Winterlicious-Toronto Meals Cheap

So for all of my readers that live in Toronto you definitely need to make sure you check out Winterlicious. Running between January 25-February 7th 2013 there are a variety of restaurants that take part and provide most often a relatively inexpensive meal.

How does Winterlicious work?

Basically an assortment of restaurants within the city of Toronto develop prix fixe menu's for Lunch, Dinner or both between $15-$25 for Lunch and $25-$45 for Dinner. Choose the restaurant you want to go to, make sure to make a reservation and then your good to go.

Check out of few of these more popular places that you have heard of.

Bier Market- $20 Lunch & $35 Dinner

Drake Hotel- $20 Lunch & $35 Dinner

Spice Route- $15 Lunch & $25 Dinner 

If those don't interest you, you can check out the other 188 restaurants available here

Before booking make sure to check out Yelp.com to make sure the restaurants have good ratings.

Also make sure to book early since spots often fill up quickly.

Overall it's a great idea for a possible cheap date, or a great night out with friends instead of going to your standard chain restaurant. All of the prix fixe menu's come with an appetizer, entree and dessert as well which is always nice, because I know as a student I usually opt out of dessert and an app because I know I can't afford it.

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Greek Yogurt: Cheap Students style

So I'm sure a lot of people that read this blog are aware of Greek yogurt, but like me may buy it as more of a treat since it costs almost double or triple the price of regular yogurt. It's definitely a product that doesn't fit within the Cheap Student lifestyle.

When you aren't able to snag a container on sale or with a coupon try to make some yourself for a lot less.

Here's a recipe I have used before, and if strained enough can also be used as a yogurt cheese type spread. A tip. Warn your roommates what your contraption in the fridge is, one of my roommates may have gotten a really nasty yogurt drippings surprise one time, it didn't end well..

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What you need;

• A small strainer
• A container of plain yogurt, for healthier options choose organic or fat free versions
• Cheesecloth, or for broke students a few sheets length of paper towel. (you may be able to find cheesecloths from Dollarama though)
• A decent size bowl (to catch the drippings, yeah I know its nasty, but its just moisture so don't be scared)

What to do.

1. Line your strainer with the doubled or tripled paper towel sheet. 
2. Place the strainer so it can drain into the bowl (you don't want your straining yogurt sitting inside the liquid that dripped out of it).
3. Once the strainer is set up and ready to go in the bowl, scoop a large amount of plain yogurt so it sits in the middle of the paper towel within the strainer.
4. Cover the strainer with some paper towel

Now put the contraption into the fridge and let the magic happen. The longer you wait the more moisture drains from the yogurt and the thicker it gets. About every 8 hours or so squeeze the "ball" of yogurt to remove moisture and replace the paper towel, and empty the bowl filled with moisture.

For some added flavour you can add spices (maybe some cinnamon?), or garlic powder and herbs (if you want to make it into a spread). I'm going to try a few combinations and will definitely post photo's and reviews when I do.

Once its at your desired thickness. Add honey, berries or anything else you normally eat greek yogurt with.

It will literally cost you the container of plain yogurt and maybe the paper towel and a new small strainer from Dollarama if you don't have one already.

Plain yogurt is usually on sale and about 2 dollars for a large tub (or less). The amount of "Greek" yogurt you can get out of it is worth your money and even if it takes a little bit of time and effort.

Hope this helps!

If you have any other great cheap recipes feel free to send them to cheapstudentcanada@gmail.com and they could be featured on the blog.

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Simple and Easy Ways to Save on Food

Food is definitely something that I talk about it a lot, and it's obvious from the variety of  posts that I have already written on the topic. I decided as part of the new way I was going to write on this blog was to make things succinct, to the point and easy for readers to follow. So here are some general things that I think about when I go to the grocery store.

• Purchase generic brand or private label products instead of name brand foods

• Yes I know everyone thinks the No Name brand tastes like crap, but that's exactly what they want you to think because of the millions they spend on branding each year. What's often the case is the same company that produces private label/no name food often has their own name brand product or is the name brand product you always buy just minus the flashy packaging. 

• Purchase full fruit instead of cut up packaged versions
• Please don't be extremely lazy. You can buy a full pineapple for $1 on sale at No Frills or pre cut pineapple for almost $3-$5. Oh and fruit trays are extremely expensive too, so please don't buy them. 
• Buy a big bag of regular carrots, peel and cut them. It will turn out to be a lot cheaper than the $2-3 dollar bag of baby carrots.
• Check out this site on how to cut an avocado, pineapple and mango, because yes I know they are annoying to cut.

• Buy in Bulk
• For the most part, buying in bulk will save you money. This is often the case with meat products. Of course your thinking, I don't need 8 chicken breasts. Well eventually you do. Buy ziploc bags and bag up the meat in meal size portions and you have meat for a while and you've saved by buying in bulk and probably getting it on sale as well.
• You can also buy yourself a really large piece of pork and cut your own pork chops and once again bag them in individual portions. Check out the video here
• Don't Buy in Bulk
• Yup I know, I'm contradicting myself, but there are situations where buying in bulk may not be your cheapest option. Costco is one example. It's really important to know your prices when you go to Costco because some products aren't that cheap, it just seems cheap because its a massive box. A few products I have found at Costco that are a great deal is Liberte Greek Yogurt, 2 Tubs for about you $7.50 I believe, or 3kg of Oatmeal for $7 approximately as well. Know your prices and you will be fine
• Also when using coupons it actually makes more sense to purchase smaller formats of the products and use more coupons. Instead of saving $0.50 on a $4 item, buy the smaller format at $2 and save more if you are using multiple coupons on multiple smaller formats.
• Don't Go For Variety
• I've learned this the hard way. I thought I was going to be a gourmet chef and would make a variety of meals all the time. And of course I didn't finish a bunch of food I purchased, it went bad and all the ingredients cost me quite a lot more. If you stick to a few staples and go for less variety you end up spending less and using it up without dumping half of it in the garbage. Your a student not a chef.

Also another tip when you really need to buy something and it's not on sale, make sure to check the unit price of the product which is often in grams or kg.


This is a great way to compare 2 products and determine which is less expensive based on the cost per oz, lb, g or kg. A product that costs. $0.263 per oz is cheaper than a product that costs about $0.5 per oz

How do you save on food?

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Subletting a Rental

Some students may never have to worry about subletting their rental, while others especially those that go on exchanges, are in co-op or only take a final part year may have to do so. Here are some tips and tricks on how to sublet your room  in order to save some money when you aren't living in your home. Make sure to also speak with your landlord before you start thinking about posting an ad, your landlord may not want subletters at all which could prevent you from doing so.

Posting your ad
Make sure to choose a classified site that a large proportion of your student body frequents. This could be a school affiliated classified site, or by using kijiji and craigslist. It's also a great option to consider posting a listing within the Facebook group you joined with all the other members of your graduating class.

When posting your ad its really important to include the following information;

• General location
• Distance to the school and the closest bus stop
• Which buses/subways take you to the school
• Amenities available ie. kitchen, laundry, parking etc.
• Efficiency of heating etc.
• Rental price per month
• Specify if utilities are included
• How many other rooms are in the house
• If you have a preference include student, male or female etc.
• Dates the sublet is available
• And Contact Information!

Screening potential candidates
An important thing that may slip your mind at first is the compatibility that the candidate has with your current roommates. It's important to ask a few questions like, why are you subletting? Are you a university student?
The more easy going an individual is, the more likely they will fit in with a group of strangers. It's important to choose subletters at your own discretion  and you may even want to request a reference from their previous landlord if you're really unsure. It's also a bad sign when you get an extremely sketchy response to the initial posting, it may be a sign that that individual should just be off the list immediately.

Setting up viewings
Communicate with possible subletters through whatever means necessary and set up viewings of your room. I know I'm a messy person, everyone tells me that, but you need to pretend like your a real estate agent selling a house. Make sure your room looks amazing, it's going to be a much easier sell. Make sure to have information on hand about the type of heating system, the average monthly utility costs etc. These are questions that subletters will ask.

Finalizing the deal
Always make sure you form a contract with a sublet.

You can use a template like the link below
http://studentlife.uoguelph.ca/sites/uoguelph.ca.ocl/files/SubletAgreement08.pdf

Also it's important to determine a payment plan in terms of both utilities and monthly rent, which should be included within your contract. The safer the better, and in most cases it's a great idea to request post dated cheques as well as the last months rent in order to confirm that the subletter will actually pay you. Make sure to contact your landlord and let them know that an individual has been confirmed as a sublet.
Provide the subletter with e-mails or some other contact information so they can get in touch with their future roommates if need be (this is optional).

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