College Food Budget (Need Help)

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Careful now- what they show to prospective students, and what you'll actually get as an enrolled student, are often two very different things. Chartwell's is damned good at catering when they want to be.

I don't see "rice cooker" on the forbidden list, and would *gasp* break the rule even if it was (the other items are a fire hazard, where a rice cooker is lower temp and has an automatic shutoff and should be much safer.) A 5 or 10 pound of brown rice is very cheap and would provide a lot of calories. Add canned beans to the cooked rice for protein. Lots of variations you can do -- salsa, canned veggies, etc.

I would really explore the canned section of the grocery -- canned fruits and veggies are often cheaper than fresh and just as nutritious and store for months or years. Canned soup is quick, and easy. Canned beans are filling. (If you're college age, I wouldn't worry too much about the salt content.)

Nuts are another good source of protein. They are expensive at the grocery, but if you know someone with a Costco membership you can buy a 2.5 pound container of mixed nuts for about $8.

If you have access to an Indian grocery store and are ok with strong flavors, there are a lot of vegetarian dishes in packets that you can just open, pour in a bowl, and heat in the microwave.

Are you allowed to have slow cookers (crock pots)? If not, do you have access to a shared kitchen (or at least one stovetop range!)?


You can easily spend under 200 if you can cook your own food. I spend $170 a month.

Tips:

Buy 'bulk' food. This means buy foods like rice, beans,lentils and pasta. They are very cheap, nutritious, healthy and 1 cup of rice or beans or lentils will feed you for a whole day and then some ( up to 3 servings).

Cook for the week. On saturday or sunday I cook three different dishes in large quantities and store them in containers in the fridge. During the week I eat them. This keeps some sort of variety in your diet.

Buy powdered green tea or iced tea or fruit drinks (aka Tang). One can of the stuff easily makes up to 20 liters of drink. As with the food, I also make three different 2-liter containers of the stuff and keep it in the fridge. Of course, every now and then throw in some real fruits to make your drinks for health reasons & for the sanity of your taste buds. I personally can drink lipton green tea forever. Love the stuff.

Dont buy ground beef or such meats. Its price can be tempting (more meat for less $$) but its very unhealthy. You are really better off buying meat cuts or chicken. I would suggest avoiding buying pork unless you intend to cook it the same day...it doesnt keep well in the fridge.

When you buy meat consider the ratio of meat in your meals should be low.. about 10 to 20% of the whole meal. Have beans/pasta/lentils/salad be the remaining 80%. Its very healthy and its also keeps money in your pocket. meat is expensive nowadays. Also, do try to eat at least 1 serving of fish a month. In my area the local stores sell a cheap fish called Sawaii which is VERY tasty when cooked in simple butter.

dont buy canned foods aside from the occasional tuna can for variety. Canned foods are very expensive for the little food they contain.


If you can cook or dont mind cooking for others you can also make arrangements with your room mates to take advantage of this. When I was in New Zealand my two room mates were eating out all the time and it was expensive.. I offered to lower their costs significantly by cooking for them. The catch: They bought the food, I cooked it & I ate from that food for free. It worked well and they each ended up spending only a quarter in food per month than they did previously..and that was with me eating out of it. GOLDEN RULE: Dont teach THEM to cook (or if they insist be sure to point out how terrible they are it every minute)


Of course, all the above means you do need to know how to cook at least to a decent level. If you do not then invest at least 2 weekends a month to practice and learn. It is a skill that pays off big time later in life.

I can recommend two gadgets that will make cooking easier. An electric kettle (that heats up water) and thermos cups and containers.

I can cook soups that are ready by lunch time in my thermos containers. And they will still be hot. Also I can cook oatmeal in them too. All this happening in my bag on its own, throughout the day; you just have to throw things in their at the morning. (ie: Oatmeal and hot-water)
It is a portable crockpot!

Oatmeal is filling, highly nutritious and cheap to afford. If you are gonna use a container to cook them in, get normal oats, since you will have time to cook them; AND it is more nutritious than quick oats.

^ In the long-term mindset, you may be losing weight due to a huge lack of protein in your diet. Also, you need milk for your bones!

Cheapest way I can think of, is buying unflavored whey(unflavored since you want it less processed stuff in it) protein, and drinking it; at-least 1 or 2 scoops day! Even if you are not working out!
Flavored whey though may be cheaper, if you find whatever is on sale. I buy Now Foods WHEY PROTEIN unflavored megapack, and it lasts for a long while.
Since it is for eating and not for a recovery from workout. Drinking the whey with milk is most effective. Milk is 80% casein and that casein will interact with the whey powder (which is also derived from milk) and interact to form a slow-digesting mass that you can digest over a longer period of time. People working out need the protein right-away, but otherwise with milk you can get it over-time.

Also, buy some source of calcium, if you don't like milk. Don't want to end up in the ER because you tripped on the ground. :O

Yeah when it comes down to crunch time I have found that your best friends are Oatmeal, Canned Soup and Potatoes.

Canned soup was usually how I went about it. Because You eat two cans a day (Half can at a time) and you stay full but never too full, and eating every 4 hours or so a small meal REALLY boosts your metabolism. It's how I lost enough weight to get off diabetes medication AND saved a ton of money on groceries.

And they have a lot of Healthy Choice options with low sodium and sugar. My favorite is tomato basil... Get cream soups for calcium and soups with meat for protein. Never too much meat in those soups, which is good because I don't like a lot of meat. A multivitamin in your diet couldn't hurt either. But I was perfectly happy with some fresh veggies and dip every week, and maybe a loaf of bread and some cookies.

Life can be simple.

Now it's summer and I'm back home and my mom cooks up a fillet of fresh Alaskan salmon, a full Caesar salad with soft boiled eggs from our chickens as the dressing and garnish and a full loaf of fresh baked flat bread every night for dinner.

And then we go out and pick berries for our shortcake dessert.

I don't know if I can go back!

Might want to look into religious groups and all you can eat restaurants.

Some religious groups welcome folks to meetings with food afterwards. I believe Sikhs do one day per week.

Some restaurants have good all you can eat deals.

In Brisbane, where I used to live, the Hari Krishnas did both. They had a cheap all you can eat deal, and sunday evenings their restaurant had an all you can eat feast for $3 (though that did go up over time), and they opened a second restaurant specifically targeting poorer clientele, with free food after 1.30pm.

My advice is the formula 'bulk + nutrition'. One staves of hunger, the other keeps away starvation.

Apparently carbs are cheap. But I'm starting to think they are false economy. I get hungry faster on a carb heavy diet, but not as hungry as often on a protein heavy diet.

I'm sure that happens, but not at this school. There were about 5 prospective students in the cafeteria, and more than a hundred regular students who seemed quite at home with the layout/menu.

No you don't. There are plenty of ways of getting calcium without consuming dairy.

Also, studies have shown that high rates of osteoporosis are found in dairy-consuming societies, not the dairy-free socieities.

$200 should be no problem for a fairly healthy college diet. I usually spend less than $200 and my diet, combined with exercise, keeps me skinny.

Just follow the food pyramid:

So, start off by layering your food choices with whole grains. Thus, buy a lot of whole grain/multi grain breads. Then, top that off with vegetables such as carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. Then, get some apples, oranges, bananas, and blueberries.

For Dairy, try to go for low fat milk and low fat yogurts. Meats are simple: Fish and chicken. I like to eat eggs too.


Breakfast foods:
Eggs w/ diced tomatoes, ginger, black peppers, salt, parsley, etc
Whole grain toast
Cereal w/ blueberries and bananas (Silk Almond Milk tastes pretty good and provides many essential vitamins and more calcium than regular milk)
Yogurt parfait (just low fat strawberry yogurt w/ granola and various fruits)
Oatmeal

Morning snacks:
Cottage cheese
Fruits
Low fat Yogurt

Lunch:
Whole grain sandwiches w/ lunch meats* and lettuce
Salad
Baked Chicken/fish

Dinner:
Pasta
Baked potato
Carrots, peas, green beans, etc
Salad
Chicken/fish
Brown rice (Japanese brown rice is a good alternative to Asian styled white rice)


*A good alternative to lunch meats (high sodium and some high in fat) are soy burgers. Not only do they provide more protein, taste good, but are also lower in salt and fat content (particularly, morning star Griller's Originals). You can even add baked potato chips as a side too.


You can also look up healthy recipes online.

I freakin' love soy burgers, and my favorite flavor is Morning Star Griller's Originals. I have some in my freezer right now. I usually eat some veggies on the side of my soy burgers like little Mexican onions or carrots.

Oh, and to the people worried I won't have enough protein or diary, my morning nutrition shakes have plenty of dairy and protein. I find I cannot eat anything solid in the morning without getting sick. So I will be getting an entire day's worth of protein by eating some beans, drinking my nutrition shake, and eating soy burgers or veggie patties.

I was also thinking of making mac n cheese with veggies and beans on the side for dinner sometimes.

Thank you everyone for the advice!

Be aware that vegeterian foods like soy burgers, fake soy meat,etc are very expensive for the little amount of food it provides.

While I am not so sure of your dairy mention.
I will avoid the subject and go on a tangent.
As long as you are getting it (calcium) from a bio-source (food, like milk) and not from supplements like calcium-carbonate, then you are good. Research shows that supplemented calcium has higher chances of leading to kidney stones.

Though do look into supplementing Vitamin-D, there seems to be trend with its deficiency lately; however, places like Michigan, it is understandable due to the lack of much sunlight outdoors.

Yeah, the Grillers Original are my favorite too.

And yeah, like Dantac says, they can be expensive if you don't consider what else you buy.