Ready, Steady... oh no:

In my view by far the least economical way of buying food is stocking up on the ubiquitous ready-meal. Let's look at the facts. Granted they're easy to prepare, there is an astonishingly wide variety, and they don't taste as bad as their precursors (tinned macaroni cheese anyone?). However, they're loaded with artificial preservatives, the plastic packaging is enough to give environmentalists migraines, and the food itself is often a very poor bastardization of the real McCoy. The cost too is wildly disproportionate of the end product; on a recent inspection at an unnamed supermarket ready-meal counter I discovered a Spaghetti Carbonara could be bought for £1.89. If you can buy a 2kg bag of pasta for £1.19, a large packet of smoked bacon for £1.99, a box of eggs for 69p, a tub of cream for 79p, and a little cheese then it doesn't take too long to realise that the price of the ready-meal is vastly inflated. You would need approximately one quarter or a fifth of the above ingredients to make the meal yourself (with the exception of the pasta of which you would need roughly 1/20 th) at a total cost of about 70p. If ready meals are a large part of your staple diet it soon begins to add up.

It is worth remembering that learning to cook at university is a real opportunity; you won't have parents nagging about cleaning up immediately, you can learn recipes and variations on a theme, and there is ultimately a real sense of satisfaction when you cook a really tasty, fresh meal for yourself and your friends.

Learning to shop efficiently, like learning to cook, is a skill that is so important, particularly when living on a shoestring. If you consider and utilise the points that have been raised in this article then you are well on your way to managing this central area of your weekly budget efficiently and effectively.

Want to know how to food shop? Check out our other article here:

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