Cooking healthy meals on a student budget

How I budget

One huge challenge that is quite easy to overcome (if you are smart and active) is budgeting money. Write down all you spend in your average week. For example, my budget is around £50 a week. That is possible due to me being able to cook, plan my meals for the week and control my spending. Half my budget goes to my food then everything else falls into place (do note: this is to use as an example or template, we are all different, do what suits you).

This is roughly my weekly spending: £20-£30 on food.

To put that into perspective that is:

• 1-2kg of chicken
• 1-2kg of rice (my go-to is Basmati)
• 500g mixed vegetables
• several seasonings & herbs
• 500ml of sunflower oil
• sauces for rice & other foods
• 1kg of pasta & spaghetti
• 2x tins of beans (my go-to are red-kidney beans)
• fruit – pack of several apples, pack of several bananas
• drinks – 500ml of milk, 500ml of squash drink
• 1-2 packs of bread (say croissants & brioche rolls)
• box of cereal (optional) with a pack of eggs & bacon

You can quite easily make healthy home-cooked meals by simply adding vegetables; I like to add a pack of mixed veg to every meal, meat to every meal for protein, on top of the carbohydrates (rice, pasta, spaghetti, etc). Unsaturated fats, aka healthy fats are fine to have too (fry food in oil such as vegetable, olive or sunflower to help get these).

With the combination of rice, pasta & spaghetti with mixed veg, sauces, and beans as extras, you can easily make 2 to 3 meals a week, each lasting days at a time. Cook egg and bacon with a bit of bread for healthy, high protein breakfast. Store in a fridge and freezer, and use containers to bring them to campus or work. Money saved.

During the rest of the week I spend:

• £5 on travel
• £5-£10 on my laundry
• £5 on miscellaneous items (extra unforeseen items)
• and lastly, £5 on either canteen food or food outside the house

Conflicts you may face

• Poor planning: above all else this gets you the most stressed, takes up the most brainpower, and will determine your budget discipline
• Lack of skills is a demotivator
• The allure of cheap, highly accessible, very tempting fast food and takeaways
• Predominantly shopping at high-cost supermarkets
• Over/under shopping

Possible solutions

Poor planning

Get the app Snoop – it’s a very good money app and helps you to better visually track your spending. It also gives you weekly spending summaries and daily account updates, and even graphs to compare current months spending to last months and all derivatives. Furthermore, take time out of your day to plan for the week. Just 20 minutes. Surely you can take 20 minutes out of your busy day to plan your life once a week? What will you eat next week? How much? How often?

There is a nifty little app that I have been informed about recently called Too good to go, where some stores with leftover food will offer have decreased prices on a ‘surprise bag’ of randomly assorted snack items at decreased prices. I went to Costa once and paid £3 for a Steak toastie, pack of mini-muffins and a panini.

Be organised

As stated above – plan what you’ll make in a week. My mum always taught me to make food to last 2-3 days. Time is precious, so I don’t like cooking every day as I have other things to do. if I cook every day, this means I will be cleaning all the time, spending an hour a day cooking etc. Whereas if I can cook say once every 3 days, I’ll spend 1- 1 ½ hrs then and there cooking, and I would have freed myself for days.

Takeaways

Regulate your going out or buying in. Have a schedule, say once a week, or a few times a month. Think about it: that £15 you spend ONCE on lovely, juicy KFC chicken will last you around 30 minutes only. Cooking is a pain, it’s hard & long, and the mess is always annoying. However, it’s more sustainable & cheaper & healthier.

Top tip: delete those takeaway apps. Out of sight out of mind. This will help with your temptation (however you will still have to keep up the disciplined effort daily).

High-cost supermarkets

Do not worry about the prestige of shopping at X place or whatever. Food is food, no matter where you go so that doesn’t matter. Prices and sustainability do. (I’ve never shopped there myself, but I hear that the prices at Waitrose cost a pretty penny. Well, as your average student-peasant – my heart has been taken by Aldi (nothing against Waitrose, I just prefer Aldi or Lidl).

Lack of skill or experience is a big demotivator

Enjoy cooking, take pride in it, after all you’re the one eating the food afterwards. Have a flatmate/friend cook with you or just to be there. Maybe even have that friend/flatmate help you cook or show you how (I did this last year). Ask your mum for recipes. Ask her for voice messages or videos and watch/listen as you cook along. Cooking can be and is hard. At the same time, this is the 21st century so use the internet. I’ve been cooking consistently for 2 years now, and I can confidently say my skills are 7/10 at worst. It takes time; however, it is a critical skill everyone should learn. Enjoy the process.

Mckenny Ndifor

Mckenny spends his free time promoting good health & wellbeing as well as helping people lead healthier, more active lifestyles. In September 2023, he will be going into his 3rd year of BEng - Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and after spending 2 years in halls, he has plenty of knowledge to share with other students.