Lancaster student living on a tight budget feeds her flatmates for just 70p

Alisha Hynes, who studies at the University of Cumbria in Lancaster, batch cooks the nutritious dishes to share with her flatmates and to eat on the go during her 12 hour paramedic placement shifts.

The 19-year-old from Manchester dishes up meals including sausage pasta bake, Tandoori thighs with rice and green beans, and Hunters chicken and homemade chips.

She buys her meat from online healthy food retailer MuscleFood.com, taking advantage of the recently launched £59 Value Hamper, and shops around the discount retailers and world food aisles for other budget ingredients.

Alisha has been a keen cook since she was 10 years-old, cooking with her mum Kim to dish up tasty family meals.

She batch cooks nutritionally balanced meals for pennies and is able to stretch her tight student budget as far as she can.

Alisha’s course includes placement blocks where she’s working 12 hour shifts for a month with paramedics with little time to prepare meals.

Alisha said: “Living on a student budget is tough but you can make the cash stretch further if you think about what you want to eat and shop around to find the cheapest ingredients.

“I’ve been cooking for years and am really into fitness so balanced, healthy meals are important to me. I began cooking for me and my housemates last year and they loved it. I’d batch cook meals, store them in containers in the fridge and people would help themselves. It meant we had healthy food to eat every evening and something to take into uni too.

“I cook all sorts from chilli con carne to sausage pasta bake and chicken stir fry. Sometimes it shocks me how cheaply I can cook up a meal. My sausage pasta bake works out at just 78p a portion. Tandoori thighs, rice & green beans is only 68p and is a well balanced, healthy meal.

“Other favourites include chilli con carne at £1.21 per portion, Hunters chicken and homemade chips which is around £1.91 a portion, pork black bean noodle stir fry at 81p each and burger burrito bowl which costs just £1.04 per person.”

Alisha continued: “Fitness is an important part of my life and that combined with my full on course, means eating nutritionally balanced meals gives me energy and keeps me mentally alert.

“As part of the course I do four week blocks of 12 hour shifts with paramedic teams. I love the shifts but there’s barely time to eat so taking food with me means I always have something balanced to enjoy. I see other people grab takeaways on night shifts which can leave them feeling sluggish and drowsy.

“Eating on a budget is really important for everyone, not just students and making sure those meals are nutritionally balanced means you’ll have more energy and feel better too.

“I’ve put together a few top tips for people wanting to give it a go. Hopefully they’ll see a difference in how much money they have at the end of the month and how they feel too.”

Here are Alisha’s top tips for budget student cooking

Buy in bulk - essentials like pasta, rice and chicken can all be bought in bulk which helps keep costs down.

Meal plan - plan your meals ahead of time so you always have something healthy to eat. Each needs to include a protein like chicken or lean meat, a carb, so rice, pasta or potato, a fat which could be the oil you cook in or avocado and a micronutrient which is your veg or salad.

Write down a list of the foods you like and incorporate them into your meal plan. You’ll then be eating foods you know you enjoy.

Batch cook - cook lots of extra portions of each meal, store in plastic tubs and freeze or keep in your fridge. That way, you have meals to take to uni or on a shift and something tasty to eat when you get home.

Check out discount retailers and world food aisles. You’ll find lots of budget ingredients you can use.

To find out more about the ingredients Alisha uses in her meals please visit https://www.musclefood.com/value-hamper-59