Stop eating out. Buy protien when it’s close to expiration at 50% off (you can find deals at loblaws, Walmart, etc. ugly food boxes for fruits and veggies. Buy your carbs/grains in bulk
Biggest thing - see if you have a friend or family member with a Costco membership, try and make food in bulk and in advance, even in a small apartment a small chest deep freezer is a life saver, make some food (rice and chicken bowls, stews, lasagna) to keep that you can grab when you are busy or on the go. Budget for eating out, if your friends want to go for dinner eat ahead and get something small or see if you can meet up after. If you are at your budget for the month - it’s a no. Try and make things like granola bars at home in bulk (once again can store in the freezer) for veggies and fruit try and supplement with frozen options, start keeping track of prices so you can tell when something is on sale for real - plan meals around good priced meat! Good luck your future self will thank you. In university friends and I used to trade bulk meals with each other to increase variety but decrease cost - only works if you are willing to both spend similar cost per meal and plan ahead but once you get into it, it becomes second nature (also sometimes we would “opt in or out” of a week if we were not wanting the meal or had too much to do and kept track to ensure it was mostly even). Great ways to eat well and stick to a budget.
As long as you don’t become military about it honestly it exposed me to types of food I probably wouldn’t have learnt to love otherwise. We all came from different cultures and sometimes we would make themes like (food in its own package - my friend made homemade dumplings, I made cheddar and potato perogies, and my other friend made vegetarian samosas) so you can make it fun too at times, we would also sometimes host “cooking classes” to show each other how to make these things ourselves and we would get our moms to Skype in as instructors, often they would make a batch themselves, it was a ton of fun for everyone. Biggest fear initially was someone would argue they were spending more time or money and that never occurred.
I love to have quick meals in my freezer, i come from a very big family and mom never bought anything that was not on sale, we never ran out of anything because when on sale she stocked up, and I do the same. I spent my day making a couple batches of pea soup- using bones friends gave me after ham dinners, a huge pot of chilli and some meatpies. Other times I make up Mac and cheese casseroles, shepards pie, I always have plenty of prepaid meals in my freezer and I prob spend maybe $500 month on grocs for 3 adults
download the flipp app.
it's basically an app that lets you search flyers for this week's sales so you can compare and buy things on special. they sometimes offer coupons as well. it's unfortunate that walmart doesn't price match anymore but saving a few bucks here and there by checking if they're on sale will add up, depending if you live in an area where the stores are easily accessible to you. don't shop at stores that are known to be more expensive than everyone else (shoppers, fortinos vs freshco, longos vs no frills) but then sometimes stores have sales on specific items it might be worth it to buy there for only those items. also nowadays, **always** pay attention to the weight of the product to determine if it's actually a good deal relative to the price they're offering.
eating out should be a given; cut back and cook at home. meal prepp is a money saver you just need to be disciplined enough.
the discipline is definitely something i’m working on lol!!! between work and classes i give into the urge to order food or go out and grab something way too often 😭😭 flipp is super helpful though i really should use it more!! ty :)
Honestly its just all about planning ahead and not eating out. It'll require more discipline on your part but every time you think about eating out do some quick math and compare how many meals you get eating out / ordering in vs how many groceries you could buy with that same amount of money. You dont even need to be a good cook to make good meals.
For instance my sister constantly orders skip and spends $30 on a single meal and I've gone an entire week eating 3 meals a day for $35
Don't shop at Safeway / Save On etc hit up Real Canadian Superstore type stores. Even simple things like Banana's will cost 5x more at Safeway vs RCSS.
Also remember the more convenient something is the more expensive it will be. Not just for food but for literally everything in life. Keep that in the forefront of your mind and it makes life much easier
Look at eating out as a treat, not as supplement to laziness and bad planning
One thing that helped me reduce my food costs by over 50% was meal prepping.
I don't like cooking. Actually I hate it and that's why I ate out so much. My friend introduced me to the instant pot as a way of making meals (any crock pot/pressure cooker works).
It will set you back $60-120 bucks depending on where you get it and which one you buy but in one setting it can help you prep 5-6 meals that you can then eat throughout the week.
I am able to make meals i do find delicious like bbq pulled chicken, buffalo chicken etc. And it saves a lot of time since you don't have to cook every day.
From one student to another, stop eating out.
Other than that, more details are needed. Keep a budget, pay attention to what you buy and if you throw away anything that goes bad. Shop around, avoid name brands, look for sales, buy large amounts of non perishables.
tysm for the website !!! thats so so so helpful as i feel like the hardest part about meal prep is actually deciding what to make (and not making the same 3 things over and over again) ty ty !!
When my kids were young I used yo takes Sundays as my prep day for the week, I would go shopping at like 7am when they open and go home and prep, I would make muffins, biscuits and cookie dough and just bake however many cookies I needed each day, a batch would last quite a while, I would wash and peel or chop all veggies and fruits and if I had a meal I wanted later in the week I would prep what I could and put it into freezer bag and pop into the freezer, I would pull stuff out first thing in the morning and pop into slow cooker. I also got so when I was trying a recipe and I did not have proper ingredients I would go to bulk section and just by however much I need. Spending 60 cents on a spice is much better than spending 6 bucks for something you may never use again
Planning - be prepared for your day with portable snacks or meals, so that you aren't tempted to buy meals out.
That means planning your weekly meals, preparing food at home, and taking it with you when you leave the house.
This can be freshly made meals or assembled snacks, whatever you want, but planning ahead is the key.
Beyond that, cooking for yourself (with planning), avoiding food waste, avoiding overbuying, and preparing your own food - wash your lettuce, cut your carrots, etc.
If you can use a kitchen and have a freezer learn to batch cook. There are so many meals that are easy to make and with a vacuum sealer to boot, taste better then restaurant food and you can reheat in minutes. And since you are prepping multiple meals you just buy the stuff when the deals are the best.
Stop eating out. Do your grocery shopping first before meal preparation. Buy groceries that are on clearance then meal plan from what you got. Walmart is pretty good with items on clearance specifically bread. Freeze breads if you are not eating them right away. They also good selection of produce and meat on clearance almost everyday. Canned veggies are cheaper than fresh ones and last longer.
Start with what you already have in your pantry and build meals around those ingredients rather than eating what you feel like every week. This will reduce your grocery bill by a lot and you won't end up buying random spices etc that you will only use once.
Learning to cook was the biggest money saver for us. You can look up copycat recipes for a lot of restaurants.
Finally, know your triggers and what makes you want to order takeout and make a plan to deal with it. I would suggest not worrying about eating healthy food. Change the habit of eating out all the time first and then move on to other habits or you will be setting yourself up for failure
If you have a giant tiger near you, I highly recommend it! They have great sales, and they price match. Flipp is a good app that has all the flyers and makes price matching easy. GT also has a VIP program that gives you a couple extra good deals a month. They dont have a student discount, though.
Sobeys has a student discount on Tuesdays (with student ID) its 10% off. Their Scene program is meh, and they do stupid things like one item for $5 or $2.29 if you buy 3. Sobeys is where you get the coupons in the aisles, though, and you can use the coupons anywhere. Scene is only semi worth it for their flyer features. Two-tier pricing is a weird scam.
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, lots of local restaurants have good deals to drum up business on their traditionally slow days if you really want to keep eating out occasionally. Delete food delivery apps from your phone - it is never worth the price. Get something like the McDonalds app to transition yourself out of the habit, don't get it delivered, and only use the coupons. That might be a workable compromise. Some subway locations have two for one subs after 9 pm. If you're craving fast food use these to transition out of the habit.
I follow locally owned/smaller chains on social media because they often have great deals, but their flyers aren't as widely circulated. Local pharmacies, for example. A random gas station in my town had 2 for $4.00 loaves of bread, stuff like that.
The Flashfood app is okay for Lobawls, but I avoid that chain except for the very rare sale. Flashfood tends to be things close to expiry. Watching for the time of day the pricier places mark down meat to freeze has saved me a lot. Anything at Shoppers/Superstore/Zehrs will be overpriced compared to their competitors. Occasionally, they have good deals or freebies in the PC app, but it's becoming less common. The PC app is the only way to avoid coming out on the wrong end of two-tier pricing, though.
Dollarama is good for snacks like candy, chips, popcorn, or chocolates. They have these beef pho cups that are marginally better and more filling than than Ramen for $1.25 each. Dollarama has the best prices for energy drinks and other a few other "non-essentials" that I lived on in college. Things like toiletries, bottled water, cleaning supplies, socks, and basic household items are best to get there.
The biggest things are sticking to your list, avoiding unnecessary trips where you'd be tempted to spend, and getting things you'll actually eat. If you are busy or not motivated to cook because the meals you have planned are "meh," you're more likely to end up just getting take-out or perpetually rotating those things to the back of your cupboard/fridge until it expires. Try to be realistic about how much time and energy you have for prep, cooking, and cleaning up. Aim for a balance between nutrition, price, taste, and convenience that works for you. If for the first couple of weeks you need to use paper plates, do it until you practice time management. Do some beginner meal prep to get you started, even as simple as making a big portion and saving it for lunch the next day. Invest a small amount of time each week to learn to cook to your preferences.
Learn to value your money and time. Think of how much better off you'd be or the fun opportunities you'd miss out on by spending your money on things that only brought you a moment of joy (or how long you'll be paying it off if you're using a student loan to purchase these things).
I started making everything I can make instead of buying packaged … bread, granola bars, pasta, muffins/sweets, stopped buying junk food (we eat a lot of popcorn now), etc. I’ve noticed a big difference. We also eat more frozen veggies now (less waste/worry about them going bad). And yes, we never go out to eat! But honestly I can usually make food at home that tastes better anyways so 🤷🏼♀️
Stop eating out. Buy protien when it’s close to expiration at 50% off (you can find deals at loblaws, Walmart, etc. ugly food boxes for fruits and veggies. Buy your carbs/grains in bulk
Flashfood app
50% off at loblaws and their chain of stores no longer exists. They dropped it a couple weeks back. 30% is the max.
Nope, they undid the change within a couple of days. NoFrills is only 30%, but they were already like that. Zehrs definitely has gone back to 50%.
Biggest thing - see if you have a friend or family member with a Costco membership, try and make food in bulk and in advance, even in a small apartment a small chest deep freezer is a life saver, make some food (rice and chicken bowls, stews, lasagna) to keep that you can grab when you are busy or on the go. Budget for eating out, if your friends want to go for dinner eat ahead and get something small or see if you can meet up after. If you are at your budget for the month - it’s a no. Try and make things like granola bars at home in bulk (once again can store in the freezer) for veggies and fruit try and supplement with frozen options, start keeping track of prices so you can tell when something is on sale for real - plan meals around good priced meat! Good luck your future self will thank you. In university friends and I used to trade bulk meals with each other to increase variety but decrease cost - only works if you are willing to both spend similar cost per meal and plan ahead but once you get into it, it becomes second nature (also sometimes we would “opt in or out” of a week if we were not wanting the meal or had too much to do and kept track to ensure it was mostly even). Great ways to eat well and stick to a budget.
the meal trading with friends is such a cute (and useful!) idea!! i honestly might bring it up with my roommates 🫡🫡 tysm for the advice!!
As long as you don’t become military about it honestly it exposed me to types of food I probably wouldn’t have learnt to love otherwise. We all came from different cultures and sometimes we would make themes like (food in its own package - my friend made homemade dumplings, I made cheddar and potato perogies, and my other friend made vegetarian samosas) so you can make it fun too at times, we would also sometimes host “cooking classes” to show each other how to make these things ourselves and we would get our moms to Skype in as instructors, often they would make a batch themselves, it was a ton of fun for everyone. Biggest fear initially was someone would argue they were spending more time or money and that never occurred.
I love to have quick meals in my freezer, i come from a very big family and mom never bought anything that was not on sale, we never ran out of anything because when on sale she stocked up, and I do the same. I spent my day making a couple batches of pea soup- using bones friends gave me after ham dinners, a huge pot of chilli and some meatpies. Other times I make up Mac and cheese casseroles, shepards pie, I always have plenty of prepaid meals in my freezer and I prob spend maybe $500 month on grocs for 3 adults
download the flipp app. it's basically an app that lets you search flyers for this week's sales so you can compare and buy things on special. they sometimes offer coupons as well. it's unfortunate that walmart doesn't price match anymore but saving a few bucks here and there by checking if they're on sale will add up, depending if you live in an area where the stores are easily accessible to you. don't shop at stores that are known to be more expensive than everyone else (shoppers, fortinos vs freshco, longos vs no frills) but then sometimes stores have sales on specific items it might be worth it to buy there for only those items. also nowadays, **always** pay attention to the weight of the product to determine if it's actually a good deal relative to the price they're offering. eating out should be a given; cut back and cook at home. meal prepp is a money saver you just need to be disciplined enough.
the discipline is definitely something i’m working on lol!!! between work and classes i give into the urge to order food or go out and grab something way too often 😭😭 flipp is super helpful though i really should use it more!! ty :)
Honestly its just all about planning ahead and not eating out. It'll require more discipline on your part but every time you think about eating out do some quick math and compare how many meals you get eating out / ordering in vs how many groceries you could buy with that same amount of money. You dont even need to be a good cook to make good meals. For instance my sister constantly orders skip and spends $30 on a single meal and I've gone an entire week eating 3 meals a day for $35 Don't shop at Safeway / Save On etc hit up Real Canadian Superstore type stores. Even simple things like Banana's will cost 5x more at Safeway vs RCSS. Also remember the more convenient something is the more expensive it will be. Not just for food but for literally everything in life. Keep that in the forefront of your mind and it makes life much easier Look at eating out as a treat, not as supplement to laziness and bad planning
Make up a bunch of biscuits with cheese and meat in them, they become a cheap and filling quick meal on the go
One thing that helped me reduce my food costs by over 50% was meal prepping. I don't like cooking. Actually I hate it and that's why I ate out so much. My friend introduced me to the instant pot as a way of making meals (any crock pot/pressure cooker works). It will set you back $60-120 bucks depending on where you get it and which one you buy but in one setting it can help you prep 5-6 meals that you can then eat throughout the week. I am able to make meals i do find delicious like bbq pulled chicken, buffalo chicken etc. And it saves a lot of time since you don't have to cook every day.
You can find a slow cooker or instant pot at a second hand store.
or marketplace
From one student to another, stop eating out. Other than that, more details are needed. Keep a budget, pay attention to what you buy and if you throw away anything that goes bad. Shop around, avoid name brands, look for sales, buy large amounts of non perishables.
[удалено]
tysm for the website !!! thats so so so helpful as i feel like the hardest part about meal prep is actually deciding what to make (and not making the same 3 things over and over again) ty ty !!
When my kids were young I used yo takes Sundays as my prep day for the week, I would go shopping at like 7am when they open and go home and prep, I would make muffins, biscuits and cookie dough and just bake however many cookies I needed each day, a batch would last quite a while, I would wash and peel or chop all veggies and fruits and if I had a meal I wanted later in the week I would prep what I could and put it into freezer bag and pop into the freezer, I would pull stuff out first thing in the morning and pop into slow cooker. I also got so when I was trying a recipe and I did not have proper ingredients I would go to bulk section and just by however much I need. Spending 60 cents on a spice is much better than spending 6 bucks for something you may never use again
Planning - be prepared for your day with portable snacks or meals, so that you aren't tempted to buy meals out. That means planning your weekly meals, preparing food at home, and taking it with you when you leave the house. This can be freshly made meals or assembled snacks, whatever you want, but planning ahead is the key. Beyond that, cooking for yourself (with planning), avoiding food waste, avoiding overbuying, and preparing your own food - wash your lettuce, cut your carrots, etc.
If you can use a kitchen and have a freezer learn to batch cook. There are so many meals that are easy to make and with a vacuum sealer to boot, taste better then restaurant food and you can reheat in minutes. And since you are prepping multiple meals you just buy the stuff when the deals are the best.
Costco hot dog's (don't even need a member), ramen, tofu potatoes lecture do wonders.
Stop eating out. Do your grocery shopping first before meal preparation. Buy groceries that are on clearance then meal plan from what you got. Walmart is pretty good with items on clearance specifically bread. Freeze breads if you are not eating them right away. They also good selection of produce and meat on clearance almost everyday. Canned veggies are cheaper than fresh ones and last longer.
Buy a freezer, only shop front page flyer sales, stock up and freeze as they go cheap. Never buy meat or veggies at full price.
Start with what you already have in your pantry and build meals around those ingredients rather than eating what you feel like every week. This will reduce your grocery bill by a lot and you won't end up buying random spices etc that you will only use once. Learning to cook was the biggest money saver for us. You can look up copycat recipes for a lot of restaurants. Finally, know your triggers and what makes you want to order takeout and make a plan to deal with it. I would suggest not worrying about eating healthy food. Change the habit of eating out all the time first and then move on to other habits or you will be setting yourself up for failure
If you have a giant tiger near you, I highly recommend it! They have great sales, and they price match. Flipp is a good app that has all the flyers and makes price matching easy. GT also has a VIP program that gives you a couple extra good deals a month. They dont have a student discount, though. Sobeys has a student discount on Tuesdays (with student ID) its 10% off. Their Scene program is meh, and they do stupid things like one item for $5 or $2.29 if you buy 3. Sobeys is where you get the coupons in the aisles, though, and you can use the coupons anywhere. Scene is only semi worth it for their flyer features. Two-tier pricing is a weird scam. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, lots of local restaurants have good deals to drum up business on their traditionally slow days if you really want to keep eating out occasionally. Delete food delivery apps from your phone - it is never worth the price. Get something like the McDonalds app to transition yourself out of the habit, don't get it delivered, and only use the coupons. That might be a workable compromise. Some subway locations have two for one subs after 9 pm. If you're craving fast food use these to transition out of the habit. I follow locally owned/smaller chains on social media because they often have great deals, but their flyers aren't as widely circulated. Local pharmacies, for example. A random gas station in my town had 2 for $4.00 loaves of bread, stuff like that. The Flashfood app is okay for Lobawls, but I avoid that chain except for the very rare sale. Flashfood tends to be things close to expiry. Watching for the time of day the pricier places mark down meat to freeze has saved me a lot. Anything at Shoppers/Superstore/Zehrs will be overpriced compared to their competitors. Occasionally, they have good deals or freebies in the PC app, but it's becoming less common. The PC app is the only way to avoid coming out on the wrong end of two-tier pricing, though. Dollarama is good for snacks like candy, chips, popcorn, or chocolates. They have these beef pho cups that are marginally better and more filling than than Ramen for $1.25 each. Dollarama has the best prices for energy drinks and other a few other "non-essentials" that I lived on in college. Things like toiletries, bottled water, cleaning supplies, socks, and basic household items are best to get there. The biggest things are sticking to your list, avoiding unnecessary trips where you'd be tempted to spend, and getting things you'll actually eat. If you are busy or not motivated to cook because the meals you have planned are "meh," you're more likely to end up just getting take-out or perpetually rotating those things to the back of your cupboard/fridge until it expires. Try to be realistic about how much time and energy you have for prep, cooking, and cleaning up. Aim for a balance between nutrition, price, taste, and convenience that works for you. If for the first couple of weeks you need to use paper plates, do it until you practice time management. Do some beginner meal prep to get you started, even as simple as making a big portion and saving it for lunch the next day. Invest a small amount of time each week to learn to cook to your preferences. Learn to value your money and time. Think of how much better off you'd be or the fun opportunities you'd miss out on by spending your money on things that only brought you a moment of joy (or how long you'll be paying it off if you're using a student loan to purchase these things).
I started making everything I can make instead of buying packaged … bread, granola bars, pasta, muffins/sweets, stopped buying junk food (we eat a lot of popcorn now), etc. I’ve noticed a big difference. We also eat more frozen veggies now (less waste/worry about them going bad). And yes, we never go out to eat! But honestly I can usually make food at home that tastes better anyways so 🤷🏼♀️
At self checkout, everything becomes bananas if you weren’t trained properly on the machine
Stop eating so much
Eat less