I derive a twisted sense of pleasure from looking at food in a grocery store. It just is so satisfying to see miles and miles of food: all the food you could ever want. So much wealth on those shelves. But — it costs money.
Waterloo is an extremely expensive place to live. Coming from a city surrounded by agriculture and being in the closest proximity to California (where a lot of the off-season produce comes from), transitioning to Waterloo was a shock. Although surrounding cities enjoy cheaper food costs, Waterloo, due to being a university town, is tough on our wallets. That’s why I’m here to tell you about ways you can save your money on food (so you can blow it on uWAFFLE dine-outs, obviously).
Make your own food
Cooking is an important life skill not to be avoided, unless you burn all your food (in which case you are a danger to yourself and the people around you — skip this section). Assuming you’re willing to learn or already know how, making your own food can save you a major amount of moola. Putting this into perspective, a restaurant spends about 30% on food, which means you can potentially save 70% on your food costs by not eating out. It is important to note that restaurants will have their own suppliers that will sell larger quantities of food at a lower price than the grocery store, which you will probably not be able to buy from. Nevertheless, let’s put things into perspective.
Cost of pasta at a restaurant: $7-12 + tip + tax
Cost of making your own pasta (makes 2-3 servings):
- Sauce: $2-3
- Dry noodles: $2
- Total cost: $4-5
Pasta is one of the cheapest food you can make yourself and it’s pretty healthy. You can put other stuff that you have in your fridge (I like to put in corn and broccoli sometimes) for extra oomph. Sometimes my roommates and I have pasta parties because it’s awesome.
I would suggest purchasing ingredients from a grocery store as far from campus as possible or from a farmer’s market (e.g., St. Jacobs) to ensure you are getting the lowest price.
10% off on days you don’t have time to go to the grocery store
Sometimes businesses will take pity on you and will give you a discount if you show them your student ID. Valu-Mart in Uptown gives a 10% discount on Tuesdays, which is why I go shopping on Tuesdays, even if I have 20 tonnes of assignments and during sub-zero weather. Why? Because that 10% makes a difference. You can buy 10% more food, which roughly translates to 10% more happiness. Truth.
I believe Sobeys also will give you a discount, and the grocery store at Conestoga Mall will as well, but make sure to check what day of the week they do, because they will choose a day when students are least motivated to go shopping and will instead go buy crappy Chinese food from the plaza or something. Grocery stores can be nice, but not that nice.
Note from the editor: Zehrs and Valu-Mart (pretty much all grocery stores under the Loblaws banner) will give you 10% off on Tuesdays with a valid student ID. Sobeys will offer a 10% discount on Tuesdays through Thursday if you show your student ID and Club Sobeys card/tag (which is free to sign up for and will earn you points). However, last I heard was that Club Sobeys is fazing out in favour of Air Miles, so I’m not sure what this means for student discounts.
Coupons, coupons everywhere!
2-for-1 coupons mean that you can eat twice as much food for the price of one. $2 off coupons means you have $2 to put towards your weekly ice cream fund. Free appetizer with the purchase of a main course? Brilliant. Coupons are worth their weight in gold. Coupons are actually free money that you get in the mail, in the Feds Planners, in those booklets in the SLC, and in the junk mail bin in residence, waiting to be used.
Cooking every day consistently, especially when you need to finish 12 assignments and an essay, is a challenge. In those times when you need a break, riffle through your coupons and make the outing as painless to your wallet as possible.
Sharing is caring
People who put price tags on food probably went to Laurier, because a five-pound bag of potatoes costs more than a 20-pound bag of potatoes. A fact of life is that if you decided to cheap out and buy 20 pounds of potatoes, you will not finish them before they sprout, unless it’s the only thing you eat. Or you like potato sprouts. This is where the beauty of sharing comes in.
If you have a tonne of food, give it to someone. Now you won’t feel so guilty mooching off of someone else. Post it online and you will have people knocking on your door, it’s awesome, so it’s a good way to meet new people as well. Things like lettuce, ground beef, tomatoes, bread, and broccoli go bad super fast, so be sharing and caring. You’ll be throwing it out anyways.
You’ll find that your neighbours will also have an excess of perishable food, so don’t be afraid to ask. They’ll be throwing their stuff out to, so no shame.
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I hope these tips will help ensure your survival during your time in university. You’ll need all the help that you can get, so that you can buy me food with all the money you saved. Win-win.
uWAFFLE 