Next to dorm rent, one of the biggest costs students face is the monthly grocery bill and right now, food bills are rising. If money is tight, and even if it isn’t, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to learn money-saving ways to shop and cook. By implementing the following ten principles you will not only save you money, but valuable time as well.

1) Cook from scratch

Convenience foods are a tempting when you’re in a hurry. However, they are almost always significantly higher in price and are usually not a very healthy option for you. Luckily, you don’t need to have attended have attended one of cooking schools the in your area to get used to cooking from scratch. All you have to do is start with simple recipes that require only a few ingredients. Build up a repertoire of these that you can use again and again. Soon you should find that cooking from scratch is just as quick and easy as preparing prepackaged meals.

2) Cook large meals

Never cook a meal that can be eaten in one sitting, but double or triple recipes instead. This will cut down on you cooking time, as you will be able to serve leftovers several times a week. It will also remove some of the temptation to purchase expensive convenience foods on a night where you don’t have the time or energy to cook.

3) Use your freezer

When buying in bulk, include perishables such as cheese, eggs and milk. These items can be frozen and used for several months down the road. Also, divide and immediately freeze several portions of leftover meals for a quick microwaveable meal on busy nights.

4) Go meatless twice a week

Meat is the most expensive purchase you will usually make at the grocery store. To save money, try some dishes that use high-protein alternatives, such as beans and eggs. If you have someone in your household who is very resistant to this idea, you can also save money by cutting the amount of meat called for in a recipe by one-third to one-half and increasing the amount of other, less expensive ingredients.

5) Use spice blends

Most people have a cupboard full of expensive spices they purchase and use for one or two recipes. As result, many of these spices usually end up in the trash. Instead of spending money on containers of individual spices look for lower-cost spice blends. These are available in a number of varieties and combinations that work for most recipes.

6) Always shop with a list

Impulse buying is one of the costliest mistakes people make when grocery shopping. With a clear, carefully planned list in hand, you can cut down on impulse buys. Make your list a day before shopping so that you can take time to look through your kitchen. This way, you will have all the items you need on the list, preventing extra trips to the grocery store and extra opportunities to buy things you don’t need.

7) Make a meal plan once a week

In order to make a good grocery list, it is important to plan ahead. Take ten minutes once a week to map out a meal plan. Since you will be cooking large meals, plan several meals a week to be leftovers. Look for recipes that have some similar ingredients so that you can buy in bulk and reduce the number of items on your list.

8) Buy in bulk

Try to buy the items you need in bulk whenever possible. With proper storage, these items can last for months. Even perishable foods can be bought in bulk if you are willing to divide and store them correctly. However it is important to plan meals that utilize the items you have purchased so they will not go to waste.

9) Buy off-brand items

Off-brand items have come a long way in quality over the years, to the point that it is often difficult to tell them apart from name-brand products. Grocery stores also tend to place these alternative products right next to the name-brand items, highlighting the savings. Any time your grocery store offers an off-brand alternative, choose it and watch your grocery bill plummet.

10) Shop by yourself

Shopping with your spouse or children can be unavoidable or too convenient sometimes if you are driving past the store on the way home. However if you are looking to save money, try to keep your roommies at home when you go grocery shopping. Sticking to a list is challenging enough to get used to on your own but it is almost impossible if you have three other sets of hands reaching out for items on the shelf.

Consistently applying these principles should significantly reduce your grocery bill every month. While this list may look overwhelming if you’re new to the concept of thrifty cooking, the key is to start with just a few of these ideas at a time. When they become second nature to you, add a few more until you have all of them working for you.

[Photo credit]

This summer, while you’re doing summer things like tanning, eating, and not doing anything at all, I have a humble suggestion: take the time to gain an area of expertise.

What I mean is now you have three months and all you need is one accomplishment or focus to show off and enjoy for years to come. Think of it as a major or minor for your semester of laziness. And I have a few suggestions.

1: Gain a Sport

If you like a sport of half-follow it, get more into it. It’s baseball season, for example. Watch, read, study. Get a glove and a ball and some friends and get into it. Put in some energy and work to enjoying and gaining a sport to follow and enjoy, as a player and fan for the rest of your days. It’s great homework and can be done with a beer in hand or on a couch. Can’t ask for more than that.

2: Learn Movies

Pick a director or a genre and finally watch them. Don’t IMDB the quotes or wikipedia the plot: watch them and get into them. Find the classics and what made them classics and finally pick up on all those Simpsons and Arrested Development references you only have-got before. It’s something you can enjoy and show off at the same time.

3: Bar-tend

Bartending is a skill that can be used as a job, used to impress friends and ladies, used to make your own alcohol delicious, and will promise your attendance at parties as a plus. It’s also a great excuse to drink a little more. Go for this  skill and master it. It’s well worth your time for all the above reasons and it’s worth springing for that extra effort for the mint or the better whiskey or to add some ice or whatever. Saying you’re a bartender is infinitely cooler than being a “drinking enthusiast.”

4: Create Art

Make one big accomplishment: a series of short stories, a play, a movie-script, an amazing rap mix-tape called Solid Gold Tank, hypothetically, and throw yourself into them. Even if you aren’t especially good, who cares? It’s the summer in college. Explore, try, and maybe succeed. You’ll have learned a lot about your field of focus and your own skills and all with a permanent thing for your personal resume and the resume of your soul. You could do worse.

5:  Catch Up

Read every book you were supposed to read and never actually got to. Okay, you won’t do that. But maybe handle those untied loose ends you always have been postponing. Finally get to the gym. Pay off that debt you’ve been ignoring. Sometimes catching up is just as good as moving forward and this summer is as good as any time to handle it. Sometimes gaining an area of expertise is as simple as removing an obstacle.

Whenever I’m using a friend’s computer, the first thing that I check is what apps they have running in their menubar to see if there is anything I’m missing or need to download. It’s kinda like the digital version of looking through their medicine cabinet. Today, I thought I’d share what I have running in my menubar, highlighting a few apps that I think are special and that you should try out if you get the chance this summer.

Droplr

Similar to CloudApp, Droplr is an menubar applet that lets you share images, documents and more via a short link (think d.pr/”random letters”). Droplr recently introduced a Pro version that gives you a massive 100GB storage limit as well as custom domain support (think yourname.com/”random letters”).

Dropbox

Everyone should already know about Dropbox, so I’m not going to even touch on it, beyond saying that it’s awesome and where I store just about every file I own in.

Fantastical

When in college, you’re bound to get a daily set of emails specifying changed TA office hours, optional lectures and club meetings. Fantastical makes entering these in a breeze. Just use natural wording, like “Calc Office Hours in College Building 3 from 4-5pm tomorrow” and it figures the rest out. It will show up in iCal as an appointment with all the information filled in.

Sidestep

I get antsy when I study in one place for a long period of time. I’m often found in obscure coffee shops in the neighboring areas, studying. While most offer Free Wifi, I wouldn’t consider that wifi secure enough to be doing online banking or checking up on my student account on. Sidestep lets you set up a VPN system that can seamlessly switch between a secure VPN tunnel or the direct wireless Internet. Setting up a secure VPN tunnel wasn’t too hard and can be done for just $1 via the instructions on their website. Once Sidestep detects I’m on an insecure network it will automatically switch me over to the VPN tunnel so my surfing stays private.

DragonDrop

With a cute name (if you say it fast you’ll get it), I’ve been testing out DragonDrop for few weeks now. Essentially it makes those awkward moments when you pick up something to drag and drop but don’t quite have the next window open a heck of a lot better. Just jiggle your mouse and the window appears which stores you dragged files until you can safely drop them on their correct destination.

That wraps up the few apps I have in my menubar. I’d love to see what apps you guys are using as well, so leave a comment!

Everyone loves Google’s search engine. It’s fast, powerful, and often very accurate. While it’s clearly the market leader, it’s also not the only option for web users. If you haven’t already heard of it, Bing is Microsoft’s answer to Google, and does some pretty interesting things that Google actually doesn’t right now. For example, you can hover over video results to give a quick preview of the video before watching. On top of that, Bing basically matches Google feature for feature, with its own versions of image, video, shopping, maps, etc. For the most part however, it returns very similar search results in comparison to Google.

Right now though, you may be asking yourself: “Why switch from Google if Bing isn’t fundamentally better in any way?” To entice more people to switch over to Bing, Microsoft has launched Bing Rewards, a program allowing users to sign up for a Windows Live account (or use their Facebook account) to earn credits for searching via Bing. After accumulating enough credits, you can trade them in for stuff like Amazon gift cards, Skype credit, and Microsoft Points.

Unfortunately, it’s going to take you quite a while to earn any decent prizes. A $2.50 Amazon gift card costs 275 credits. Right now, you can earn up to 16 credits a day without any bonuses, so it would take over 17 days just to earn $2.50 in Amazon money. Smaller prizes like Skype credit and free Redbox movie rentals start at a much more reasonable 100 credits. In any case, if the effort-reward ratio seems too great for you, just stick with Google. However, I figure that if I’m going to be searching anyways, I might as well get rewarded for it right? For not having to do any extra work, $5 Amazon money every month or so isn’t too shabby.

What do you think of Bing? Is it a capable contender to Google? Or is Bing just another search engine about to be crushed under the might of the market leader? Let us know in the comments!

Every year, Dropbox runs an online scavenger hunt filled with devious puzzles and challenging tests of logic. What’s the point of running like a mouse through Dropbox’s clever maze? Free cloud storage! Interested? Get started here.

Before you start, know that your life will be much easier if you have the Dropbox desktop client installed. As you work your way through the puzzles, Dropbox will automatically install a folder called Dropquest 2012 in your Dropbox, so make sure that doesn’t already exist before you start. While all the good prizes are already gone (like free 100GB, 20GB, etc.), everyone who completes Dropquest before June 2 is still eligible to get an extra 1GB free. Now before you go start your merry journey towards free space, know that this thing is hard. It took the first-place finisher just over four and a half hours to finish this thing without any hints and going at it full throttle.

To make your life a little easier, I’ve found some resources that will help you complete Dropquest while keeping your sanity intact. Check out Dropquest Guides for all the help you could ever want. The site offers three levels of help: 1) Hints, 2) Detailed Solutions, and 3) Just the Answers. Depending on if you actually want to challenge yourself or if you just want to get your free space as quickly as possible, go with what works best for your needs.

If you ever get stuck or are missing files, be sure to click the “Repair Dropquest Folder” link at the bottom of each Dropquest chapter page. Have fun and enjoy your free 1GB extra space!

Today, I’m back with three more nifty jailbreak tweaks I love using on my phone. Hope you enjoy them too!

Navigate from Maps – $1.99 – Download from BigBoss repo

The native iOS Maps app sucks compared to its Android counterpart. Reduce its crapiness by downloading Navigate from Maps, a tweak that allows you to use the power of Google’s location search, then easily transfer the result to a GPS app. The tweak will create a little button you can then press to send the info to your desired GPS app. It works with TomTom, Navigon, MotionX GPS Drive, Sygic, Metro View Australia, and Waze (which is free and highly recommended!)

PasswordPilot – Free – Download from BigBoss repo

Whenever I download a new app from the App Store, I hate having to go through the tedium of inputting my password (especially because it’s so long). If you’re not worried about your iTunes account getting rung up by unknowing friends or relatives, PasswordPilot allows you to skip Apple’s BS and automatically inputs your password for you when downloading anything from the App Store.

Weather Icon – Free – Download from ModMyi.com repo

Not so much useful as just a cool tweak, Weather Icon changes the icon of the stock Weather app on your Springboard to automatically update based on current conditions. Get a quick glance at the weather without even having to open the Weather app!

Enjoy the tweaks, and see you next time!

I am a hamburger enthusiast.

I’m guessing you are too. How could you not be, really? It’s the iconic American meal, and you can find it almost anywhere. A burger with fries, ketchup, and a Coke; a classic slice of Americana that tastes better than that sentence sounds.

But they can be even better. Assuming you make your own burgers, or even if you don’t, by switching up these few keys you can find your ideal burger. There’s no reason for good when better is right around the corner.

1: Change Up the Meat

I’m not saying you have to use Kobe beef- although you might want to- but there are tons of meat varieties you may be overlooking. Grass-fed or corn-fed changes the texture and taste of the meat, as does Angus or not. Of course there’s nothing wrong with good old American beef- if you haven’t tried the supermarket variety and fell in love, you’re missing the simplicity of the burger. And you didn’t hear it from me, but ground lamb works for lamb-burgers too.

2: Change the Style

…to medium rare. That is the proper way to eat hamburgers. Stop this “medium” nonsense and enjoy a burger the way it should be eaten.

3: Change the Toppings

Ketchup, onion, lettuce, tomato. All good. Cheese and bacon? Better. But you can add peanut butter, bacon, and fried bananas for an Elvis twist. Interested in breakfast with your lunch? A fried egg is a heck of a topping. Coleslaw is a tangy alternative to classic lettuce, and potato chips, crumpled on to your cheese burger adds a certain crunch the ten year old in you will love. Live a little: if it’s tasty, add it to a burger. It’s hard to go wrong with that.

4: Change The Mix

Some people just throw burgers on the grill or the skillet. And while that’s acceptable, there are too many ways to prep the burger before cooking to let that slide. You can (and should) consider mixing in spices to the meat itself: pepper, salt, crushed garlic, ketchup, the works. If you want it on or around your burger, you may want it in the meat itself. Some friends of mine put cheese in the middle before topping it with cheese. Try (cooked) bacon in the middle. It’s bacon-cheese-burger-inception, and if that hasn’t piqued your interest, well, than America has failed you.

5: Eat More Burgers

Practice makes perfect, and the more time with hamburgers, the more you’ll learn what you do and don’t like, what does and doesn’t work for you. Go for it. Rarely has homework been so delicious.

Summer is here, and a popular summer activity is going out to the lake or river. As an avid river goer, I have learned over the years what to bring along and what to leave out home. With all this useful knowledge I have made a list of the essential items you must have when trekking out to the river or lake. If you are hiking anywhere over a half a mile to the spot, you need a whole new list, so we’ll start with that.

Hiking

- Backpack: If you’re hiking out to the river, you’re going to want a backpack, this way you can put all your small things in there like your sunscreen, snacks, camera and what not. Now your hands are free and can be used to maneuver over big rocks and all that.

- Water: This seems obvious. Hiking makes you thirsty, but everyone forgets to bring water because the hike isn’t the main activity of the day. So, bring a good water bottle, and bring another one for your buddy because he’s going to forget one.

- Shoes: Sometimes to get to the cool swimming hole, you need to walk on weird rocks, or go up a steep hill, so bring some shoes you can hike in. Don’t bring flip flops.

- Troopers: Hiking on sharp river rocks for a mile to get to the “cool spot” is not for the lazies. Is your buddy’s girlfriend really up for the hike? Or, is she going to be afraid of poison oak and wear flip flops? Be careful of who you bring, and make sure they are troopers.

- Waterproof Thing: Water ruins electronics. I myself have lost three phones to the water over the years, so this year I bought one of these waterproof things. If you don’t want to buy something like that, you could also waterproof electronics with a couple condoms.

Not Hiking

Now if you’re not hiking far to the location, but just going to a spot where you park and you are there, then you probably do not need that stuff. This also opens up the opportunity to bring heavier larger things.

- Chair: Since you only have to lug the stuff around for about a minute, why not bring a chair and keep your butt from getting sandy.

- Cooler: Another heavy thing to bring. Keep your stuff cool.

However, when you are not hiking out to a spot you are probably just going to park by a bridge and walk thirty feet to the river. This means that anyone else could do the same thing and the river is going to be full of people, and nobody likes a crowded river.

- People: So, if you want the cool spot, you are going to need power in numbers. To do this, simply bring everybody and their mother.  You’re probably going to be competing with some high school bros, and having more people with you will help you get your own spot apart from everyone else at the river.

- Music: Music will also help drive people away a bit. So, bring a big boom box, or your buddy who plays guitar.

So, next time you head out to the water this summer keep this list in mind, have fun, and be safe and stuff.

Note: There are also some obvious things you should bring like food, sunscreen, bathing suit, a good attitude, and a towel if you need it.

I have now seen three college commencement speeches in my life, all on YouTube. Those speeches were by Steve Jobs, Michelle Obama and then today I watch Salman Khan’s speech at Rice University to the 2012 graduates.  Like any other commencement speech Khan had some general life advice for the college graduate’s futures. However, I found Khan’s speech to be greater than most of the average commencement speeches, as it seemed more personal advice to the graduates. I found this advice to be good advice to not just graduates, but ALL college students, and to all humans in general.

Increase Positivity  

Khan spoke of validating and empowering others.  A lot of people speak of doing random acts of kindness to strangers and to the people whom you are close with. Khan takes this idea one step further by saying, when you see someone do a random act of kindness, react to it. Tell the kind person that you appreciate what they did, and that will make them feel good for being good. This in turn creates a sort of chain reaction, causing that person to do more nice things, and others around them will also want to be nice and have that same recognition.

Be a Life Long Learner

Khan stresses that we should all enjoy learning, no matter what our age or state, and just always continue learning. The end of this term is here, or approaching for some of you, and that means you either get a long summer break or that you’re done with college forever. However, this does not mean we should stop learning.  Learning is great. Why would we not continue?  Even though school has ended we can all keep learning in many ways, like by reading, or watch Khan Academy videos. And now that we are not in school, learning will be a lot less stressful without tests and homework.

Put Life in Perspectives of the Universe

Life is tough, we  are always going to have setbacks and small stresses. Khan reminds us during his commencement speech to keep in mind who you are. Humans are a small blemish of history on a tiny planet in a ginormous universe. Is your broken phone really that big of a stress? Probably not. It sucks, but you’ll live.

I recommend watching Khan’s speech here, in order to gain a better sense of some of these ideas he shares.

Next week, we’ll discuss what humans can learn from Andy Samberg’s speech at Harvard.

It is that time of year to pack up apartments and dorms to move for the summer.  While the stress of finals may be over, the stress of how in the world you are going to pack up all of your stuff (how is it that you have so much stuff anyhow?!) and get it all home is just beginning.  Although I’m not moving this semester (yay for me!), I have moved so many times in my life that I am now a master packer.  Here are my three tips for packing up your dorm or apartment painlessly.

Organize:  This is the biggie and if you do it right, you’ll save yourself a world of stress if you take a moment to get organized.  The first step is to know when you are moving and where you are moving to.  The second step is to figure out what you are going to pack up and take with you.  Get rid of all the trash and broken things that can’t be used again.  Donate or sell anything that you don’t need or want.  If you have roommates, don’t forget to discuss who is taking what shared items (like a fridge or microwave).  How are you getting the rest of your stuff home?  Are you driving it home?  Will it all fit in your car or will you have to rent a truck?  Have you thought about shipping some things home (USPS has flat rate priority mail boxes that are reasonably priced)?  Now that all the extra stuff is taken care of, your space should only include the things you are packing.

Packing: Packing is like an extensive game of Tetris.  The key here is to make sure you find sturdy boxes that won’t fall apart easily.  I like to try for super markets or other stores for free boxes – the best time to get them is to go in the morning and ask the manager for them.  Get the boxes early because this time of the year is moving season and once the stores run out of boxes, you won’t be able to get any.  Often times, they’ll give the boxes to you for free.  Be sure to pack like items together and don’t forget to clearly label what is inside.  For things like dishes or cookware, make sure you use lots of newspaper or bubble wrap to ensure that it doesn’t break.

Fun: While packing certainly isn’t high on my list of fun things to do, you can make packing a lot more fun by doing some simple things like play music or invite a friend to help.  Music will help pass the time and help keep your energy up.  A friend offers company and a bit of help – but don’t forget to return the favor and offer to help when they begin to move.

Are you getting ready to pack up your place and move home?  Or are you staying put in your apartment?  How much stuff are you moving?  Any moving tips to offer?

[Photo Courtesy of Flickr User Steven DuBois and used with C.C. 2.0 License]