Homo student or homo ecology - Part 0

Since I arrived I have been wondering how much is this "Unileben" (student lifestyle) is going to cost me. Yes, again the money was my very first concern and I wasn't the only one in Freiburg (home of one of the oldest universities in whole Germany) trying to figure that out.

It has been almost two months and I'm still asking myself the very same question and I'm still doing nothing. But that's about to change! Not only because I believe students can eat good healthy food without giving away huge (for students) amounts of money, but because I felt horrible eating again the most famous meal among stressed-out students: spaghetti and tomato sauce (or in German: Nuddeln und Tomatensosse).

Are there any given steps to jump off the crazy train to self-destruction (yeah guys! eating this junk is self destruction!)? I don't know! But as some friends told me so many times: you know everything and if you don't you make it up! So, let's start my own steps-to-follow list!

1. Stop considering the discounters the first/best/only option:


As many of you may (or may not) know, the Germans love discounters. As a matter of fact, buying your groceries in Aldi, Lidl, Penny Markt (am I missing any...?) is part of the normal shopping.  Not that in other countries in all regions of the world doesn't. Just, since I will be living here for the coming years I will just focus on this society and lifestyle.

Shopping in Aldi instead of shopping in Edeka does make a difference for your pocket, specially if you are a student that has to count every single eurocent every day. But what about health? Aren't we supposed to eat properly in order to learn more and get the best out of each lesson? Is the price of groceries tied to the quality of food? Or are we the students just too lazy to actually pay attention and care about getting the best out of our money and time?

The first step to try to answer this questions is definitely: stop justifying yourself with the classical sentence "I don't have time because of my homework and tests!" And that's exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow (one day before my second modular test). I will go just for half an hour to Penny Markt and I will pay attention to the content, price and homeland of the cheese and coffee I regularly buy.

I will keep you posted on this first, and all the coming, attempts.