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College Food Budgets. Tips and advice

Are you going away to college soon? Perhaps you have a child that you are sending off to college and you want to learn more about what the children in college are spending. This article is about how to budget money when you are going to college, written for the person who will be spending time in the classroom. 

If you are a parent of a child going to college, just put yourself in their shoes to help you understand more about what is going on when you are in college and what you have to pay for. 

When you are in college, your parents often give you some type of an allowance, or possibly, you have to get a job for any spending money that you need. Time is tight as you have classes all day, work in the evening, and often long hours of homework. Money management and budgeting your money is going to help you work fewer hours, and save up money for the things that you need the most. 

To save money when you are in college you have to think ahead a little bit. You need to think about where you are going to eat next week, how much gas you need to get home on the weekend, and you need to realize that you are finally out on your own. 

So let us say that you just have one hundred dollars a month extra money while you are in college. Your room and board is paid for, your books are paid for and you don’t need to get home, or if you do, your parents will come for you. A hundred dollars is not a lot of money, but if you are frugal, you can survive, have fun and stay healthy at the same time. 

There are many jokes about oodles of noodles, about mac and cheese, and hot dogs, but these are the staples of life, and when you are on a budget, you have to stick to it. Maybe you are one of the really lucky ones, you or your parents have paid your way to the cafeteria for evening meals, or maybe just for your lunch meals, but still even if you didn’t have that, you can make your money last all month long. 

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.