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[Sqee]

Hey,
with me being a student now I could need some help finding tasty or at least filling food.
Things you should now:
My budget is around 5 € a day.
I live in the Netherlands, but I figure food that is cheap somewhere else would be comparatively cheap here too.
I take Vitamin pills to supplement whatever I eat.

A list of things I tried, ranked by price:
- 20 cents Chinese instant noodlesoup, different flavours, 50g + lots of water
 (Verdict: good tasting, not filling)
- 60 cents pancakes for the microwave 600g
 (Verdict: too sweet for every day meals)
- 70 cents beans in tomato sauce 800g
 (I think everybody can figure out the problem of eating beans every day)
- 1 € cheapest microwave lasagna around 400g
- 1 € Vla, pudding-like, filling, but I get sick of it fast
- 1.50 € Canned ravioli

So what are your tips, what kind of awful stuff did you guys shove down your throats when you were students?

[Ryan]

When I lived on the streets, after I ran away from home at 19 until when I started squatting in an empty flat when I was around 22, I just ate from bins. That was real cheap. My best finds were in bins situated on the street, near fruit shops. Most don't like putting bad fruit that goes runny fast in their own bins because it leaks everywhere, but the city-owned bins are fair game. Ate a whole lotta strawberries those three years.

[Kicsi Viz]

The places that sell the Chinese soup should also sell Ramen, which is a block of dried noodle and a packet of flavoring.  More filling than the soup.

There's no problem with beans that can't be solved with lots of loud, smelly farts.  Actually, here in the USA you can buy a product called Beano that provides an enzyme that helps you digest beans in a more pleasant fashion.  Of course, it costs money.

Do you have a stove?  I'd strongly recommend learning how to make something like red beans & rice.  It's hella cheap and gives you complete protein.

Come to think of it, just eat bean & rice dishes for every meal.  The people who stop associating with you are not really your friends anyway.

Also: beans.

[Snipped]

I used to live off of bologna sandwiches and peanut butter sandwiches, or a combination of the two if I felt like splurging. I'm pretty sure I was able to get 2 loaves of bread and two packs of bologna (a weeks supply) for about 7 bucks. The peanut butter was about 5 bucks for a 3 week supply. That should leave you extra money for some heart healthy Cheerios or something.

[amadaun]

I definitely second the legumes-and-rice combo, which will probably keep you a lot healthier than ramen noodles or any kind of processed canned or frozen food. If you like curry, I'd recommend learning a basic curry recipe and making it with cheap things like lentils and chickpeas most of the time and with meat and fresh veggies when you feel flush. There's some initial output for spices with that sort of thing, but afterwards you'll be paying pennies a meal.

[oball]

Murdering hobos and devouring their raw, dripping livers straight from the corpse is a cheap and easy way to get vital nutrients.

[DCD]

Mustard and Pepper are your friends. Their spice and flavor is powerful enough to lend life to even the drabbest of cheap foods. It won't taste great but it'll be edible.

[Kathana]

After awhile, your body will adjust to a high fiber diet and will not produce those disgusting sounds anymore.

Also, get yourself a multi-vitamin. If you aren't eating a varied diet, your body is missing nutrients.

[Susan]

I don't know if it's the same where you are, but in here in Australia fruit and vegetables tend to be a lot cheaper than packaged, processed food.

[Captain Bravo]

One of the cheapest foods I've found is plain spaghetti. Buy noodles and pasta sauce in bulk, and you can get food for a month on a shoestring budget. Plus, spaghetti lends itself well to adding other ingredients for a healthier diet. Meatballs, vegetables, garlic bread, whatever.

Don't underestimate the power of eggs either. I don't know if it's the same over in Europe, but in the states eggs are really cheap. They work equally well as a meal, or as an ingredient for other foods.

Kicsi was right about ramen noodle soup, it's the unofficial food of broke college students. It is famous for being one of the cheapest foods available, plus it's easy to make. Some people like to plop in an egg to give a little added protein, the soup itself is kind of thin on nutrients.

Like Susan said, try to avoid most of your preprocessed, prepackaged foods, like those canned ravioli. The selling point behind foods like that is convenience. If you're shopping on a budget, convenience is a luxury you might not be able to afford.

Finally, I would invest in a set of Tupperware. With good storage capabilities, you can whip up an enormous batch of soup/curry/whatever, and stick leftovers in the fridge to last you for a week.

[Kit Kat]

Yes, tupperware is GOLD on a budget. Also learn which foods can be put in the freezer. Loaf of bread on the counter has about a week and a half, in the fridge it's over two, in the freezer? God, I'm working on a loaf that's damn near a month old and I swear it's not turning into zombie bread. I hate freezer-dried foods, so if yours has the adjustable temperature make sure it's not maxed out. (mines halfway)
Always keep an eye on grocery flyers. I just headed out the other day to grab two bags of fries for a buck. You can't beat that (I factor that they're worth 4 full meals, making them .25 cents per meal). My place has grocery flyers coming in almost twice a week. If we spot insane deals on nonperishable items, we head out and stock up.
Also, I'm lactose intollerant and need to buy lactose free milk, and it's expirey date is way past milk with lactose. Something strange I noticed. It'll give you a month. Freaky milk...
Oh and don't buy things that can spoil in large quantities, ever. It's throwing away money.

[dvn]

Canned potatoes.  Just throw some spices and margarine and microwave.  Also good fried in margarine and stews/soups.

[Renata]

Mi goreng is good and probably the cheapest meal out there. Potatoes are good, very filling. Anything in a tin. Cereal for breakfast.

[SlickityMuffet]

casseroles are great for students provided you have a cooler to store it in. Feeds over several days. and most can be changed up a bit.

should always have on hand....

copious amounts of rice
concentrated cream of____soups. (mushroom, cheese, chicken, celerey are the flavors I have used.)
favorite seasonings
ramen noodles

lunch:
Ramen noodles can be bolstered up with tuna and various seasonings.
Macaroni and cheese...add tuna or shredded chicken.....
and naturally if you and a friend go in halfsies you can usually get a pretty decent meal

breakfast:
half cooked oatmeal with peanut butter mixed in will keep you full for a while because the oatmeal will continue to expand in your stomach for several hours. (tastes like oatmeal cookie dough...yummy) (I eat an apple with it)
left over pizza

do you have a freezer???? large dishes like chili or stew or spaghetti don't cost a lot to make and can be stored in plasticware and keep quite awhile when well frozen. Make sure you mark it though because well you always want to know what you are eating

The hardest thing to do in budget shopping is to make sure you are getting nutrition.
The cheapest food items are very fatty and high calorie and high carbohydrate, these types of foods wont fill you up a long time but will stick to your hips.....

always look for discounts at food places...

and markets lower prices on produce and "made-in-the-store" food goods like rotesserie chicken...

and I happened to have a job at a restaurant that offered a 50% discount on certain foods.

I paid $650 rent, all of the bills and all of the food for a 3 adult household at 18 years old. It sucked, I hated it, It wasn't fair, but i learned how to feed a large number of people (because you know we all had friends come over) on a $2.15 an hour salary..

[Agent Diner]

Just befriend an Asian. I have an Asian friend who brings me back a box of 30 noodles every time he goes and visits his family, and they are fucking awesome.

And free.

[penperv]

Try eating things with dietary fibers, like black bread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiber
It will kinda strap to your intestines, making them tighter, thus making you full longer. And stop eating instant things - you use vitamin suplements, okay, but you still need other things, like proteins.
Someone said rice, it's good for a filler, but if you want to stay in shape, steer away from it. Eggs are also nice - but your cholesterol will jump high, like really high if you base your whole diet on 'em.
Cheapest way would be beans, but again, not only beans, if you want to be thin.

[mirnen]

When I was in college, the ten-cents-a-brick Ramen was what all of us poor kids ate.  But this stuff is pretty damned bad for you in large quantities.  I had a buddy who made himself pretty sick by eating basically nothing but Ramen.

What I've found as I've gotten older and done more and better grocery shopping is that the simpler the food, the cheaper it tends to be (it's logical, but it's not something you really think about).  This means that for being cheap, all the staple food (rice, beans, lentils, and the like) should be really massively affordable.  Spices will really become your friend if you really like food but can't afford that much variety.

I think the most important thing, however, is instead of focusing on the food and getting by, focus on how much you can spend on food, and budget precisely.  I'm really bad at this, but plan out what you can get out of each thing you buy.  I'm not a nutritionist, so you're probably going to have to consult quite a few more resources on what will give you proper nutrition.

[rikitybridge]

At my house we have this dish called Chicken Spaghetti.  From what I understand, it has two main components: chicken and spaghetti.

You can throw some cheese in there for melting, if cheese is available.

[Sqee]

OK thanks for the answers so far, keep them coming.
I do have a fridge but it is very small and for 5 people so no storage opportunity for big pots of stew.

I actually meant the Ramen Bricks with Chinese instant noodles, had the impression ramen were Japanese to which Wikipedia says: "Japanese noodle dish that originated in China" which does not make any sense at all.
Stupid Wikipedia.
Then I googled Mi Goreng and it seems to be the Indonesian counterpart.
How do you add Tuna to Ramen, before 'waving or after?Oily tuna or in own water?
Also spaghetti sounds very reasonable as a variable quick cheap meal.

Black bread is expensive here, 3€ of it take me two meals to use up.
White bread on the other hand gets moldy within 4 days which is annoying to keep track of because you can't bunkbuy.

Chicken Spaghetti confounds me with its simplicity: is it raw, cooked, baked, fried  or microwaved?
How do you make rice? At home we always had a rice cooker, but that took over an hour. Do you just put it in a pot with watter and cook(boil?)?
Does lactose free milk taste different? Was that an stupid question?Is it any cheaper?

Oatmeal/ cereals and a lentil curry are definitely on my to-do-list.So are eggs to throw into the Ramen .

[boonmeister]

To make rice you follow the instructions on the side of the packet. Basically a 10-15 minute simmer depending on variety.

Also, don't buy microwave rice, or boil-in-the-bag rice. Those are really expensive ways to buy rice.

When buying veg and salad stuff don't buy the ready cut/washed/chopped varieties as, again, you'll be paying way over the odds.