vegetables are cheaper than microwaved meals. you can get a couple KG of rice, some soy sauce, garlic and broccoli for real cheap. fry that garlic broccoli and soy sauce, mix it in with some rice and eat that all day for like $6, then take a break and do it again couple days later with the same stuff. get some chili powder, some chopped canned tomatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, onions and make a friggin curry while you're at it. wanna mix it up? get some friggin cheese - little expensive, but it'll do alot of things - some milk or SOY milk if you want, some green onions and make yourself some delicious mashed potatoes, throw some broccoli on there or something. if you buy a decent amount of each ingredient that'll feed you for a week. that costs less than $20, or like 12 pounds.
those are the kinds of things i eat when i'm eating cheap, but actually i don't even think about it that much. if you're working and not wasting all your money good food is cheap, even on student budgets. the idea that students are really hard pressed for food money is pretty much false. it just gets wasted is all, which is fine, but if you want to eat good stuff then all you need to do is not blow it all on nothing. that's my experience and i blow alot more than most people on nothing . but i look at microwaved prices and it's like 3.99 for a couple measly packs of micro chips. or some microwaved curry for 2 pounds which seems cheap then i realise i need 2 and probably some bread along with it to fill me up. go to markets and stock up on spices and stuff.
pasta is probably the cheapest thing to make. you can get 1kg worth of pasta for a dollar or two, then the sauce is just some cans of chopped/peeled tomatoes, 99c (i like peeled ones they are juicy) and maybe put some cheese on there but you can skip it and just buy 50g of herb mix for like 99c or less.
there are noodles and stuff yeah which are really cheap but i always gain weight and feel crappy when i eat alot of those so i don't, it isn't really worth it. i just get rice instead and get chili sauce/soy sauce and stuff to put in it along with a couple of vegetables. i just try to eat alot of boiled stuff rather than fried, although i like to fry onions and garlic but there's plenty you can make without. eggs are a little expensive but i like to use them, too, for sandwiches and rice and stuff.
the point is you buy a thing like garlic you've got 12 cloves there you can use for 4 different meals. you don't need to keep returning to buy more full meals. for me the ready made stuff is crap value apart from noodles and some cheap pasta stuff and those aren't really any good anyway after a while i get so sick of mi goreng and nong shim stuff. like i'd rather puke.
