Top 15 Grocery Shopping Tips For College Students

College life can be a time of enormous adjustments for a freshman.  This is especially so if one happens to be away from home for the first time.  The college student suddenly finds himself doing chores that were once done only by his parents.  Grocery shopping is one of them.

The grocery is one arena which most college students do not really care about, except for an occasional trip to buy some favorite toiletries or chips.  Buying food and general supplies is an altogether different matter. 

The two areas one should seriously consider are time and money.  Firstly, grocery shopping for college students should be kept short so as not to take much time off his studies and part-time job.  Grocery shopping should also be strictly budgeted as college life is a time of high expenses and low or no income.

The following time- and money-saving grocery shopping tips are helpful for college students:

• Make a weekly grocery list and stick to your list when you go shopping.
• When you’re new in an area, shop around and pick out that one grocery store which is the cheapest and nearest to your school or dorm.
• To save time, avoid shopping during busy hours.
• Some grocery stores offer student discount cards.  Avail of them.
• Buy in bulk non-perishable items such as grooming products and school supplies. 
• Buddy up with a dorm mate for promo items such as buy 1 take 1 sales to cut back on expenses.
• Have a stock of soda, coffee, chips and granola instead of buying from expensive vending machines.
• Pack your own lunch at times rather than relying on generally expensive school cafeteria food.
• Invest in a thermal tote bag to keep your lunch fresh.
• Shop with coupons to save as much as 50% off your grocery expenses.
• Buy generic rather branded foods.  The quality is more or less the same.
• If your dorm has a kitchen, cook big batches of freeze-and-reheat foods and split the cost with friends.
• Limit your trips to convenience stores only for emergencies.
• Meat products that are about to expire but are still good are generally marked down in groceries.  Buy them, cook or freeze.
• Take time to eat fruits and vegetables.  In the long run, this will save your money and health.

When you do grocery shopping with the same list at the same time and store each week, you will find that you can do shopping right within your budget and in a breeze too, just as your mother does.