i rely heavy on hard boiled eggs and cheeses cause its cheap cheap cheap...i have to work to live and i go to school full time, its very hard to afford the yummy low carb foods...and its also hard to find the time to cook a great meal, and eat it...
Im getting sick of what ive been able to afford! i need new ideas on cheap, quick, food...i gained the weight im trying to lose because of my lifestyle, and im willing to change but i understand now why most Americans are overweight: the cheap and quick foods tend to be real carb loaded...bread is so cheap! and filling!
ah, and the beer...socializing i find time for! ha!

any other college students having a hard time with this? or just real busy people with barely any money? what do y'all do in a pinch???

I have a cheap lunch usually Its tuna with some premade salad mix. Tuna is cheap and I only use half the can and save the rest for the next day. And a bag of salad mix usually lasts like 3 days. Its pretty good too specially with cheese!

My suggestion is to have one day a week where you spend several hours cooking. On that chosen day you can pre cook some ground beef and bake a pan of chicken.

Tuna is another good idea. Basically stock your fridge to where a meal can be nuked in 5 minutes or less Personally all week I have been living off of seasoned ground beef and brocolli for dinner. It's pretty cheap and at least to me tastes pretty good.

I have found buying bonless chicken thighs at Kroger to be very cheap! They are about 2.50 for a pack of 4 and when I break that up I get 2 meals!

Aye find one day such as Sunday and cook up a storm. Sausages are cheap and you can pre-cook them. Get extra friendly with your Tupperware as well... if you have access to a fridge close by.

Tuna kept me going through university. That and some cheap salad was easy to make and healthy too. A bottle of Olive oil was always at hand as well. Also not sure how much work you wont to do but a good investment is a crockpot. I spent maybe 30$ for a smaller one. I can set it up the morning before going to work or school and when I come home I have a chilli or a stew (all low carb) ready and I can eat it for days! Tupperware is your friend again. The good thing is that you can throw any food in the crockpot from roasts to chickens to lamb... I mean whatever is on sale. Stew beef is usually cheap... mix that up with tons of different veggies and some LC tomatoes paste or sauce and lots of spices. Or for chillies.. ground beef (cheap) and again lots of onions and mushrooms and any other LC veggie out there. You can add some beans but not much. Generally if you cook it long enough and kill it with enough spices.... it's allll gooooddd.

I pull out chicken of all kinds,beef,etc.. Cook it up on a Saturday then when I make lunch during the week it's a breeze.

Get rid of the beer. You'll save a ton of money and carbs.

I buy cheap meats (such as beef heart) or meats on sale. If you have a freezer buying bulk meats, then wrapping them in individual servings also helps. I do spend a little more to get the individualy frozen chicken breasts. My typical lunch is a large cesear salad with cubed chicken breasts. Salads are cheap and healthy (go for darker greens).

One cheap way to use the eggs is to make quiches in individual muffin tins. Then freeze the quiches and thaw when needed.

For lunches I would take a hamburger patty with cheese and wrap it in a nappa cabbage leaf. You throw it in tupperware and keep it in book bag until lunch. When lunch time rolls around the juices from the hamburger have soaked through the lea fjust enough to make it stick to the meat, but not enough to make it lose it's crunch.

Buy a holw chicken and then throw it in a stew pot. Remove the boens once it's boild, throw in some veggies and eat soup for a few days. I've also found just leaving soup going in a crockpot on the counter is great. You have a quick, hot delicious meal any time you want.

Learn the art of skillet cooking. Just take what ever you have in the fridge, throw it all in a skillet and cook it together until warm. Ground meat and salad greens cooked this way make wilted salad. Do chicken, pepperoni, cheese, and tomato sauce fo ra pizza skillet. Fry bacon, then use the grease to fry cabbage. Crumble the cooked bacon into the cabbage and top with a coule eggs if you want.

Make a casserole such as the tofu mack and cheese or zucchini lasagne on the weekend, then grab left overs through out the week (both of these taste amazing and are great comfort foods).

With the cheap beef heart, cut it into strips, marinate in a fajita marinade and make fajitas. Just eat like a stirfry and skip the tortillas, yummy.

Hey Wishlist!

I agree with the tuna suggestion. My local grocery store had starkist tuna at 12 cans for $6.00. That's just 50 cents a can! Now that's a cheap lunch!

I'd also go for heads of lettuce rather than the bags. You can cut it up yourself and save a ton of money.

I also check the weekly grocery adds for meat and veggie sales. Safeway had New York steaks for $4.99 a pound! Still on the pricey side, but it beat the heck out of the $11.99 everyone else was charging.

Good luck!

Those LaTortillas have been a lifesaver for me when I have no time. Sometimes I'll just stuff one with coldcuts mayo and cheese, a la sandwich but with only a few carbs.

Does your school have meal plans. My friend low-carbed while we were in college and ate most of her meals in the cafeteria. They usually have a salad bar, a variety of meats, and veggies.

I'm a poor college student and I'm not on a meal plan this year because I have my own apartment (although for next year when I will be living in a dorm, I will need some tips for cafeteria LC!) so I know how hard it is to keep grocery bills from leaving a whole in your wallet. You can definitely LC on a budget if you stay away from LC bars/candy/shakes. Those are way more expensive than natural, bargain foods like eggs, ground meat, canned meat, canned veggies (watch the sodium, but they're still as healthy).

The cafateria here just remodeled. Apperently they have one of those mongolian grills where you get the meat and evggies you want then they stir fry. I havn't been there yet as I have a campus apartment, but I want to check it out.

The smaller secondary cafateria has a salad bar, but it looked pathetic to me.

The smaller cafateria is you pay for what you get, while the larger is $8.50 for all you can eat (they have alot more then just the mongilian grill). I just never have the time or cash to visit it. I feel very lucky though there is apperently low carb choices.

Talk to your cafateria, or head of food servaces. Soemtiems they are willing to accomidate special diets, and I'm sure many other students who aren't LC would still like to see a salad bar. Even if they don't have LC dressing you can load up on veggies and sneak your own in. There are also dorm size microwaves, refridgerators, and hot plates. Just be sure to check dorm size and rules first. Also see if your dorm is the kind that has a shared kitchen for each floor, wing, or dorm.

Thanks for the ideas, I love mongolian BBQ! Right now it's hard for me to find good veggies to up my carbs, cause it's all just salad bars. I was hoping for some yummy grilled vegetables at the cafeteria, but all are loaded with sauces and probably sugar, so I really hope we get a mongolian BBQ grill too, because I get tired of cold salad veggies and some nice grilled veggies would be a welcome change.

WE are on a super tight budget. With the price of beef so high this year we've been eating lots of ground turkey several of the markets have Honysuckle for $1.49 a lb. I usually add some butter or olive oil as the fat content is fairly low fry crumbled in a sauce pan and add whatever veggies you happen to have and spices if you wish. If you like turkey legs they are usually pretty cheap, my DH loves them baked in the oven with a bit of BBQ sauce--it's easy to make your own with no sugar. Watch the sale ads and plan your meals around what's on sale, I rarely spend over $2.00 a lb for meat. Pick up a basic old cookbook in a 2nd hand book store or ask your gramma if she has one you could have--one that isn't full of convience foods--. You'd be amazed at how many of the "old" recipies are low-carb and cost efficient. Jeri