The Six Best Cheap College Foods

College is a time for personal growth and exploration, as well as a lot of vomiting and sleeping in. One thing that is unique to the collegiate experience is that there is unquestionably no other time in your life where you’ll have so little money and time to invest in proper food, unless you live with your parents (sucker) or you end up homeless (pretty likely, actually). Here are some of the best foods I’ve found to ease the experience and live like a king for less than a buck or two a meal.

6. Macaroni and cheese.
Macaroni and cheese can be your best friend or worst enemy. Nothing’s worse than bad mac and cheese, both for your taste buds and your digestive system. If it’s good, though, whether you’ve got EasyMac (the day-old donut of the mac & cheese world) or Velveeta Shells & Cheese (truffles, comparatively), it’s a cheap meal that can blow your mind. The trouble is the instability of the meal. Oh, sure, you can blame my bad experiences on the fact that I keep my pasta in a dank pantry for six months to a year before eating it, but let’s just be adults and recognize that fate ultimately dictates whether boiling water and toiling over a hot stove for 5-10 minutes will be worth it.

5.Pizza.
Anyone reading this list for ideas, put down the phone; restaurant pizza’s too expensive unless you’ve got a coupon. No, the college pizza is the frozen pizza, whatever the cheapest one on the aisle is. It doesn’t matter if the cheese tastes like curdled milk, they’re $2 each and can feed six people. Plus, pizza works well with beer, which launches it into the top five college foods easily.

4. Ramen.
Ramen Noodles are a staple of college cuisine, chiefly because they cost under thirty cents a bag and can be easily made in a pot or coffee machine, plus it feels like you’re eating a real meal. You are, in fact, eating a mixture of Styrofoam and rat feces, molded by elves to resemble a noodle-like shape.
The best thing about ramen noodles is that they come in a variety of flavors, including Shrimp, Beef, Roast Beef (completely different from Beef, by the way) and Chicken. These flavors are established by the addition of little packets of seasoning that come in each package. However, none of the flavors actually taste like their description, but they are different, which counts for something when you’re talking about a food you’re going to eat for three weeks straight.

3. Cereal.
Cereal’s easy to make and costs nearly nothing. Plus, even the worst cereals have a high concentration of vitamins, which has something to do with your health. Cereal misses a higher place on the list because if you spill it on the floor, you can’t keep eating it.
Many college kids looking to cut costs turn to sack cereal. This can be a difficult transition for people who’ve never had sack cereal before, since you have to learn which ones taste like their boxed, name mascot counterparts. I recommend Admiral Munch, Choco-Rice Cruspies, and Frooty Rocks. Stay away from anything attempting to be Trix; the only way to make a proper bowl of Trix is with the souls of disappointed rabbits, and the generic companies simply can’t cover the expenses implicit in disappointing hundreds of rabbits daily.

2. Beer!
Beer only misses the #1 spot because it’s not actually a food. The only reason it got on the list is because all over the country, college kids use it AS food quite a bit.
It actually makes quite a bit of sense; beer is basically bread in a can with alcohol, no? Well, no, but that doesn’t stop anyone from chugging back a few to kill hunger pains for a few hours. The only problem with beer is that it’s usually expensive, but let’s not discount the fact that there’s alcohol in it. To circumvent the expense, go for cheap brands. You don’t need the Red Stripe, my friend.

1.Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich
This is an often overlooked food that, when mastered, is a holy oasis of cheap food. For those uninitiated, follow this simple recipe: take about two tablespoons of peanut butter and put them on a piece of bread, then mash up a banana and put it on another piece. Place together in sandwich-like formation.

Now, you just heat some butter on medium heat until it stops sizzling. Put the sandwich in and flip it after the underside is golden brown – basically, the same way you make grilled cheese. But this is not grilled cheese. Grilled cheese is a dirty, lice-covered pauper with leprosy compared to the fried peanut butter & banana sandwich; the taste combination is not as two-dimensional, but rather a cornicopia of salty-sweet brilliance wrapped in toasted bread. Great men such as President Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley have declared this their favorite food – men who have eaten the finest foods from all over the world, who’ve had the finest chefs, who’ve developed large guts in the process. There’s something magical about this sandwich. It could be the low price tag, and it could be the unexpected combination of foods. Whatever the case, the fried peanut butter & banana sandwich is simply the greatest college food of all time.