Student Flat Eating

Karnam

plastic bag outside the window always did it for me (in winter only!!)

freebie_junkie

my fella had a pot in his kitchen and each person put in £5 per week for shared consumables, e.g. bread, eggs, milk, and teh last person to use it got some cash and walked to the shop top replace it.

and 'special' food, e.g. microwave meals or pizzas, were the sole property of who bought them

hope this helps! (i never had this prob coz im allergic to most foods! hehe!)

greyster

lol i recently finished uni. There are some true diamonds on here.

Pepper on roll, green coloured milk and bag outside window are my favourites. Please collect your prizes on the way out.

freebie_junkie

id just become allergic to loads of stuff, no one touches special dietry food! worked for me, (but now i have my own place, which is also great!)

QBD

I just bought my own flat/own food and then the only problem was making sure I was the one who didnt raid the fridge, I guess if id shared a flat I wouldnt have put on so much flab!

For meals, I actually found eating out not too bad because when you consider all other things -

costs to store food -fridge, freezer + electricity
costs to cook food - cooker, microwave + electricity
Things to cook food - Pots, pans, graters, jamie oliver 'shaker'
things to clean things - Dishwasher? / washing up liquid, sponges, scrubber thing
cost of pilfered items
time

If you find a cheap restaurant or eat meals at uni it doesnt work out overall as expensive plus you get to socialise in nice setting then fly infested kitchens I saw my friends living in.

buy one of those big packs of "Ryvita" crisp bread, very cheap and if you are hungry then they fill you up between meals.

freebie_junkie

yeah im much betetr off in my own flat- but thats coz i can cook! it saves so much money, e.g.: (plus bear in mind that if you eat wheat these prices will be even cheaper coz this is for thw wheat-free stuff!)

take-away pizza and chips- £15 (serves 2-4)
make your own and oven chips- £4 (serves same)

pasta and sauce in cheap italian- £5 (serves 1)
make your own pasta and sauce- £2.30 (serves 4)

flat jack in bakery- 70p (serves 1)
make your own tray of flap jacks- £1.10 (serves about 12!)

see? learn to cook and save a mint!

kittiwoz

We have a kitty and a list of stuff that comes out of it:

Bread
Milk
Pasta
Potatos
Onions
Pepers
Garlic
Flour
Oil
Sugar
Tea
Coffee
Orange Squash
Cleaning Stuff
Loo Roll

But lately I find I'm paying more than some of the others. The problem is that rather than putting the money in the pot at the begining of the week they just say they'll buy £3 of stuff on the list. But because they never see how much money there is they don't exercise any caution with it. We used to find £3 each about right but they're going through bread at a ridiculous rate. Maybe we'll have to increase the amount again.

We normally cook and eat seperately but have a shared meal on Monday which we take turns to cook. The person who is cooking buys the ingredients and everyone else cleans the kitchen. It is cheaper to cook together but it isn't practical when we have different diets and different timetables. Plus I'd end up with most of the workload because I'm the best cook. Eating together once a week helps house harmony by ensuring we all sit down together once a week. It keeps us all in contact despite our different timetables and provides an informal opportunity to bring up any problems. For example, tonight I will bring up about the housekeeping. Because the deal is that the ones who aren't cooking have to wash everything up and clean and tidy the kitchen and dining room it also ensures that they're fully cleaned once a week.

shiirley

Back in my first year, I was living in a self-catered uni accomodation with four other girls. One of the girls had NOTHING in her cupboard and has no food in the fridge, and everything happened when she moved in (everything was fine before that). Simply, she didn't bothered to buy any food at all, and prefered to spend her money on cigarettes. So, when she was hungry, she stole our food. Later, we confronted her, she denied everything and claimed that her friends stole our food. Other than the food problem, she brought random men (all blokes over 40, and a different one every night) into our kitchen and slammed the door all the time. We managed to find out from her ex-housemates that they had the same problem with her in their flat and she was moved to our flat when she threatened to kill one of the girls there.

Later on, we brought in the sub-wardens when things got too far, and we managed to kick her out of our flat when she decided to fight with the sub-wardens.

This year, one of my housemates began seeing a guy. I'm generally ok when it comes to my housemates borrowing a splash of milk or a dash of pepper from me. However, my housemate decided to let her boyfriend take a share of our food WITHOUT contributing a single penny, and this guy's loaded (he has a posh car etc). Once, she stole four eggs from me and stole the whole lot of vegetables from another housemate because her bf suddenly wanted to have stir-fried vegetables with egg. Finally, we got tired of her using up all of our stuff and moved EVERYTHING into our rooms, including cooking oil, pepper, garlic, noodles, etc.

Now, she seems to have got the message and our stuff has not gone missing since.

Tips for freshers:
+ Buy long-life milk. Believe it or not, greedy housemates generally do not steal milk from cartons. Instead, they prefer the 'posher' and 'fresher' versions i.e. FRESH milk from Tescos or M&S.
+ If you're not sharing food with your housemates, try to claim the part of the fridge with the clear drawer (normally reserved for vegetables). It's a lot harder to steal when you have to make the extra effort to pull out the drawer, and having pots of yoghurt lying out in the open tempts sticky fingers.
+ If you're buying dishwashing liquid separately, don't leave your bottle by the sink. It's only human nature to grab the nearest bottle when ppl can't be bothered to take their own bottles out.

Hope that helps.

crana999

QBD wrote:

For meals, I actually found eating out not too bad because when you consider all other things -

costs to store food -fridge, freezer + electricity
costs to cook food - cooker, microwave + electricity
Things to cook food - Pots, pans, graters, jamie oliver 'shaker'
things to clean things - Dishwasher? / washing up liquid, sponges, scrubber thing
cost of pilfered items
time

You do not need a Jamie Oliver shaker to cook, and you most certainly do not need a dishwasher!

I mean honestly, how much can you possibly spend on washing-up liquid or scourers?

Montymoo_2

We used to have a kitty jar that we all paid £2 a week (there was 4 of us) into for bread, milk, cleaning stuff, toilet roll. Then at the end of each term any money that was left over was used to by a treat for ourselves (usually wine or beer :beer: )