Cooking in college - How much do you guys spend anually?

<p>Thinking about switching over to a apartment as the dining plan in my school costs $4.5k. Anyone have a rough estimate about how much it cost you guys? (Also if you are eating heavily or lightly)</p>

<p>Far less than 4.5K. I think you’d have trouble spending that much if you tried.</p>

<p>I’d say in a day I spend ~$10-12 a day on food (and this is something I could decrease if I needed to), so over 8 months of school this is about $2600. This includes a lot of eating out.</p>

<p>Used to spend 250$ a month on fast food.
Once I started cooking though that dropped to around 150$ a month, and I could have gone lower if I didn’t buy expensive cereal (Captain Crunch!) and snacks. (I’d marry little debbie) and if I had stopped buying name brand foods. Just shop for the “Great value” stuff. You can easily spend less than 150$ a month or around 1200-1500$ish a year.</p>

<p>For $30 a week you can eat like a king if you cook all your own meals and shop what’s on sale.</p>

<p>I spent roughly $70 a week on food, living in Hawaii. I ate out far too much (although depending where I ate out, it could be cheaper to do that than to cook).</p>

<p>I usually run up about $50/wk, but I eat two pounds of food per day and do 90% of my shopping at nicer places (eg. Trader Joes, Whole Foods).</p>

<p>I grocery shop about $35/week and eat out $35/week (this eat out total varies based on how much money I have at the time). I eat a lot for a girl.</p>

<p>I know people who can easily survive on $20 per week while cooking at home, and not just ramen crap, but healthy, wholesome meals. There are plenty of recipes out there on the internet that require minimum, simple ingredients and light preparation.</p>