I use the packets. I also boil it down until it's riiiiight before mush. so, it's less soup and more slushy noodles.

I used the flavor packets. I was too poor to own a spice rack.

Oh, another of my college dishes was mac-n-cheese with tuna and stewed tomatoes. Actually, that doesn't sound bad right now....

do you use those flavor packets? or toss them?

I use about half, and reserve the rest to toss into stirfry.

it's not so much that I don't like the taste, it's that they figure it's a waste of time because I'll drink them under the table.

I love DJ.

Ramen + eggs stirred in was one of my marathon-training meals. Bleagh.

Okay, when I buy ramen most of the time I wind up munching on the noodles dry.

So addicting.

I ate at the cafeteria in college (I lived in the dorms). Ramen doesn't enter our house anymore due to carb and high-fat issues--have you read the nutrition labels on ramen? Scary.

I lived at home through college and turned a tidy profit between scholarships (oh, how badly my crummy state university wanted my GPA in the mix!) and working part-time. So it was a mix of Mom's food on weekends and cafeteria or fast food during the week. I didn't get into ramen and rice until I was living roommate-free in 1998.

I ate at the cafeteria in college (I lived in the dorms).

Me, too. And we'd steal boxes of cereal from the caf. (particularly Cracklin' Oat Bran -- it's like dog food for people!) to snack on.

Buying store brands is one way to make your food budget go further, and you can still get reasonably healthy stuff -- store-brand oatmeal for $1, store-brand frozen veggies/fruit, beans (if you rinse the canned beans, the sodium content is lowered a lot), etc.

My favorite all-purpose food, which turns out to be a cheap food in terms of servings per $, is bulgur. When you cook it, it becomes 3 times the size that it is dry, it's filling, high fiber, high protein, and you can use it as a substitute for just about everything. Rice, couscous, barley -- even oatmeal (though I don't like it as a morning food).

Thus ends my paean to bulgur. (Seriously, though -- try it!)

have you read the nutrition labels on ramen?

hell, no! that ruins the fun!

I've never eaten ramen. Nothing about the description or the smell made it look palatable. Salt issues. And I also made it through university without having seen Sixteen Candles. In fact, I'm pretty sure I still haven't seen the whole thing--at least not in one sitting.

All I spent money on in university was food, pretty much, and so I ate quite well. Not often, but I didn't want to. My sister would run out of money because she'd bought clothes or new books or music or something. NSM with me. Food (eating in or the $3.25 meals that were popular before they changed the tax structure and taxed all meals), the odd movie ticket, second hand books--that was it.