Survive and Thrive: Money- and Life-Saving Tips for College Students

You’re in college. You’re busy. Your brain is working overtime. You are probably starving. And you are probably eating a lot of crap, because crap tends to be cheap. I’ve been there. Twice, in fact. This time around, I am refusing to live on ramen noodles! Here’s how to survive and thrive during your college years and still have money left over for beer.

Bulk Up!

Bulk buying saves money.
I’m sure you learned in some middle school math problem that the more you buy, the less the price per unit. Buy a ton, save a ton. Where will I store all that bulk?
Good question. You won’t. You’ll share it. Go in on a Costco membership with 2-3 friends. It’s about $40 for a year. At $10 each, it’ll pay for itself in savings within a couple of months. Now, you WILL lose all control and spend more money than you want to if you go to Costco together and if you go without a plan. Establish an agreed upon list of what you all need and will use. The rule has to be that anything purchased off list will be the shopper’s
responsibility. The rest of the group does not have to pitch in for your impulse buying. Everything purchased will be evenly split into thirds or fourths, and the bill will be divided up accordingly. Some suggestions for your list are:

1.) Rice. Enormous bags of rice. More on the virtues of rice later.

2.) Coffee beans. Costco has fair trade coffee beans for $9.99/2 lbs. They have even cheaper coffee, but I always buy fair trade (I’m one of those social justice nuts).

3.) Cereal. Is there any more versatile food? It can be
breakfast, lunch, dinner, or afterbar. Cereal in bulk is a must. Make sure everyone agrees on the variety, though.

4.) Canned tomatoes and beans. If you buy them in the giant cans, you can split them up into Ziplocs and freeze them. These are Superfoods! They should be staples. They can be used in Mexican, African, Italian, and American dishes. Versatile, cheap, and healthy.

5.) Cheese. The giant blocks of cheddar at Costco can be split up easily, and you will each have the same amount you’d buy in a regular grocery store—for about a dollar less. If you freeze a chunk of cheese, be aware that it will be crumbly the next time you use it. But you were just going to melt it over corn chips anyway, weren’t you?

6.) Meats and fish.
If you are a meat eater, Costco has some great deals in the butcher department. Stay away from the bags of frozen meats, though. More on that later.

Another bulk tip—check your co-op. They have tons of grains, beans, and instant soup mixes at great prices. They also have laundry detergent in bulk! That stuff’s expensive at Target, and face it; you are going to have to do laundry someday. Plus, reusing the same jug over and over saves the planet from plastics.

Learn to Cook

You will save so much money and even more time if you learn to cook a few things. Spend one Saturday a month making double batches of three recipes. Freeze them in single-portion sizes, and all you have to do is nuke-rowave dinner for the next couple of weeks. I do this with my friends once in a while. We drink wine and cook, and everyone goes home with a week’s worth of food.

One tip, though—potatoes don’t freeze all that well. Pasta does.

YumYum.com has tons of interesting but easy recipes. The site is geared toward college students, so most of the ingredients are very inexpensive. I also recommend the 5 in 10 Cookbook, by Paula Hamilton. It is not great for freeze-a-thons, but it has really good, really quick recipes with only five
ingredients each.

Eggs Are Cheap Protein

That's really all there is to say about that.

Embrace Other
Cultures

The U.S. embraces an interesting food paradox. Our food goes through many levels of preparation, from growing to packaging, which requires more work and more resources, and yet it costs less than something that just grew and was harvested. The processes remove the natural flavor of the food and add chemicals to replace the flavor that has been lost. I don’t get it either.

Developing nations, on the other hand, eat a diet rich in flavor and nutrients, and low in cost. A small repertoire of ethnic recipes will give you a healthier diet on less money, and will make chicks dig you. Telling someone you have made them a candlelight dinner of Shiro Wot
makes you sound worldly and sophisticated. No one has to know you just dumped it in a crock pot or that it cost under $5.00 to make the whole meal.

Ethnic markets sell all the spices you need at much lower prices than the grocery stores. They are also a great place to look for bulk rice and beans and the like. I actually prefer buying as much as possible at the ethnic markets, because buying from small local businesses improves my community. The Mexican markets on my street sell big bags of freshly made tortilla chips for $1.79! That beats Tostitos in both price AND taste.

Some of the best cultures to explore for cheap, fantastically impressive meals are India, Thailand, and Africa. Many of their dishes rely on chickpeas (garbanzo beans), potatoes, and rice noodles. One of my favorite cheap Thai dishes is a sort of poor man’s pho (a Vietnamese soup). It is just broth (I use veggie bouillon cubes), grated ginger, onion, carrots and celery sliced on the diagonal, garlic if you like it, and rice noodles. It takes less than ten minutes to make, it’s super cheap, and it is really good! I like mine with tons of ginger. My partner likes hers with lots of hot sauce and some soy sauce. African dishes are often made with dried peas or other beans and served with Injera, which is flat, pancake-like bread made from teff, one of the most nutritious flours in the world. It is also very cheap when purchased prepared.

Learn to Love Rice

Rice is cheap, boring, and bland, but it is also very filling and better for you than pasta. It is incredibly versatile. Make an Indian
biryani one night, serve stir fry the next, and bake it into an all-American hot dish (or casserole for those of you outside Minnesota).

Remember That Chickens
Have Bones

Meat eaters, be aware that meat comes from animals. Animals have bones. Those bags of flash-frozen, ready to cook
chicken breasts are not natural. They have been injected with a TON of salt (and things I can’t pronounce), which makes it possible to cook from frozen, preserves the meat for its long trip from farm to processing plant to further processing plant to packaging to grocery store to your house. You are already eating enough salt, I guarantee it. You will pay more for processed meats. Just buy a cut up chicken with bones and skin. You’ll pay less, and you’ll know exactly what you are putting in your body—chicken.

And Finally, Clean Up Once in a While, Okay?

Whether you have roommates or not, you are going to have to clean your house sometime. I know a lot of college kids like air-freshening products that cover up nasty smells. Here’s a tip: a clean house smells good! You don’t need air freshener, scented candles, Febreeze, or carpet fresh sprinkles. They are expensive, they don’t work, and put
dangerous chemicals into the air. Just keep your house clean and it won't stink. That means do your dishes. Now. Your roommates are sick of having them in the sink.

You don’t need shower cleaner, or toilet cleaner, or Windex, or Soft Scrub, or…Wait a minute! I thought you said I should clean up once in a while? I did. And you should. All you need is a giant package of baking soda and a gallon jug of vinegar. Empty spray bottles are useful too, just be sure you have rinsed out every trace of what was in them before. Vinegar and water cleans glass and floors. Baking soda is the best cleanser around, and it is skin softening and non-toxic! It is also an excellent oder remover. Sprinkle it into your stale carpet, let it sit for a few minutes, and vacuum. It works for upholstery, too! It will even soak up vomit. Disgusting, yes, but a part of life that needs cleaning up.

Have you ever poured vinegar into baking soda? It fizzes. The fizz is a chemical reaction that is quite useful in removing grease and grime and clearing drains. To clean the bathtub, sink, and toilet, I sprinkle some baking soda, scrub it around, then add a little vinegar, scrub a tiny bit more, and rinse with water. My bathroom and kitchen sparkle! And
because I buy the materials in bulk, I spend approximately one penny every time
I clean the bathroom.

The best part of this cheap solution is that it makes the earth happy. And it may save your life and reproductive potential (see Poisoned Pucker for details).

Reader’s Digest has published
a great book, called Homemade, which
is FULL of easy recipes and homemade cleaning and beauty products. The facial toners and scrubs are excellent
and actually work! The concoctions are
not time-consuming to make.

You'll study better with a belly full of food and a conscience full of earth-friendly practices!

P.S. House parties are NOT a good deal. What's a cup going for these days? (And those cups are NOT recyclable). Neither is drinking at a bar. Buy your own, drink at home, then go out (on foot or with a sober cab, of course). If you give the booze a minute to settle, you'll find you really don't NEED to purchase another drink, and you are less likely to put yourself in a dengerous situation or be hung over in the morning.

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