College Apartment - eating on a budget

[dthogue]

My DD will be in an apartment this year with no meal plan. Looking for tips and recipe ideas for her. Ideas on how to save money and good, easy, quick recipes for one person.

Thanks,

 

[davper]

ramen noodles

 

[dolewhipdreams]

Make sure she knows what a good price is on meat and produce so she knows when she is spending the right amount of money. I do most of the grocery shopping for my family and when my DH does it, I'm always appalled by how much he spends, even though he didn't buy any more than I did- just not good at knowing pricing.

When meat goes on sale, I always stock up on as much as my freezer can take.

I have found that Sprouts is one of the best places to get great prices on produce and meat, and they also have a wide range of other health-minded grocery items. If there's one near her school, make sure she is signed up for the weekly ads.

I think if I would have known those tips in college, I could have saved a lot of money and eaten a lot better!

 

[krysenchips]

I found that having a slow cooker and a good set of storage containers was a life saver when I lived off campus and was in school.

I could prep the meal for the slow cooker the night before (keeping it in the fridge over night), and then just put the insert in the slow cooker in the morning and have food when I got home from class in the evening. This would make too much food, thus the storage containers. I could then take the leftovers with me for lunches or have them for dinner the next night. I would do things like a piece of beef or chicken breasts in sauce. And I get the microwavable bags of rice to go with it.

 

[QueenIsabella]

I know you asked for recipes for one person, but when I was in college, I had an apartment with three roommates. We each picked a weeknight to cook for everyone. This allowed us to have a variety of meals, and you only had to cook one weekday (weekends were catch-as-catch-can). We also did a group shop and kept a running shopping list.

Another group of friends liked to cook on weekends, then eat throughout the week. You could do this with a slow cooker, or do food prep and freeze/refrigerate. Obvious choices are chicken noodle soup, chili, spaghetti sauce, and so forth. Along this same vein, getting a larger package of ground beef and cooking it up, along with diced onion, would give a great start to many meals from tacos to pasta, and could easily be divided into meal-sized containers.

Another thought, not so much on one-person meals, is I made each of my children their own cookbook. These contain recipes for "my" meatloaf, "my" roast chicken, and so forth. That way, they have their family favorites. I also added kitchen tips and humorous notes--like, along with my mom's famous pie crust, I added the confession that I, personally, never mastered the famous crust, so I use store-bought!

 

[Sagginit]

I lived single for a few years before being married and did cook most of my own food. Here are some tips:

- it is worth the money to buy a small slow cooker to make things like soups, stews, or even poach meat overnight or while she is out in class. it saves time and money. poached chicken is easier to pull apart and put in dishes (anything that calls for shredded rotisserie chicken) than it is to chop it when its raw and cook for each recipe.
- i ate a lot of rice so a small rice cooker was another great investment. i also use it to steam veggies in small batches or even boil them.
- have at least one good knife to chop and dice with. seriously a chef knife will save you a load of time and keep you motivated to make your own meals which = savings.
- the freezer is your friend. you will always have a surplus so get lots of ziplocs and freeze leftovers from cooking for future use. i used to only need maybe 1/4 of an onion for a recipe so i would chop it whole and freeze the rest. same with tomato paste, celery, loaves of bread, etc.
- learn what ingredients go in many dishes. tomatoes, onions, carrots, and peppers go so far for me. stir fries are a great way to use up leftover veggies as well as soups or stews.
- chili with turkey or vegetarian style is a great batch meal and cheap when you buy ingredients on sale.
- as a single person embrace the manager's meat specials. it is often a flat discount so i would find the $5 package of chicken with $2 off vs. the bigger $7 one with $2 off to maximize savings as i also only needed that much. i used to get great deals on small chickens this way and one roasted chicken could last me a week.
- it is often worth it to buy pre-made sauces vs all the ingredients for making your own. i found things like rice vinegar, garlic cloves, sesame oil, fish sauce etc would go bad before i could get through them. easier to buy a bottle of marinade or sauce that is premixed.
- keep everything well stored and sealed. it can take you a while to finish a bag of oatmeal or a bag of sugar as a single person (which they don't tend to sell in small quantities). i had times things went stale when i was lazy and just clipped the bag vs putting in a nice plastic canister. also on that note nuts last way longer in the fridge and are always cheaper in bulk bags.
- local grocery stores are great for weekly sales on meat, dairy, and produce. target along with coupons and cartwheel stacked with their sales is better for packaged goods and processed items.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Whether you are a single person or a family, most of the things that will save you money remain consistent.

• Learn to buy seasonal and shop from the grocery circulars, crafting your weeks meals around what is on sale.
• Buying pre-made meals, processed/packaged foods or pre-cut fruits/veggies will increase your costs a lot and they are generally less healthy.
• Take one weekend at the beginning of the month and make several meals all at once (one in the oven, one in a slow cooker, one on the stove), then freeze them into single serving portions. This is what I did and I only had to cook about 1-2 times per month when I was single. It saved a lot of time for studying.
• Limit eating out to just once a week. It will be very tempting for college students to eat out. I allowed myself one meal out per week and made sure it was with my friends, so it was more of a social event.

 

[Narnia_girl]

Lots of great tips here. If your student doesn't have a Crock Pot (as several people have suggested using) look at back to school sales flyers. They often have small sized ones for $10.

If she has the time (and the interest) savings apps like Ibotta, Shopkick, Checkout51, Receipt Hog, etc... can earn her a little grocery money. Defnitely have her sign up for the WalMart Savings app and scan her receipts into the Savings Catcher if she shops there.

I have found that Sprouts is one of the best places to get great prices on produce and meat, and they also have a wide range of other health-minded grocery items. If there's one near her school, make sure she is signed up for the weekly ads.

I think if I would have known those tips in college, I could have saved a lot of money and eaten a lot better!

My college son loves shopping at Sprouts!

 

[bjscheel]

My DD and I made a list of some ideas easy to fix for herself- she can look at it and pick a few for the week so she has an idea what to buy when shopping. I know we listed egg salad sandwiches, baked potatoes, grilled cheese, rotisserie chicken for sandwiches or to add to pasta, baked potato soup, and meatballs, among other things. She will have 3 roommates and I don't know how much they will cook a meal for all 4 or if they will be mostly on their own. One roommate raises cattle and it sounds like their freezer will be stocked with beef for all of them. I suggested to her that they at least share condiments, margarine, seasonings- things that a single person wouldn't use very fast.

I've also been saving up the lunch meat containers that are like Rubbermaid storage containers and plan to freeze single servings of main dishes in them to send back with her when she comes home.

We haven't really discussed budget shopping, I guess, so she doesn't really know what's a good price. I'll go over some of the tips above with her, and will take her to the store for her first shopping trip.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Idk recipes, I'm a lousy cook, but that meant I did learn to be good with my numbers as I was buying more pre-prepared type stuff but I had to stick to a budget. Around my school the grocery options were S'Mart, Safeway, Walmart and Costco. I started shopping at Walmart but by Senior year Safeway had upped their coupon game and matched Walmart on almost everything I was buying. I signed up for the Safeway rewards program and registered online and loaded coupons to my online profile, also I read the store coupons when I got to the store to see if there was anything I was buying with an extra coupon available. I didn't take couponing any farther than that because I only had so much time to put towards couponing (admittedly I had no smartphone- gosh I'm getting old! How did I make it through college without an iPhone?!). I also shopped at Costco, big meals always resulted but I had no problems warming up leftovers. Actually, a nice collection of varying sizes of Tupperware will be very handy. Leftovers are a college kids best friend because there just isn't time to cook every night! (Also, canned soups are super handy. Cheap and fast to prepare!)

 

[gr8leg8]

grilled cheese was a favorite for me

 

[clh2]

My DD perfected omelets in college!

One thing to keep in mind, unless she is in her own apartment, she needs to share the freezer/fridge space with her roommates.

 

[REEREEG]

I would try to buy things I can't make myself and stretch them with things I could make...
So I would make fried rice but I would get take out spring rolls...
Order a good pizza but make a salad to eat less of the pizza and have more leftovers...
I would cook meat and cut up vegetables on the weekend and then use it during the week to make omelettes, tacos, burritos, stuffed peppers....

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

DS was in an apartment last school year. Each boy brought his own stash of favorite foods and snacks from Costco at the beginning of each semester. I saw huge bags of rice, and one boy had a rice cooker. That boy also brought bags of frozen stir fry. DS couldn't cook a lick before he moved in and wasn't interested in learning from me. He came home and showed us the "right" way to season and pan fry a steak (ala Gordon Ramsey)! He also pan fried burgers and Italian sausages all the time. He learned to make scrambled eggs...easy things. He didn't have a car but 2 of his roommates did, so grocery runs were no problem. They'd all pitch in money for staples like milk and butter.

I had grand plans for getting him a crock pot and putting together 10 to 20 of those homemade freezer to crock pot meals with him. He was not interested. He wanted to figure it out on his own, and he did - all without breaking his budget.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

DS was in an apartment last school year. Each boy brought his own stash of favorite foods and snacks from Costco at the beginning of each semester. I saw huge bags of rice, and one boy had a rice cooker. That boy also brought bags of frozen stir fry. DS couldn't cook a lick before he moved in and wasn't interested in learning from me. He came home and showed us the "right" way to season and pan fry a steak (ala Gordon Ramsey)! He also pan fried burgers and Italian sausages all the time. He learned to make scrambled eggs...easy things. He didn't have a car but 2 of his roommates did, so grocery runs were no problem. They'd all pitch in money for staples like milk and butter.

I had grand plans for getting him a crock pot and putting together 10 to 20 of those homemade freezer to crock pot meals with him. He was not interested. He wanted to figure it out on his own, and he did - all without breaking his budget.

Good for your son. My BIL is in a college apartment right now and he can't cook anything and takes no initiative to learn. My MIL takes him frozen food every two weeks (about a 1 hour drive) and he pretty much eats out the rest of the time. He told me once that his food bill each month was between $600-$800! That is almost twice what DH and I spend on food per month combined. Food can be such a huge expense if you don't learn how to cook and shop properly. I always find it amazing that kids leave for college lacking this kind of basic life skills knowledge.

 

[J'aime Paris]

When I was in college, I usually bought whatever protein was on sale, and made it a theme for the week. Some may not want to eat the same thing all week, but it was a money saver and there was little waste.

So if I got a good deal on Chicken,
Sunday...bake all of the chicken. I'd eat baked chicken with a side of mixed veggies. Then I'd dice up some of the left over chicken, add rice, and some of the veggies to make Chicken Rice soup for Monday.
Monday...eat Chicken Rice soup
Tuesday...use remaining onion and celery to make Chicken salad for a meal
Wednesday...shred some chicken and add BBQ sauce to make BBQ chicken sandwiches
Thursday...eat leftovers from the week
Friday...eat anything but Chicken, lol! (probably went out with friends)

 

[verleniahall]

most schools will still let you purchase the meal plan, even if you are in an appartment - might be something ot look into

 

[mom2rb]

Last Summer I taught my boys to cook, saved a fortune on the meal plan. Their favorites to make were, red beans and rice, chili and breakfast tacos. Red beans and rice and chili they would make on Sunday and eat it all week. They would cook bacon or chorizo on Sunday and then throw it on the breakfast tacos in the mornings during the week.

 

[monorailmom]

We have gotten pretty good at this as I had my older two DD's in apartments in college, and now my younger DD is about to do the same. Consider:

-Perdue short cuts chicken. Those can be used in fajitas, tacos, salads, or warmed up with rice.
-speaking of rice: Minute Rice in individual sized microwaved cups. They have a few varieties, can be very cheap when on sale.
-Individually frozen fish fillets. Easy to defrost and quick to cook.
-pasta with jarred sauce, either Ragu or whatever or some kind of Alfredo. Again, I buy these in bulk when on sale.
-if a small crock pot is allowed, they can do half sizes of traditional soup or chili recipes.
-my DD's love chicken sausages. You get 4 in a pack and they're pre-cooked, so all they're doing really is re heating them.
-packets of mashed potato flakes are also great

If I think of anything else, I'll post again!

 

[Westcoastwild]

Tell her to Pinterest recipes. Buy her some good knives, a cutting board, a decent frying pan. I started cooking a lot more when I had good knives and a great frying pan. And when you cook for yourself, a frying pan will cover most bases.

Blue apron- you don't have to have a subscription, I don't think, to look up recipes. And they have two person recipes that work out to 1 person dinner and leftovers for lunch. And they're helpful.

There are tons of online cooking tutorials. Tons of people that blog on the topic. She's got to experiment to find out what she likes.

And tell her to keep a frozen pizza in the freezer for the days that the experiment will go awry.

Ethnic food is a good place to start, recipe wise. Cheap ingredients. I started experimenting with liver and chicken hearts because it was a really cheap source of protein. I found out that I like chicken hearts! I'll eat liver but I hate prepping it.

But she'll eat whatever she wants, and she'll buy what she can afford, so I'm not seeing much point to the thread.