My Broke Student Grocery List For The First Week of Classes

The first week of classes are underway, and I am preparing meal ideas for study breaks, snacks, and supper.

I have never been a big breakfast person, but I still try to eat a couple of eggs, Greek yogurt, and toast for morning fuel if needed.

Most times, I work better on an empty stomach in the morning until afternoon, and then there are times I can hardly focus if I don’t eat, so I keep those three things on the staple list.

Along with my frugal pasta, which I try to make weekly. This will absolutely be a part of my meal rotation for the week.

The rest of my grocery list looks like this:

• Pasta sauce, mild Italian sausage to make my frugal pasta.
• Ground beef and onion buns to make sloppy joes.
• Ground turkey, taco shells, taco seasoning, etc., to make my timeless tacos.
• Chicken breast and chicken broth. I use the chicken broth for my brown rice. And often will season up my chicken breast then add some tiger sauce.
• Green beans, Popeye’s spinach, Brussels sprouts, and chopped onions.
• Reese’s Puffs minis and Cinnamon Toast Crunch minis. I usually will do cereal for dessert or a snack.
• SkinnyPop popcorn on sale for snacking.
• Seaweed for healthy snacking.
• Applesauce. I already have frozen fruit to make smoothies as well.
• Stagg’s chili for warm ready-to-eat meals on the days I don’t feel like cooking. I normally don’t buy this due to the sodium content, but I wanted to get meals that would help me while I adjust to the new routine.
• Sourdough bread, shredded cheese for grilled cheese and tomato soup.
• Ice cream and Reese’s cookies dough so I don’t randomly go to the store for my sweet tooth if the cereal doesn’t cut it.
• Salsa for my homemade Chipotle bowls made with brown rice, black beans, corn, salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese.
• Knorr’s cheddar cheese broccoli pasta.
• Almond milk because it works better for me – Safeway always gives me Just4u deals for it.

I did pick up more Greek yogurt along with my favorite salted caramel peanuts.

All snacks are out of the way for the rest of the month. I will only need to focus on buying ingredients for meals moving forward.

What the first week of eating might look like

Right now, the first week looks like snacking will be the main event outside of classes until I can figure out how my appetite operates under ‘pressure’.

One of my goals is lowering my sweet tooth; it’s been a battle over the years, but I have made great progress, and sweets actually last longer around me now.

But health is wealth, and I try to live with that in mind as well, so balance is important, and as long as most of my meals and snacks are nutritious, I am happy.

Since I’ll be spending most of my time in the library on campus studying, snacks have taken up a great deal of my food budget this week and I think it’s going to be a tough experience at first acclimating to this new routine, so I don’t expect perfection.

My theory is that I’ll most likely be snacking while studying on campus and then coming home to a meal if I am not able to bring them on campus.

I am not sure if the student café has a microwave or not; if not, I’ll find out today.

Either way I don’t like to eat heavy meals during the day because my body operates better on light to moderate meals during the day and then one big meal at night before bed to help me sleep through the night.

So hopefully there is a microwave so I can bring some light hot meals on campus, keeping me satisfied longer between snacks and study breaks, which will allow me to not feel ravenous when I get home.