Bristol24/7 Student Guide 2020: Tips for eating on a budget

You don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen or blow your entire student loan just to eat well. Here are 12 ways you can eat on a budget.

Write a shopping list
Realistically we all pick up extras that look good when we’re in the shop but having an idea of what you’re planning to buy means you won’t get home with a selection of random items that don’t make meals.

Do the “big” shop
We all like to pop into a shop on our way home and pick up something we’re craving – it makes us happy – but putting the effort in to do a big shop will help save some serious cash. Smaller stores are usually more expensive and have less variety so they don’t always have the cheaper options.

Meal plan
Whether you make a day by day breakdown of what you’re going to eat or you simply say “I’ve got ingredients so I know I can make x, y and z this week”, any type of plan is helpful.

Pick supermarket own-brands. Photo: Joab Smith

Check what you have before you go to the shops then you can make meals that use up what you already have and just buy what you need to add.

Cook more than one portion
Cooking for one often ends up more expensive. If you cook double, you can have some for lunch the next day or have the same dinner twice. Alternatively, cook for yourself and your flatmate and just split the cost. Environmentally it’s better too as you have less food waste.

Freezing extra portions is also great; on those days when you can’t be bothered to cook, you have an easy dinner ready to heat up and eat without having to fork out £20 on delivery.

Skip the brands if you can
Generic brands are usually cheaper and most taste just as good.

Look up recipes
It is helpful to know what you want to cook when you are planning and shopping for your meals.

Check the price
Those huge five kilo bags of pasta, the packets of 240 tea bags and the multipacks of cans of beans may seem expensive at the time but weeks later you haven’t had to buy any more. They usually work out cheaper by weight, too. Check the £/kg or £/100g when shopping. Loose vegetables, for example, are often cheaper than the pre-packaged alternative. Plus, you can buy exactly how much you need, reducing waste and saving cash.

Use your freezer
Frozen fruit and vegetables is cheaper than fresh, but just as nutritious. On top of that, it’s easy to cook and it can be stored for a long time, so less is wasted. Canned fruit is also another great option.

Bread goes stale quickly, so instead of wasting half a loaf and having to buy another, freeze your bread and take out slices as and when you need them. Frozen bread can be put straight in the toaster and if you make a sandwich from frozen bread in the morning it’ll be defrosted by lunch time and be nice and fresh.

A sandwich made with frozen bread is just as tasty. Photo: Ellie Pipe

Learn to cook some basic meals
Sounds simple but this way you’ll know there’s always something affordable you can eat for dinner. There are so many good recipes online. BBC Good Food, Delicious Magazine, Save the Student and many others have dedicated student recipe sections on their websites.

Cook from scratch
Pre-packaged and processed foods are often more expensive. Pasta sauces may taste good out of a jar, but they are tastier and cheaper when they’re freshly made.

Stir fry veg is convenient out of a plastic box but chopping up some fresh peppers and mushrooms is much cheaper.

Meals cooked from scratch often work out cheaper to make. Photo: Lowie Trevena

Shopping online
This can be more convenient – especially if you don’t live near a large supermarket. It can also help you monitor your spending, as you can see how much your basket is going to cost as you shop.

Yellow stickers
Everyone loves a bargain. Reduced items in supermarkets can lead to significant savings. The items usually need to be eaten on the day of purchase according to the use-by dates but if it is suitable to freeze, such as meat or fish, then it can be a great way to stock up on those items. Different shops reduce their items at certain times of day – keep an eye out so that you know the best time to visit your local.

Main photo: Ellie Pipe

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