# Eating well for less as an Athabasca University student AU has no cafeteria, so your food budget is a grocery budget. A $50 to $75 a week system for home cooking, plus cheap eats near the Edmonton and Calgary learning centres and AUSU food support. --- Most university food guides rank cafeterias. Athabasca University doesn't have one. Its learning centres in Athabasca, Edmonton, and Calgary are offices, not campuses, and its 36,000 students eat at home, at work, or on the road between shifts. If you study at AU, your food budget is a grocery budget, and how you run it matters more than any restaurant list. Here's the system that works, plus where to eat cheap on the rare days you're actually at a learning centre. ## The grocery system for online students Distance learning removes the campus food court and everything that comes with it, which is a saving, and replaces it with a trap: when you study at home, the kitchen is ten steps away and the fridge decides how your afternoon goes. Two failure modes eat a student food budget: ordering delivery because you didn't plan, and grazing through a week of groceries in three days. AU's own bursary paperwork budgets a single student living away at $1,128 a month for rent, utilities, food, and transport combined. Rent takes most of that, which leaves roughly $300 a month for food. Here's how to make it hold: - **Cook one base, eat it three ways.** A pot of chili, a tray of roasted vegetables, a pot of rice. Cooking once and remixing it across three days is the single biggest lever on a $70 weekly food budget. - **Batch-cook on your easiest day.** Since your course runs on your schedule, pick your lightest evening of the week and cook for three or four days. Studying is easier when lunch is already made. - **Keep a $5 emergency meal.** Frozen dumplings, canned soup, eggs. The reason delivery apps win is the gap between "I'm hungry now" and any plan. Close the gap in your freezer. - **Shop one store, once a week.** Hitting three stores for deals costs bus fare or gas and an afternoon. One list, one trip. - **Budget in the fee you forgot.** AU course fees include textbooks, so food money doesn't compete with a surprise $200 textbook like it does at other schools. That's a real advantage; don't give it back to DoorDash. A realistic single-student grocery total in Alberta is $50 to $75 a week if you cook. It holds up fine against what a campus meal plan would have cost you. ## Cheap eats near the learning centres You'll visit a learning centre maybe a handful of times: an in-person exam, a library pickup, a lab course. When you do: **Edmonton Learning Centre** sits downtown at 109 Street and 102 Avenue, which is walking distance from some of the city's cheapest good food. The Enter Centre food hall on 102 Avenue has options under $15, and the chains along Jasper Avenue run lunch specials under $12. MacEwan's corner of downtown has coffee shops that don't charge downtown-office prices if you know the ones a block off the main drag. **Calgary Learning Centre** is on the 6th floor of the Bow Valley College building at 345 6 Avenue SE, which puts you at the edge of the East Village. The riverside blocks east of it have coffee and sandwiches under $12: Phil & Sebastian, Good Earth, and the bakeries in the Simmons Building area. Bow Valley College's own food services, a floor or two below AU's office, are priced for students. **Athabasca campus** is a small town, and the options reflect that. Save-On-Foods downtown covers groceries if you're in town for a multi-day lab, and 49th Street Grill and Jack's Burger Shack do hot meals under $15. But plan your lab days around groceries, not restaurants. If you're staying in Athabasca for a science lab, the AUSU lunch support program can cover meals, and booking the $50-a-night billet beats a hotel by a mile. ## AUSU: the student union that shows up as money The Athabasca University Students' Union is worth knowing about because its benefits are cash-shaped: - **Food Assistance Program.** A virtual food-insecurity support program for AU undergrads, applying through AwardForce. No cafeteria means the support comes as grocery help instead. - **Lunch Support for In-Person Labs.** Covers meals for students travelling to labs in Athabasca. - **Member savings.** Direct2U pharmacy with preferred pricing and free delivery, eyewear discounts, and a Student Price Card. AUSU costs you nothing separately: its fee ($13.50 on a 3-credit course) is already inside the course fee you paid. Use the programs it runs. ## The bottom line Eating cheap at AU is eating cheap anywhere: cook once, eat three times, keep an emergency meal, shop once a week. The learning-centre food scene is a nice bonus, not the plan. And unlike a campus school, nothing about AU forces a $2,000 meal plan into your budget. The money you don't spend on campus food is the money that pays for your next course. ## Sources - [AUSU Food Assistance Program](https://ausu.org/services/food-assistance-program) - [AUSU services](https://www.ausu.org/services) - [AU bursary budget worksheet](https://www.athabascau.ca/support-services/_documents/student-awards/app-au-community-contributor-bursary-v-aug-08-2019.pdf) - [AU campuses and locations](https://www.athabascau.ca/contact/campuses.html) - [AU science lab accommodations](https://www.athabascau.ca/science-and-technology/resources/centre-for-science/labs/science-lab-accommodations/index.html) - [AU at a glance](https://www.athabascau.ca/about-au/glance.html)