Dining on a College Student's Budget

*Originally published on 1/30/09



If you're a college student, odds are you're broke. It's important to save money whenever possible. With tuition and books being as overpriced as they are, you need to cut corners to make ends meet while you get your education. One of the major expenses is food. We like food and get hungry. We need the energy to get us through the day. Unfortunately food doesn't come cheap. I'll provide a few hints as to how to cut corners without cutting back.
Tip 1: Dining Hall

As the school is going to charge you for dining services anyways, it makes sense to take advantage of this as much as you can. If your schedule doesn't allow you to make it to breakfast or lunch, make up for it in the meals you do attend and stuff yourself. If the dining hall is like the one I had at my college, it will be a buffet style so you can get as much food as you want. The more you eat here, the less expensive it will be to feed yourself through other means. A lot of colleges offer more than one meal plan so if you do find yourself only going to one or two meals a day, going with the less expensive meal plan will also cut down on your college expenses.

Tip 2: Grocery Store

Keeping food handy in the dorm will prevent you from constantly going out for fast food or ordering pizza every night. Those things are fine once in a while, but the cost will add up. You'll be tempted to go someplace like Costco or Sam's Club, those places where everything's in bulk. This is fine, but be careful. You may not go as frequently but it's very easy to walk in to one of those stores and walk out with a $300 bill.

The key here is to go for foods that provide more than one meal. Cereal is a great thing to have on hand. It's inexpensive and you'll get several meals worth of dining. Depending on the cereal you buy, it can also work dry as snack food (Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops are perfect for snacking). As long as you have bowls and milk. This is a good cheap way to keep yourself fed.

Sandwiches are also great. Bread is cheap and you get several meals out of it. You can buy peanut butter, cold cuts, or just butter for toast. All of that combined and you'll get a week's worth of meals for under 20 bucks.

You can also buy inexpensive items like canned goods. It's true, each can will only provide one meal, but they are only a dollar or two a piece so you can buy several of them for practically nothing. The same is true with Kraft Mac and Cheese (Easy Mac works if you don't have a stove). Each box is under 3 dollars and often have sales so that you can buy several boxes for not very much money.

Tip 3: Roommate

I can not stress this enough, find a roommate who is financially stable. It's frustrating to have to pay for every meal. Having one who can split the cost with you on a regular basis will put a huge dent in your outward cash flow and slow down the growth of that steadily increasing credit card debt.

Tip 4: Bulk

I mentioned Sam's club before and quasi-warned against it as you usually run up a huge bill. If you can limit yourself to a few items you can save money (especially if you buy some of those inexpensive items I listed above). As long as you don't come out with a cart full of items every time you can save money this way. You'll need to create a balance between stocking up and over-shopping. If you can do this, you can reduce the number of trips to the store that you make, saving gas as well as making it a bit easier on your checkbook.

A lot of pizza chains offer family meal deals that consist of two, maybe even three pizzas, with a side and a drink. As long as you don't do this all the time this can be a good way to save money. If you split it, it will come out to about 15 bucks a person and you'll get two or even three meals out of it.