Eat healthy for $5 or less

As a college student, you probably make use of the various dining hall locations around campus. While convenient, these dining halls tend to be expensive —  a minimum of $12 for dinner, for example — while also tempting students with unhealthy foods such as pizza, cookies and French fries. Combined, these lead to thinner wallets and bigger waists. Fortunately, students can combat this by preparing more meals at home.

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After going to a grocery store, buying the items she needed and analyzing the prices, Jocelin Lamprey, a senior nutrition major and president of Nutrition Education and Promotion Association at Syracuse University, found that a typical home-cooked meal can range anywhere from $2 to $5, saving you more than $10 each meal. Dinners made at home are also fresh and healthy. 

"When you cook at home with fresh ingredients, you are more likely to know exactly what you are eating than eating at a dining hall where someone is preparing the meals for you," Lamprey said.

Better yet, a healthy, cheap dinner made at home can be yours in as little as 20 minutes. A sit-down meal at the dining hall is likely to take just as long.

So open up the cookbook, break out the apron and get ready to show that “freshman 15” that you mean serious business. After all, no one likes going home for Thanksgiving to a bunch of family members wondering how you gained all that extra weight.