A Healthy College Grocery List That Meets Your Budget; Golden Nuggets.

Posted on: 27th May 2020

College life can feel like hell on earth: lessons here, exams there, finding a place to stay and so on. Depending on the course and level of your studies, your day may involve either being a regular student (8 am-5 pm) or parallel (5 pm- 9 pm). Turn it into a week, months - even years, and the weight of it all starts becoming a little too much to bear. 

Since education is a vital tool for succeeding in life, adapting to it is one of the smartest decisions any student can make. Eating food is the fuel you need to keep you going on this road. However, chowing the right meals will not only keep you light on your feet, but it will also make you healthy, brain-active, and focused. 

You may want to ditch your old dieting habits, break the cycle, and start anew. However, you have no idea how to go about this, simply because you wouldn't have the slightest clue on where to begin! Having a college food grocery list is an excellent place to warm things up. This will help you know which market to go to, what to buy, and at what price. Using the tips, we will provide in this article, you will know how to prepare a feasible college student grocery list –an exceptional one at that!

Let us go through this article using a freshman's grocery list.

Freshman's College Food list

Let's face it; being a freshman in any college is mostly a harrowing experience. You get picked on because you're fresh fish. There are more classes compared to seniors, meaning more notes and research. As if this isn't enough, exams come rushing in close succession. In between all this, the best you're able to do in the name of a decent meal is a bag of potato chips, soda, and an apple! 

Preparing a grocery food shopping list is necessary, as it is hard. It involves looking at the healthiest picks and having variety - all at a cost that is friendly to your pockets. In essence, your college grocery shopping list should be one that's ideally a cheap grocery list for college students. Consider the following tips as nuggets in selecting your items; 

  • When buying in bulk, buy non-perishable food such as cereals more than perishables, i.e., fruits and vegetables.
  • Buy more vegetables from the fresh produce market. Get rid of biscuits, chips, and soda as part of your healthy grocery college list.
  • Allocate a specific amount of cash for each category of food. For example, 30$ for kale, 50$ for brown rice, and so on. This will prevent you from "cutting into" other items' allocation.
  • Avoid impulse purchasing as much as possible. Paying for what you don't need at the moment is sure to upset your budget's balance later on.

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Don't buy what you don't need

Part of college life involves parties. Throwing one makes you the cool guy or girl, the kind of points that will earn you dividends further down the road. However, it's frequently an expensive affair as you need to buy pizzas, beers, hiring deejays, and more beers. This is especially true if there are more "gate-crushers" than the actual guest list. 

A couple of hours of beer-frenzy, pizza-ordering and police-stopping-the-party later, your stomach drops three floors down upon realizing just how much you've spent above and beyond your initial budget! Had you been diligent earlier on, regardless of it being a party, you would have restricted it to a reasonable college food list. 

In such scenarios, it helps a great deal too; 

  • Do a healthy college grocery list budget. Buying foodstuffs from markets, then organizing a couple of your friends to cook is way cheaper than ordering pizza.
  • Keep the guest list as short as possible. That way, your college food shopping list will cover essentials, keep everyone's bellies full and save coin. Should there be extra guests (there always are), budget for a surplus in advance.
  • Avoid impulse buying and non-essentials. Say you had allocated enough for food and drinks, and everyone is pretty much covered. Should the ice cream truck happen to pass by, you should be in a position to turn down the urge to buy ice cream for everyone, despite them pressuring you to.

Buy in bulk, save some coins 

Coming prepared each semester with a well-rationed college grocery list is not only convenient but brilliant. Having your pantry full by buying items in bulk is a series of ticks in a cheap grocery list for college students. Here's what we mean; 

Examples of College Grocery Lists

Fruits and Veggies:

  1. One bundle of kale
  2. One bag of spinach
  3. One candy of potato
  4. One bundle of bananas
  5. Two avocados

Dry Ingredients:

  1. One bundle of brown/wild rice
  2. One can make black/garbanzo beans
  3. One package deal brown rice cakes
  4. One bundle of total grain bread
  5. One package deal oats
  6. One jar all-natural peanut butter
  7. 1-2 bar(s) darkish chocolate
  8. 3-7 protein/meal substitute bars
  9. Nuts and seeds or dried fruit
  10. One bundle of corn tortillas
  11. One package deal pasta
  12. One container no-sugar pasta sauce
  13. One container coconut oil (Can choose for some other sort of oil or butter/ ghee) 
    One container salsa

Refrigerated Items:

  1. One container milk
  2. One container Greek yogurt
  3. One bundle eggs
  4. Two containers cottage cheese
  5. One container turkey bacon
  6. Two small containers of egg whites or one giant container

Frozen Items:

  1. One bundle of broccoli
  2. One bundle of frozen spinach
  3. One bundle of frozen fruit
  4. 1-2 applications turkey/ chicken/ red meat burgers
  5. One bundle of cauliflower rice
  6. One bundle of frozen corn
  7. One bundle of bell peppers

Some golden rules for doing food shopping

While doing shopping from your college food list, consider the following: 

  • Do not impulse-spend. If you are starving while at the food market place, consider buying an energy bar or hot dog to appease the hunger gods, but nothing more.
  • It never hurts doing some window-shopping. Even if you haven't planned on purchasing anything, visiting a grocery store or general market is a fantastic way to learn a thing or two. To begin with, touring from one store to the other will help you familiarize yourself with those that offer the best deals.

Secondly,  you get to know which store brings in the freshest produce, at what intervals, and at what price. 

Additionally, you'll get to know which shop has more encompassing items. If you can find one that stocks sugar, spices, and all kinds of vegetables at a reasonable price is a better deal than a store that sells fruits only. 

  • Go for butcheries that stock fresh meat and sell at reasonable prices.
  • Do a last-minute cart check. Even if you're buying the right items in your college food shopping list, getting them in excess quantities is detrimental to others. This is because you may run out of petty cash, even though you might have wanted to eat dinner in a restaurant that day. Contemplate getting reasonable amounts per item so you can balance them out.
  • Purchase meat according to their expiry dates. If it's a personal preference, consider stocking meat in your freezer from those that will expire first, and the ones that will do so at a later time. Wrapping them in an aluminum foil is a great way to preserve their taste while stashed in your freezer.
  • Do not neglect to buy matters to package deal leftovers. Reusable containers are your friends.
  • Keep your pantry and fridge neatly organized. By arranging meat in one corner, cheese cans in another and vegetables in a separate section, you can be able to tell which items need re-stocking entirely and for how long they will last you. That way, accurate budgeting will help you prepare a cheap grocery list for college students.
  • Shop digital. Due to technological advancement, supermarkets, hardware & toy stores, among others, have introduced coupons and shopping cards that customers can use to shop. Every purchase accumulates points, and they can be redeemed the store anytime announces rewards to its loyal customers.

This is a fantastic deal for students, as they will be able to buy items from their college food shopping list, using this card, with minimal cash. 


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How healthy should I go? 

A hectic campus schedule almost robs you of all of your own time. Given this is the case, preparing a decent meal is next to impossible as you would be exhausted by the time you get to your house. However, you must have a healthy grocery list for college meals if you want to avoid frequent appointments with your school doctors. 

Create a Healthy College Grocery List

How to Create Healthy College Grocery List

Go natural. As much as possible, use pesticide-free organic produce as opposed to prepackaged food. Again, when shopping, put these as part of your main purchase items; 

  • Meats
  • Dairy
  • Snacks
  • Fruits
  • Vegetables
  • Grains/Carbs

Should you crave for chocolate bars or any other kind of quick bite, consider buying gluten-free or fiber-rich snacks.

Why have a Cheap Grocery List for College Students?

  • Eggs and Bread: Whether they accompany tea for breakfast, with fried rice for lunch or dinner, they are an excellent substitute for other health-hazard foods.
  • Fruits like oranges, bananas, and apples, when stored in fridges, can be a quick snack whenever you feel hungry.
  • Dry Fruits, characterized as low-calorie diet, are wholesome and nutritious. The can easily substitute cakes, pizzas, and burgers.
  • Canned food. These encompass soups, tomato paste, among others. They can be stored for a long time without quickly going bad.
  • Fruits. Think of apples, bananas, pears, grapefruits, and veggies like cucumber, broccoli, candy potatoes, inexperienced pepper, lettuce leaves as your pocket-friendly companions.
  • Substitute beverages like alcohol and spirits with water or fruit juice. They're inexpensive and high for your body.
  • Milk, eggs, and cheese are good sources of protein. They are low in carbs as well. Not only are they cheap, but they also make a pretty decent meal!
  • Packaged meals like tortillas, spaghetti, bread, cereals, and pasta can prove quite expensive, as much as you desire to have them. Opt for wholesome meals instead.
  • Kitchenware is very much part of your college student grocery list. Going to stores to purchase them can sometimes be expensive, and you may not have the kind of money that could buy them. Instead, consider finding them at yard sales. You will most likely find appliances that are cheap and in good condition.

One more thing; use coupons that you have accrued to facilitate your college grocery shopping list. Coupons are great, in that they cut shopping costs by sizably large amounts. It is always prudent to make budgeted buying lists each time you go to the grocery store. Feel free to adjust items according to the ones you are in urgent need of to the least in priority. In the end, coming up with a college food shopping list isn't the rocket science much think of! 

In the end,

Planning for what you're going to buy in a logical college food list does wonders for your pocket and your body. However, never underestimate the temptation to veer from your healthy college grocery list. Seeing a YouTube commercial of a tasty burger washed down with a cold soda on a hot summer day looks more appealing than the broccoli and spinach sitting in your fridge. Before you know it, you're standing in a line at Burger King, ready to place your order! In cases like this, alternate your diets to avoid reckless spending.

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