As students get ready to go back to uni, I've had an undergraduate cousin to stay and he's been eloquently defending the number of pizzas he eats.
"There are four of us in my student flat and none of us spend more than £10 on main meals every week. On top of that, we're always full and our meals all taste good," he explained.
"Face it; it's just cheaper to eat crap."
The cheaper, healthier challenge
What if I could suggest meals that cost the same but were healthier and more varied, I asked. He looked unconvinced.
"It has to be cheap," he said, "but it also has to be easy to cook and taste good too. I know it sounds a bit lame, but I'm really busy. I don't want to waste hours in the kitchen every night soaking lentils and mashing potatoes."
What about a big batch of lasagne or soup and then freezing portions? Apparently communal freezers make that a bit of a nightmare.
So I asked him to tell me his typical menu for three nights. My challenge was to match it with easy, healthy alternatives that take no more time to prepare and cost less.
Three nights of low-cost junk
Night one: Four cheese pizza - £2
Night two: Frozen Chicken Tikka Masala - £1.50
Night three: Cheesy Beans & Sausage - £1
Yes, you read that right. You can apparently buy a frozen dish of cheese, beans, sausages and potatoes, all mixed up together, ready for the microwave. I didn't eat particularly well when I was a student, but this is convenience food gone bad.
Three alternative suppers
If my cousin agreed to eat with his flatmates each evening, then they could all spend the same amount but have a more varied diet.
To serve four people the above meals for three nights would cost £18, so what alternatives can I suggest with that budget?
Night one: Vegetable stir-fry and noodles - 96p a head
We had this one for supper while he visited. My regular supermarket has a very student friendly offer of three stir-fry items for £2.50. We picked up fresh noodles, a bag of vegetables and a bag of spring greens, then spent £1.36 on a jar of black bean sauce.
Total cost £3.86 and just six minutes to cook — that's even less than the pizza would take.
The 96p stir-fry
Night two: Chilli, prawn and broccoli spaghetti - £1.63 a head
As easy to assemble as the stir-fry, this is a two-pan dish. The spaghetti can be prepared using one saucepan and a wok. Boil the spaghetti, steaming the broccoli above it. Then everything can be stir-fried together in the wok and it's done.
A 500g pack of dried spaghetti is just 41p, 2 broccoli heads for £1.50, 300g of cooked and peeled prawns for £2.14. Season with chili flakes for £2.49 (which they won't use up on one dish). So, £6.54 in total, that's £1.63 a head.
Night three: Sausage omelette - £1.73 a head
Apparently cheesy beans and sausage is very tasty and perfect revision food, so I thought he needed something similar. A sausage omelette allows the flatmates to buy their ingredients together but cook at different times if they need to, and it's really simple to prepare.
His nearest supermarket sells a box of 12 large, free-range eggs for £2.88, making each flatmate a three-egg omelette each. It also sells 12 high welfare Cumberland sausages for £2. Add a couple of onions (21p each) and three peppers (£1.65) and the total cost is £6.95, that's £1.73 a head.
In total, that's cost £17.35, less than the junk food menu.
That's an average cost per person per meal of £1.44. What's more, the meals were tasty, easy and the person cooking them is able to regulate the salt, sugar and other ingredients.
Cheap and easy
So it's not impossible to eat reasonably healthily for the same price as the ready meals my cousin's been surviving on as he studies.
However, in order to afford easy, healthier meals that come in at the right price, he'll need to persuade his flatmates to eat with him.
This will let them share the cooking and, if each student is only cooking twice a week at the most, they might be willing to spend time preparing more advanced meals. It might even get competitive.
While many people sing the praises of proper, home-cooked food made from scratch, it's undeniable that a large section of society is unable or unwilling to spend the time needed.
But there are healthier options that are as cheap and quick as a frozen pizza, as one flat full of teenagers hopefully now knows.
If you have a money-saving scheme you'd like to see tried out then let us know in the comment box below.
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