About Me

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Cheap, Delicious Food

I worked today yay! Okay only a half day but still. I have had almost no work in two weeks, it's been terrible. My next paycheque is going to be so small! Anyway when I came home I was hungry and decided to make eggs.

Eggs are wonderful....and oh so cheap for their delicious goodness. As I was making them it brought me back to my university days. Oh the memories... I would eat cheap. I went out for food about once a semester, unless someone else was buying (thanks parents and boyfriend). I went grocery shopping once a week or less, and it was probably $20 on average each grocery trip.

Water is my favourite drink so I never bought juice, pop, tea etc. My roommates and I would split the cost of milk (taking turns buying 4L bags). It's pretty amazing how much you can save just by drinking tap water. For breakfast I would generally have Cheerios (mega pack lasted forever).

Lunches were sandwiches or bagels with cream cheese if I was at school, and often egg salad. There are those lovely protein filled eggs again :)

Supper, I pretty much became vegetarian during school. Meat is expensive!! You can get good protein from eggs anyway :) I would often have spaghetti (sometimes with meat sauce). Hamburger meat was fairly inexpensive (I sometimes made a big batch of spaghetti sauce and then froze into individual portions). I had frozen vegetables, salads, rice, potatoes, and eggs! I liked things that were quick to make but also not terribly expensive. When a parent would come once or twice a year and offer to buy groceries I took full advantage and stocked up on meats. I would then go home and individually wrap them so I could easily take one out in the morning for a meal.

Snacks are key while in school! How else are you going to write a 10 page essay? I liked apples, a bag of apples was pretty cheap, as were tangerines (mmmm). I like fresh veggies but would sometimes have a waste. So I would usually only buy one or two vegetables at a time (only celery and broccoli) and not get any more until they were finished. Also cutting the whole thing up when I got it made me more likely to eat it (already perpared, and made good study snacks). I also bought a lot of cookies haha because those make good study snacks as well. Sometimes I would bake them as well, but those never lasted as long in a house of girls.

But with so many different ways to make eggs, they were likely my favourite "cheap" food (likely under $1 per meal). So quick and easy to make as well! What is your favourite inexpensive food?

Get Cracking!

5 comments:

  1. I dunno if it's my favourite... but I love beans. Cheap and yummy and easy to make 101 things with. Like chili and chickpea salad sandwiches. Yummy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes they are cheap and yummy and even easy to grow! I'm not a big bean fan but I like chili! And chickpeas are great to make hummus. Delicious :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, I'm Lara. I'm a broke student who's been looking to read about other people's experiences with saving money and came across your blog, among others.

    I agree eggs are great .. especially the dozen for $1.99 you can get at No Frills/FoodBasics. Potatoes are also amazingly cheap, and you can do a lot with them (baked, mashed, fried, hashbrowned, pureed into soup, etc.). I get 10 lb. bags for $3; such an awesome deal. I think eggs and potatoes make up about 50% of my diet right now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love eggs! They are high in protein and yummy! I do agree about the meat. When I was in college I ate a lot of tofu and didn't eat much meat since it is so expensive. It's probably the most expensive thing I would buy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I agree Lara! Potatoes are another great one. I could eat mashed potatoes for breakfast, so good! I once bought a 10lb bag for $3 and didn't go through as many as I had hoped and had to compost a lot, so the next time I went and bought only 5 potatoes and it was something like $5! It was crazy, always go for the 10lb bag!! Making a baked potato in the microwave is easy as well, not as crispy on the outside but just as delicious on the inside and oh so fast (which I loved)!

    ReplyDelete