if you'd like.

Cook with Friends

You can save money if you buy in bulk and then split the cost. Many times buying smaller packages of food fit for one cost more in the long run than if you were to buy large quantities. Cooking a nice big box of spaghetti or Hamburger Helper with friends and splitting the cost is very cost effective.

Be Thifty When You Eat Out

Getting a soda alone can cost around $2 at a restaurant. It's gotten to the point that for me, if I am going to a fast food place, I don't even order the meals. If I am going through the drive through and coming right back home with it, I don't need to get a soda. I am not a huge fan of fries either so getting a stack of fries isn't going to get me anywhere but an empty pocket book. Instead, I grab a couple of burgers off the $1 Menu (Burger King, Wendy's, and McDonalds for sure has these) and get a can of soda out of my fridge.

Compare Grocery Stores In Your Area

This seems to be very obvious advice, but I have many friends that just go to basically any store and don't think about cost. Sometimes one store will have a frozen pizza for $4.99 where the grocery store 1 mile away will have the same pizza on sale for 3 for $9. Some grocery stores have different deals every week, and you probably won't catch them all. However, some stores are just plain more expensive than others. Try to find which one it is. And convenience stores / gas stations tend to have very expensive prices on their food. (except sometimes their $0.50 hotdogs)

Menu Ideas

So after living on my own for the past 4-5 years, and being dirt poor, these are things I find myself cooking:

Spagetti - I can get a few uses out of one $1 box. I buy spaghetti sauce in jars instead of cans, that way I don't need to use it all right away.

Macaroni and Hotdogs - The hotdogs can be replaced with tuna or hamburger too. This was one thing my friends and I would make after class a lot. We'd get a huge box of macaroni, chop up some hotdogs and cook it up.

Chicken and Vegetables - I buy the chicken breasts in the big bags that go for around $7. I lay my pan with tinfoil (easy for clean up) and place a piece on there with some frozen veggies. My favorite is frozen broccoli but you could get whatever. When everything is almost cooked I spread everything with cheese on top. It's such a low maintenance meal and very filling. When I'm done I just crumple the tin foil and my pan is basically clean. Occasionally I will add tater tots to this.

Tater Tot Hot Dish (Casserole) - Ever hear of it? Basically you ground up some hamburger, add Cream of Chicken or Cream of Mushroom to the hamburger, then you can if you want add green beans or corn to it. After that you spread the hamburger mix on top of a layer of tater tots. Add cheese over everything. (Instead of mixing everything in the hamburger you can do it all in layers too, however make sure to mix the soup mixes with the hamburger) You can feed several people with this. Hamburger is expensive sometimes, however even 1lb of it with a bunch of tater tots will last 2-3 meals.

Chicken Wraps - I don't like having a lot of bread at my place because I don't eat it fast enough before it gets old. Also, I don't like too much bread, I prefer what's in it, haha. So instead, I buy tortilla wraps. They last longer and there's lots of different kinds. I take that frozen chicken breast I mentioned earlier and cook that up. Then I slice it, add cheese, and creaser dressing in a wrap. Sometimes if I have lettuce I will add that too.

I know there are tons of other kinds of easy menu items, but these are the main things I cook for myself. Saving money on little things can help you have money for other things you want. I did the whole ramen noodles in a cup. After a while I realized that it wasn't really helping feed my hunger, just making me want other things like expensive snack foods. If you have a good meal, you can avoid the random snacking and hunger stricken super-sizing stops at the drive through.