College Food Budgets. Tips and advice - Continued

First, one of the things you have to do is realize that you can’t eat out. Period. You will not be heading to the local fast food joint unless you get a job. You will not be having steak and baked potatoes unless you are heading home or someone else is going to pay. If you are a smoker, there is no way you are going to make your food budget and your habit. What you do need to learn is that you can conserve, eat what you need to and you can get by.

A bag of carrots is a dollar. This would be your snack all week. If you were to head to your local thrift store and purchase a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter, this is another type of easy to make snack that will not go bad on you. A bag of chips invites you to pig out and eat too much. Buying a pizza with nowhere to stash it is only going to go bad. 

Look for foods that are packaged, that do not require a fridge and that you can carry with you. Crackers, breads, jellies, and peanut butter are easily stored without problems. You can keep fruits for a few days; so only buy what you can eat in the next three days so nothing ever goes to waste. 

Therefore, if you have a fridge, you can make soup and store it for the next day. Boxes of soup are a dollar or two, lasting you one or two days. A hundred bucks can go a long way this way! Hot dogs are a dollar or two, depending on the name brand even up to four dollars a pack, but you can eat these for four to six days, depending on how hungry you really are. Learning to conserve and get by on what you have is going to make you stick to a real budget.