This week’s focus is on food glorious food! According to Save the Student, the average weekly food shop for a student costs £29, that’s £116 a month. With prices of food still rising, we’re here to offer some shopping ideas that could save you money.

If you need a last-minute meal idea, why not have a look at Too Good to Go? They’re a company that allow you to buy food that would normally be thrown away. There’s a number of restaurants, bakeries, and grocery shops that participate and offer surplus food for low costs. The catch is that the food is often coming up to it’s use by date. But this remains a good last-minute, on the day, low cost, option and helps reduce food waste.

If you’re not creative in the kitchen, BBC Good Food and Tesco have a number of recipes designed for students. If during the assessment period you don’t have time to plan your meals, BBC Good Food have done it for you. They have created a free, 7 day Healthy Student Budget Meal Plan, which includes the shopping list and full recipes. Or click here to download a blank SU Meal Planner, or a pre-filled one to get you get going.  Don’t forget you can freeze a lot of recipes to have at a later date.  

To help get you started, we’ve put together a list of pantry essentials.

• Chopped tomatoes
• Passata
• Dried pasta
• Noodles
• Rice
• Tinned veg (sweetcorn, peas, carrots etc)
• Baked Beans
• Tinned meatballs
• Tinned fish
• Oil
• Sugar
• Flour
• Dried herbs and spices (salt and pepper)
• Stock cubes/ paste
• Your favourite curry sauces
• Stir fry sauce
• Spread (Chocolate, Peanut, marmite etc)
• Porridge or cereal
• Dried fruit and nuts