Learning to live on your own with no meal plan can be a little daunting. Elon alumna Lindsay Howerton, Class of 2008, shares her tips for cooking for yourself after graduation, and not breaking bank. Visit her blog for recipes and more advice.
Q: How can students get themselves to not rely on eating out?
A: I know several “real” grownups who refuse to cook because they claim that it’s cheaper to buy takeout than to buy ingredients.
This is simply not true.
For less than $1, you can buy enough flour to make at least three cakes. For less than $3, you can buy enough lettuce for five salads. What does one salad cost? $6, $8? The markups on food are high, because you’re paying for the convenience of not having to do a single thing for yourself besides eat! That’s great, but first-job salaries often aren’t enough to justify multiple ten-dollar meals per day.
Q: What would you tell someone who doesn't feel like they have the time or money to cook?
A: There are several affordable meals that are easy to make and not time consuming. Learning how to cook is a simple process of trial and error, the more you do it, the easier it will become.
Here’s what I’d recommend for easy shopping and meal planning:
- Don’t decide that you must eat something that night. Decide each meal based on what you already have in your fridge and what is on sale at the store. Planning meals around those two things will ensure that you don’t waste food you’ve already bought (use the oldest things first), and you take advantage of the best deals at the store.
- Learn about Wal-Mart and Aldi. You’re a fan of Wally-World, who isn’t? Aldi, however, is a bit more obscure. It’s a super discounted grocery store with produce, meat, cheese and anything else you need. But it does not have 78 varieties of O-shaped cereal. It has one. Get over that fact (and get over yourself, you’re not above being smart with your money) and you will save bundles at Aldi and other discount stores. Wal-Mart is great for everyday items that you might not find on sale elsewhere that week.
- Buy in bulk during half off sales. Pasta won’t go bad. So, why not buy several boxes when it’s on sale? That way you’ll always have staples, and you won’t have to go racing out for full priced items if you ignored bullet number one, above.
- Learn about substitutions. Cooking with recipes is great, but buying exactly what each recipe calls for can be so expensive. Cream, half and half, and whole milk can be used interchangeably, with very little taste difference. Tomato products are the same – whole tomatoes can be cut to become “diced,” crushed tomatoes can substitute for “sauce,” and so on. If you don’t have all the ingredients for a recipe, try to use what you already have in place of a few ingredients – you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t, but the results won’t be too affected no matter what you do!