When you’re living away from home, it’s often perhaps easier to buy your meals instead of cooking them. However, living away from home should be a way of learning to stand on your own two feet and part of that is cooking for yourself and looking after your money. If you’re shelling out £10 for a pizza, that could pay for your breakfast all month long! Let’s take a look at some student meal planning ideas for you to eat healthily and save some cash for beers at the pub!
Breakfast
Perhaps the most important meal of the day! Breakfast needs to set your body and mind up for a day of lectures. There’s no use being distracted by hunger pains if you sicked breakfast. You won’t focus and you’ll just be waiting for lunch time. Porridge is really cheap and easy to make and it fills you up. You can even add some dried or fresh fruit to it to make it that little bit more interesting although that will bump the price up. Have two boxes of cereal to switch between to ensure you don’t get bored too.
Toast is perfect if you’re due into university early or you sleep in and have to grab-n-go! Yogurts are great for breakfast, as are eggs. Don’t be afraid to make pancakes on the weekend too, we all deserve a stack of them on lazy days! None of these options will break the bank but they will set you up each day in style. Get some student meal planning in place and you could easily cover a months worth of breakfasts for under a tenner.
Lunch
If you use some student meal planning knowledge and organise your meals in advance, you won’t need to buy expensive food in the canteen. I reckon you can easily plan lunches for less than £25 a month, maybe even under £20! One of the things to do is cook a little bit extra with your tea, so you don’t have to mess up pans again. This means you get a great lunch the next day without having to do any extra washing up! More time for Xbox, or studying!
Great ideas for lunch include tomato and bacon pasta, sausage and bean casserole and chilli con carne. One of the great things to do is use similar items in your meals. So get a tin of mixed beans, use half in your chilli and use the other half for a been salad one lunch time. This is a great way to make your food go further!
Tea time
The food your put on your plate at the end of the day sometimes sets you up for a night on the town or a night studying. It needs to be healthy, nutritious and fill that stomach. To avoid having to slave away in the kitchen, a slow cooker is a great idea. It means you can set your meal cooking in the morning and it’ll be ready and waiting for you when you want it. You can cook bolognese like this, as well as pulled pork and stews.
If you have freezer space, buy ingredients in bulk, and make some individual cottage pies, vegetarian lasagnes and fish pies to keep in the freezer. Get one out when you get home, cook from frozen and it’ll be ready in 50 minutes or so. You can add favour to often full dishes by creating such delights as pea and mint spaghetti. Of course, don’t forget to buy a full chicken which you’ll be able to utilise all week long, not just for one meal!
Snacks & Drinks
In terms of snacks and drinks, you need to be clever here. Give yourself plenty of time in the morning to making a flask of coffee so you don’t have to buy one, saving you at least £2 a day. Take a water bottle with you as well so you stay hydrated and don’t get tempted by expensive fizzy drinks. Some great snacks include cream crackers and cheese, popcorn, granola and hummus and carrot sticks. make your own flapjack which will taste better than shop bought whilst also keeping your appetite happy between meals.
Check out these budgeting methods for students too.
It’s not all about being cheap and eating stuff that you don’t want to. This food is healthy, affordable and will fill you up in a delicious way. I don’t want to take away the occasional treat though. Sometimes you just crave a pizza from the takeaway after a skin full on a night out. That’s perfectly fine. I made good friends with the pizza shop during my university days and they used to give me a portion of chips to wait with if it was busy and if I only ordered a margarita pizza, they’d throw a load of extra toppings on for me fr no extra charge. Of course, there were nights I came home and tucked into a bowl of pasta covered in grated cheese, because that needs doing during uni days too! Plan your meals, enjoy the occasional take away and save some cash too.
