college food budget?

JRZMom
Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:25:18 +0000

tonywu, where are you in Boston? Is there a supermarket within walking distance? And, has your dorm got a kitchen down the hall?

My H & I were broke when he was postdoccing at MIT & I had just finished college and also just had first baby. I know how to eat cheap.

You can go far with PB & J, on whole wheat bread. Buy all natural PB; it isn’t full of corn syrup & it fills you longer. You can buy 1 qt of regular (low fat, no junk added) yogurt, and add fruit to it. You can bake a potato in the microwave (prick holes in the skin!) and add the yogurt to that, and some grated cheese—yum! for lunch. Get boxes of filling but inexpensive crackers such as store brand Ritz, for snacks, and you can slice real cheddar cheese (not that processed stuff) on them. Put the crackers & cheese in 2 separate baggies if you are carrying them to eat later (the cheese gets the crackers soft).

If you do have a supermarket nearby, sign up for the mailers, and buy only what is on sale each week. If they won’t give you the sale price unless you are a “member,” join. You can probably visit their website before you go shopping, too, to see what is on sale. Always buy the store brand. It is not inferior to others – where do you think it is made? The same plants that package the name brand stuff.

Don’t buy bottled water, get a stainless steel bottle & fill it from your tap.

Have instant coffee & tea in your dorm room; heat the water in the mug & add the coffee/teabag. Try using a thermos of coffee, tea, cocoa, instead of spending your precious food budget at *$s.

Learn how to cook rice from scratch, not the expensive instant stuff; you will need a 2 qt pot with a snug lid (no you do not need a rice cooker) and you can add all kinds of things to rice to give it different flavors.

There is a old standby, Ramen, of course. But you can only stand so much of that! Eggs are inexpensive, too, for the amount of nutrition that is in them.

When you are home, have Mom help you choose some basic spices & herbs to bring to school—you can vary cheap food hugely with some onion flakes, oregano, thyme, cinnamon, cumin, etc. Put them in a rubbermaid shoebox to keep bugs out. Also get some bouillion cubes and you can give your rice a chicken flavor, good for a near-pilaf or paella meal.

Hope this is helpful! Relax, you will learn how to make yourself cheap food very fast!

One other thing—if you can, get a job at the univ food services, cafeteria or whatever they have. They usually give student employees a meal before their shift — if that is not the policy, there are always “extra” things up for grabs rather than throw them out.