Let’s talk about some hacks for student life in halls!

I will cover my foodie hacks but there is an extra top tip at the end! 

My first top tip is FOOD PREP. No surprise, making two or three meals in advance can make your life way easier than you could imagine - you come back tired from your day, you've worked a lot and… here we go, you now need to cook because you're hungry but also feeling very lazy. 

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But thanks to 'yesterday-you', you have an entire meal left and you can happily have dinner by just putting your leftovers in the microwave of frying them in a pan. Because yeah, the second hack is that you can make your leftovers tastier by frying them. You never had crusty pasta? What a shame!

When it comes to meals, another piece of advice that can help is finding lots of different ideas for simple but diverse meals (not just having pasta every day) on…Pinterest! Is that the scoop? No. But I'm sure that most of you think that Pinterest has complicated recipes. Actually, if you really look closely, you'll be able to find easy, simple but tasty and yummy plates. I never imagined that pasta and chicken with some cream and herbs put in the oven could make such a delicious meal for two days at least?! If you want to try it, here's the link to the recipe. 

(Bonus tip: BBC Food is also great for students)

Next up - the power of the freezer! I started to make crêpes for breakfast and I'll usually do a lot and then freeze half so I have plenty prepared for the mornings - that way, you wake up and simply get them from the freezer straight to the pan and you have hot pancakes.

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For the more adventurous, why not try to make your own bread?! It’s not that hard, it will be slightly sticky at the beginning but it's worth it and having your own fresh bread is a dream! Just freeze some pieces and anytime you need bread, just put it in the oven.

One final, nice thing that you can try when it comes to mealtimes is if you're friends with your flatmates, one of you has to make a dish for everybody else! It's really nice if people in your flat are from all around the world and you get to try all lots of traditional dishes.

Before I leave you to try my food hacks, let’s talk about laundry. One thing I like to do to save me money is hand-wash clothes or underwear. There are some special detergents for this like Genie or Biotex (don’t try and hand-wash everything with the detergent you use in the washing machine- it will kill your clothes and your hands!) By hand-washing, it saves you time AND money, meaning you won’t waste a half-empty machine. (Bonus tip: Get yourself some 'Savon De Marseille' as it cleans almost every stain - you thought you'd ruined your favourite top but trust me, it's a lifesaver!)

I hope my hacks have helped to change some of your habits in halls, or at least, given you some ideas. Stay innovative and open-minded, who knows - you may end up making pancakes at midnight with your friends (true story!)