Vegetable shopping too expensive as a student? Start buying frozen veg instead!

Posted by David | Filed under Student Saving Tips

Vegetables are an incredibly expensive part of the weekly student shopping budget, especially if you want to stay healthy. The problem with cooking for one person though is that significant amounts of vegetable go to waste as you simply can’t eat it all before it goes off without having the same meal three times in a week!

This is where frozen vegetables kick in! To start with frozen vegetables can actually be healthier than fresh veg as they are frozen within hours of being picked, unlike fresh vegetables which may spend a few days on a lorry, airplane or ship to reach your supermarket shelf. Even if they aren’t more healthy they are of similar nutritional value anyway. Secondly they are much easier to store. For students frozen vegetables are great as they are frequently already chopped up making cooking just that bit less messy, and the fact they are frozen saves worrying about expiration dates!

A quick example is that of peppers. Currently in the UK a red pepper usually costs around 68 pence on its own, however a bag of frozen peppers which contains around 3 chopped up frozen peppers costs around 69 pence so there is also massive savings to have, the peppers are even sliced for you, making that stir fry much easier to do!

Tags: , , , ,

Permalink | Comments (2) | Wednesday, 17th Sep 2008

2 Responses to “Vegetable shopping too expensive as a student? Start buying frozen veg instead!”

  1. birmingham student Says:
    August 4th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

    Hi David
    I stumbled across your blog by accident whilst looking up student food recipes!

    I do agree with you about the vegetables being expensive. Buying frozen is a good idea, however, there is one more thing – markets. Not farmers markets, which tend to be expensive for most students, but proper, wholesale city markets.

    I live in Birmingham, and in the city centre itself we have the most amazing food market. I shop there regularly as a student, and if I take a tenner, I come away with literally ten days’ worth of fruit AND veg. The prices are incredible. In summer 2009 I am currently paying £1 for 10 nectarines, £1 for a box of broccoli (about 6 ‘heads’), 40p for bunches of herbs, £1 for a giant bowl of tomatoes (at leasst 2 kilos), £1 for same sized bowl of mushrooms…You get the idea. The market also has butchers (mince is half the price as in supermarkets, as is the fish) so as an enthusiastic student cook I managed to eat very well.

    And yet the market is completely un-used by majority of students, even though it is easy to get to!

    Also try shops like Aldi and Lidl. Brits do get snobby about them but my German and Dutch friends say everyone in their countries does most of their shopping in such shops. I regularly go there for pasta and tinned tomatoes, but also for fruit and veg which is very fresh and good quality (and from the EU so you don’t have to feel guilty about food miles!)

    Being budget conscious, friends and I once sat down and compared our food bills – mine was 50% less, and I ate and cooked much more, plus had tons of fresh fruit.

    Good luck!

  2. David Says:
    August 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    Hi birmingham student!

    Thanks for your comments! I agree, I have recently started buying alot more fruit and vegetables fresh from a local grocer, it definately does reduce food bills compared with the standard supermarket, and I’ve got to try a lot of new types of fruit and veg I wouldn’t have considered before!

If you found this post helpful, or you have your own suggestions, why not leave a reply! Alternatively why not discuss this topic in our NEW forum?