Uni Food Budget/The £10 Challenge

benbread

One of my biggest problems with coming up with a Uni budget is food - Does anyone have any experience of the average amount it costs to feed yourself per week at Uni. I'm fairly good at cooking so no take-aways My thoughts are a whole lot of cheap carbohydrates and see what i can condure up!

Next week i'm going to do a '£10 Challenge' to see if i can survive for a week on a tenner (Condiments, Spices, Jams, and tea/coffee excluded) - Does anyone have any good bargins/recipes/money saving tips that can help me to stretch my money further?

Many Thanks!

Stardust

Head over to the Old Style forum Those guys could cook the pants off you

Sandiejones

My favourite trick is buying a whole packet of mince, dividing it into 4 and freezing 3 parts. The sections only take a few hours to deefrost and they still taste as good as when you bought it.
Cheap bread does the same job as normal bread, considering you put jam and butter on it.
Oh yeah, even jam can be cheap!

Over recent weeks we have found that most Basics stuff is ok and not that bad. Tinned spaghetti is about 20p and tastes fine.
To be honest my boyfriend and i spend about £13 each a week on food, you just have to be preprared to hit the white packaging.

Gingernutmeg

When you use mince, bulk it out with grated veggies (carrots, courgettes etc) and some red lentils. You won't really notice them when the food is cooked, but it'll add a lot more bulk - I get about six portions from half a pack of mince doing this (Four portions of spag bol, then the rest in lasagne. Also look at using pulses rather than meat - green lentils make a really good substitute for mince, I love them in tacos and enchiladas and they're soooo much cheaper than even the 'cheapest' mince (which I think is a bit of a false economy personally, I like to save money in cooking but I don't like cheap meat lol). However, there's a big difference between cheap meat, and cheap CUTS of meat. Learn how to cook those, and you'll save so much money (and if you're in halls, you won't need to worry about the gas/electricity used in longer cooking times ). Things like chicken drumsticks and thighs - really cheap, thigh meat makes great curries and they're also great roasted. I made Nigella Lawson's lemon chicken the other day - she calls for a whole chicken, I made it with drumsticks and thighs and it was just as good, and much cheaper.

I think though that it'll be hard getting by on £10 a week if you don't have a fairly well stocked cupboard to begin with - I'm thinking here of stuff like herbs and spices, cooking oil, tinned toms, tinned soups, flour, sugar, pasta, lentils, vinegar, sauces etc. You need to build this up slowly, and learn about the best places to shop. Lidl/Aldi are great for basics (and if you go over to the OS board there's a thread on what/what not to buy) and I'm lucky in that I live near a good few ethnic supermarkets where I can get rice, pasta and pulses in bulk, as well as cheap veggies. Learn about your local area and take advantage of what's cheap, and learn what time to go to markets etc - go late and you can often get bargains (I used to get things like whole boxes of tomatoes and avocados for £1 by going late on a Saturday, I miss that market ) Above all, you need to learn to be creative - it's *always* going to be cheaper to make your own tomato sauce with a tin of tomatoes than it is to buy even the cheapest ready made, same with stuff like white sauce. If you can cook the basics, and you've got a reasonable store cupboard, you'll never be short of a cheap meal

System

I'm actually writing a blog on this at the moment! I'll post a link when it's done.

My best advice to reach your £10 target is to stock up, buy in bulk from budget supermarkets. A freezer is a students best friend. Divide portions and freeze.

Don't risk your health. I've seen students waste their money on alcohol and then budget their food, and then become ill, tired etc. A good diet is really important for a good brain

Also, consider working part-time in the food industry. I worked for a while in a posh restaurant and always got free food at the end of the shift. I also got to bring home the 'old' bread etc.

redsquirrel80

Definitely check out the Grocery Challenge on the OS board -http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=824645 - some great tips and inspiring people on there! As candyflossing says, bulk buying is best, so it's probably easier to budget over a month rather than week by week. I'm not a student any more sadly! But I am cooking for just myself (usually) on a tight budget and I've not spent more than £60 a month in the last six months, and that's including basic toiletries and cleaning products as well as food (not including any eating out or lunches from work canteen though - but am trying to cut them out!). The biggest expense I find is meat/ fish so always go for reduced bargains, bulking it out and making it go as far as possible. Luckily I really like tuna and sardines so I eat a lot of tinned fish which is really cheap. If you've got a freezer then it's good to always keep some frozen veg handy, it's also good if you pick up reduced stuff as you can freeze it for later and not worry about short dates.

£10 a week is quite a tight budget, but if you're excluding condiments etc I think it's achievable - good luck :beer:

Greenqueen_2

unfortunately students in shared accommodation sometimes are limited by freezer space and fridge space. It is not uncommon to have just half a shelf of each. Couple this with one kitchen cupboard which often has to hold crockery, cutlery and pans etc there is little space for tins and packets. So bulk buying is not really feasable unless you can come to some arrangement with flat mates to share the goodies, of course this also divides the cost.

System

I was in shared and had lots of freezer space. We didn't have a lot of cupboard space though, but I always stored snacks (crisps, sweets etc.) under my bed as most of the time when I left it in the kitchen it went missing. I guess it depends upon individual circumstances.

Lokolo

To be fair it does completely depend on what you like to eat.....

You can, if you really want to, buy asda value meals for 30p.... noodles for 8p.... etc. However, every week I buy free range eggs, bacon for £3, then budget on all my dinners lol.

Shoshannah

In my second year of uni I lived on £4 a week.

Now money is better (made it to 4th year), my boyfriend and I have a joint budget of £30 a week, it feels very luxurious I can tell you.

talkhard

After reading this I went and had a look on Sainsburys- they've got "Feed a family for a fiver" article on the front page. Its got lots of recipes that have 4 servings for under a fiver shopping. You could freeze the additional portions to eat throughout the week.

Just a thought.