How to eat well for £3.50 a day – by the scrimping experts

I have a simple formula for cooking on a bootstrap budget, one that was borne of scrabbling through bare cupboards and down the back of the sofa for forlorn bits of shrapnel in order to feed myself and my son. It may seem odd and convoluted to start with, but it quickly becomes second nature.

First, take a sheet of paper and fold it into four equally sized sections. Label each: “carbs”, “proteins”, “fruit and veg” and “sundries”. Next, go through your kitchen and meticulously write down everything you have, according to category. Pasta, potatoes and flour all go in the carbs section. Beans, pulses, lentils, tinned meat, fish, dairy products, nuts, seeds and eggs, can all be filed under proteins. Fruits and vegetables should speak for themselves, but also include tinned foods and any other lurking ingredients that can reasonably be squirrelled into the plant-based category. That can of mushroom soup? Vegetable.

If it isn’t a starch, a protein, or a fruit or veg, it’s probably a sundry. Dried herbs, fresh herbs, spices, salt, pepper, cooking oil, stock cubes, soy sauce, ketchup, mustard, hot sauce – anything that adds a touch of grace and flavour to your meals can be filed here. It may take a while the first time you do it, but it’s invaluable once you do.

Once you have your list, you can start to mentally put things together to create good, balanced meals. And it helps to quickly identify what exactly you need to buy, far more thoroughly and methodically than rushing round the supermarket trying to ignore the screaming offers and remember what it is exactly you wanted to cook this week.

If your carb section is heaving (as mine often is) but your fruit and veg section is lacking, well, you know what you need to buy more of! And vice versa. I use this method to cut down on food waste, and also to get creative with what I have.

You can use this chart to plan meals effectively throughout your time at university – just type an ingredient into the search bar on my blog or the BBC Good Food website, and up will pop a host of recipe ideas.

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Ruby Tandoh: ‘Take a moment, and linger over the foods that interest you.’ Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

Ruby Tandoh, food writer

You can’t eat well unless you shop well. When I was at uni in London, I could do neither. I’d skulk into the heaving Tesco Metro at rush hour after lectures, grab whatever pasta-and-sauce quick-fix I could and get out pronto. The next day, I’d have to do it all over again. I was haemorrhaging money and I was this close to turning into an ambulant tube of penne myself. I needed a change.

So, one lecture-free morning, I slung on an empty backpack and walked 10 minutes to the weekly market. I stopped by the Pakistani food store on the corner, where packets of frozen parathas (the ultimate snack if you fry them and slather with jam – sacrilegious but true) and chickpeas were half the price of the supermarket ones.

I ambled by the bustle of the Turkish store, and found shiny veg that made me actually want to cook. All of this technicolour delight, and just an hour of my day, meant my cupboards were full for a week, without the nightly trauma of being bled dry at the minimarket tills and the shame of being caught coming home with a pot noodle and a packet of mini rolls under my arm.

You don’t have to sidle down to the farmer’s market with a wicker basket, or turn into some wholesome wholefoods convert. You can still bask in the holy light of the supermarket and allow yourself the occasional slump into beans-on-toast monotony. But if you can bear to do your shopping in more than one shop, take a moment, and linger over the foods that interest you. Rather than forking out for ramped-up convenience store stuff, you’ll find your wallet and your belly plumper. You can’t argue with that.

First, I like to create a meal plan and a shopping list. Instead of planning a week at a time, get enough recipes and meal ideas for two – or even longer if you have the freezer space. That way, you can bulk-cook dishes, batch them off into the freezer and reheat later to save time in the long run.

‘At the shops, you may need to think on your feet.’ Photograph: Alamy

If you don’t have freezer space, look to buy store cupboard essentials and toiletries in bulk as the overall price comes down. If you’re in shared accommodation, you could split the costs with your housemates.

While making your meal plan, be realistic in your menu choices – you’re unlikely to get beef wellington on your budget, but why not switch the meat to minced beef instead. Keep thinking about other ingredients you can swap out: vegetarian meals are usually cheapest of all.

At the shops, you may need to think on your feet. Finding yellow-sticker reductions can make you feel like you’ve found gold, but you’re going to face competition from other bargain hunters. And remember, it’s not necessarily a good deal if you weren’t going to buy it in the first place.