Eating properly in a PG on Rs 120 a day (a practical, slightly boring guide)

Let me start with a confession. For the first three months of my second attempt, my diet was: tea, biscuits, a heavy lunch from the tiffin guy, tea, a packet of chips at 6 pm, a rushed dinner, and tea again. I told myself I was "too busy to eat properly." Then in October I nearly fainted in a Physics class and the teacher made me sit down and drink water. I was so embarrassed.

I'm not a dietician. I'm just a guy from Mumbai who now lives in a shared PG room and tries to make Rs 120 a day cover three meals. If you have a medical condition or special dietary needs, please talk to a doctor or a dietician, not a student blog. What follows is only what worked for my wallet and my routine.

The basic idea

My rule: I don't try to eat "perfectly." I try to eat "enough, regular, and not only carbs."

Most of us in PGs and hostels have a similar problem. The mess food is heavy on rice and roti, light on protein and vegetables, and the timings are weird. The tiffin lady is kind but there's only so much she can do. Meanwhile we're studying for hours, and a body that gets only tea and biscuits at 4 pm will crash at 5.

My day, roughly

Time	What	Approx. cost
7:00 am	2 boiled eggs or a banana + peanuts, chai	Rs 12-18
1:00 pm	Mess/tiffin lunch (roti, dal, sabzi, rice)	Rs 50
4:30 pm	Roasted chana or a fruit, water	Rs 10-15
8:30 pm	Mess dinner or something I cook	Rs 35-40
Before bed	Glass of milk (if I can get it)	Rs 10

Total hovers around Rs 120. Some days more, some days less. Prices vary by city and week, so treat these as rough.

The five things that actually changed my energy

1. Breakfast, even if tiny. I used to skip it. Now I eat something with a bit of protein: boiled eggs, a handful of peanuts, a sprouts bowl if I've soaked them. I'm not claiming it makes me smarter. I'm saying I stopped feeling shaky in the first lecture.

2. A snack that isn't a packet. Roasted chana, peanuts, a banana, makhana, a small bag of puffed rice with onion. All very cheap. Chips are not evil, they just don't keep me full for two hours. Roasted chana does.

3. Water. A lot more than I thought. I'd go through a four hour study block without drinking any water and then wonder why I had a headache. I now keep a one litre bottle on the desk and try to finish it by lunch and again by dinner. (If you have a medical reason to limit fluids, obviously ignore this and ask your doctor.)

4. Fruit and vegetables where I can. The mess sabzi often has little to show for itself. I buy one seasonal fruit a day, whichever is cheapest. Guava, banana, papaya in season. Cucumber with salt is cheaper than almost any snack and surprisingly satisfying.

5. Not skipping dinner. I used to skip it on test days because I felt too stressed to eat. That made me wake up at 3 am hungry, with a pounding heart, and unable to sleep. Eating a smaller dinner is better than none, at least for me.

What about the stove?

Our PG allows one induction stove per floor. A few of us share. Some cheap things I can make in 15 minutes:

• Egg bhurji with a roti or bread
• Poha with peanuts and a bit of lemon
• Moong dal khichdi in one pot, with a spoon of ghee if you have it
• Sprouts salad (soak overnight, boil for a few minutes, add onion, tomato, salt, lemon)
• Curd rice on hot days
• Dalia with milk or with vegetables

If you're vegetarian, curd, paneer when you can afford it, dal, chana, rajma, soya chunks and milk are good protein sources. If you eat eggs, they're cheap and fast. I'm saying this as someone who has stared at the price of paneer and quietly walked away.

The "mess food" problem

Honestly I stopped fighting the mess. The mess is the base, and I add one or two things on top of it: an extra boiled egg, a bowl of curd from the shop, or a fruit. That alone moved the needle more than trying to replace the mess completely.

Also, a point nobody asks: hygiene. If a tiffin place or street shop makes you ill, don't keep going back "because it's cheap." A stomach infection in the middle of a test series costs far more than the Rs 20 you saved. Wash your hands and be careful with water. If a mess is genuinely unclean or unsafe, tell the warden or your parents.

Skipping meals when stressed

This one is not about budget. A lot of us stop eating when we're anxious, especially the week before an exam. Some of us do the opposite and eat constantly at night. Both are very common, and neither makes you weak. But if you notice that your eating has changed a lot for weeks, if you're skipping meals most days or feeling guilty about food or your body, please talk to a parent, a doctor or a counsellor. It's the same as with sleep: patterns that last are worth getting checked.

Small hack list (bonus)

• Buy a cheap steel tiffin or box, so you can carry a snack to the library.
• Keep a bag of peanuts and a packet of dates on the shelf. Cheap, and no cooking.
• Split big purchases with roommates (milk packets, bananas by the dozen).
• Make a Sunday list: what will I eat Monday to Wednesday? A rough plan helps you avoid the 8 pm panic order of Maggi.
• Drink water before you drink tea.

Does this make me a topper?

No. It makes me a person who can sit through a three hour paper without a shaky hand, and that is already a lot. In the end, you're not trying to be a food influencer, you're trying to keep your body running on a budget.

If you've got a trick for eating well on very little money, put it in the comments. I'm genuinely collecting them, and my notes app is hungry (pun intended, sorry).