Blog 2

College life is hard. Between the fear of beginning the path towards a better future for yourself, becoming an adult, choosing a study path to follow, and for some of us moving out of our parents house, life can get a little overwhelming. Becoming an adult is in important milestone in everyone's life, and part of becoming an adult is creating a budget, bills, food, housing, school, social life, and of course savings. Obviously everyone needs food, and as a new adult money might be a little tight right now, so in this post I’ll be discussing the tips I’ve accumulated for a food budget.

First things first, fast food is not your friend, no matter how convenient. Fast food is expensive, at roughly $8 a day, and up to 2 meals a day, you could be spending $16 a day on just two meals, for $16 at any large chain grocery store you could have the entirety of your dinners for a week planned out. This is a huge part to creating a budget, managing where your money actually goes, and by either eliminating or weeding out fast food, you could be saving a lot of money.

Second thing, buying in bulk is fantastic! Costco is great for this, offering bulk food items for lower prices than the average grocery chain. Bulk items offer a longer shelf life in that you will have more food for a longer amount of time.

Third! While we’ve established that fast food is the enemy, you still need to set a hard and soft monetary limit for your grocery shopping. For a hard limit i recommend $100 a week, as this allows for both meal prep and snack foods easily, and for the soft limit i recommend $75, as you can throw the extra $25 into savings or into the next weeks budget.

Fourth, coupons are a great way to save money! Coupons offer many advantages for you wallet to take, increasing the amount of food you can get within your limit. I heavily recommend this as you can easily find coupons all the time, in fact many grocery chains offer coupons on the receipts they give you. These allow you to save your wallet from unnecessary fees, and even allow for more money to be thrown either into your food budget or savings!

Fifth and final tip, don’t starve yourself. Part of what increases your budget is overeating, which is frequently just a reaction to not eating the proper amount for your prior meals. Keeping a tight leash on your dietary habits can help you save money in the long run, even if it seems like your eating more.

Hopefully these tips can help you save money, college is hard, becoming an adult even more so.