Robb + Jessie - Dinner on a Dime

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Dinner on a Dime

By Jessie on 27 June 2008 tagged food with 2 comments

Lately people have been mentioning their dining habits during college or grad school. It seems everyone is on these very minimal budgets where they only spend $100 a month on groceries. Robb and I spend much more than that. Yet, we are on a strict budget. I am still paying back some loans from my undergrad degree and we are living on grad student salaries which amounts to … not a lot. I don’t feel like I have ever had to survive solely on Easy Mac, Ramen, tuna, eggs or oatmeal. Granted, I do like the latter three foodstuff from that list, but I don’t feel like my diet has suffered deficiencies or the typical college student diet.

So this leaves me pondering a few questions:

Are we spending too much on food?
What do other people spend their earnings on to leave so little for groceries?
Do I value good food more than the next person?
Do other people budget in food?
Did I miss out on having the typical college student diet?
Did my nutrition science degree help me just make smarter choices?

Does anyone have any other insight?

Note: I attempted to find a photo of Cup of Noodles and it made my stomach hurt. So, I leave you with no picture.

2 Comments

I think you probably have a higher standard for food than the average college student…It’s okay, as long as the money you spend on food fits into your budget, don’t worry about it. Besides, most college students wouldn’t eat like that if they didn’t have to.

Posted by Holly on 28 June 2008 at 10:07

1. I vote no. I think eating quality nutritious food is a centrally important thing. It is to me at least.
2. We spend our meager earnings on.. rent, electricity, internets, and FOOD. Oh and travel. That’s mostly it. We don’t buy clothes. We have limited earnings too, with one low paid worker and one grad student who has to pay for his education :-/ so we keep tight budgets. I don’t set a budget though, that’s never worked for me, I just shop wisely and limit things. I think for myself food is an important part of our budget.
3. I think you probably do value good food more than the next person. I think that’s probably a good thing. Food is so good!!!
4. Like I said above we budget on everything but not a written down detailed budget, we just live frugally in all areas, and never eat out.
5. I think it’s probably a good hting to miss out on the ‘typical’ college diet.
6. I’m sure your degree helps you make smarter choices.
Any other insight.. I think it makes a big difference to have parents who have even a slight interest in feeding their kids vegetables and well rounded meals. My mom didn’t spend a lot of time on meals, and when we did have veg, it was usually frozen. I have changed my habits a lot from my mom’s, but she still instilled in me a knowledge of what is good and bad to eat, she kept us from eating too much sugar, etc.
I don’t think there’s really a need for people to live off mac and cheese and the like. I think you can make good, nutritious food on the cheap. I think people probably just need to widen their horizons, realise there are things like beans, lentils, veg is usually cheap, etc. We do this. It helps our budget.

Posted by Heather Shaver on 29 June 2008 at 12:16

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