If you want to IF that’s fine.But… i would explore low cost high protein options first. You mention that you are students— a lot of colleges have good pantries, and there are also food banks. Some food won’t be super nutritious, but it would stretch your food budget.
When I was a student I ate a lot of beans & rice, and even now I will make a big pot of lentil soup or chili because it’s easy, filling and high protein w/ veggies.
I found a great cookbook from the 1940s today at a yard sale and it has a lot of good recipes for that era of lower income times. Look into some more classic recipes or try to find a cookbook at a thrift store that has good cheap recipes like that. They are creative, fun, well rounded & cheap. It’s also vitamin focused. The lindlahr vitamin cookbook, but a lot of older cookbooks in thrift stores are similar conceptually.
eggs, dried beans / lentils, rice / pasta, frozen veggies when you can. Im sure if you have a university you have a bus, or a friend that can drive you to a store once a month or so.
Look into other charities or food help? I think doing IF for financial reasons is not a great idea if you’re young and dont need to lose weight.
FWIW I fast completely 2 x a week, sometimes 3 times, and I find myself feeling worse if I fast too often. 2 X is a sweet spot for me (note: I am also still overweight, once Im at GW I will do 1 time a week)
I currently do a variation on alternate day fasting, basically 36 hours 3x a week. I don’t eat on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays. I do it for health reasons, one of which is weight loss, but I have noticed that I spend considerably less on food. I think it’s important to note that I don’t overeat to compensate on other days. I also stick to high protein and high healthy fats, which I consider to be fat comprised mostly of mono or poly unsaturated fat, as the jury is still out on saturated fats. So I think buying eggs, beans, tofu, chicken, or fish, and having cheese and even drinking a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil every day or before eating every meal will result in you and your boyfriend feeling full and satiated for less money. Loading up on pasta and rice has, in my experience, caused me to become hungry very quickly. I haven’t lost much productivity on days when I fast but it did take time for me to become acclimated, and not feel so weak all the time, so if you’re starting school in October maybe trying this out sooner rather than later might be in your best interest.
Best of luck!
No matter your reason for fasting, you will benefit from fasting in this way. If your goal is to lose weight, you will with the added benefit of cost savings. Fasting may actually help with studying as it can clear up “brain fog”. Look up the benefits of fasting and you will find that there are quite a few.
I agree with all of the comments about raising your protein levels. You can actually save money by boosting protein because it is more filling than carbs. You will be far more satisfied with a dinner of chicken and veggies then you would with pasta, and probably would eat less comparatively. And as others have said, dried beans and lentils are super cheap, probably the cheapest food you can purchase, and if you have a pot with a lid you can make them. You don’t need an instant pot or a pressure cooker or anything else.
However, I would disagree with several people who say this would be a great reason to do IF. Unless you’re doing multi-day fasting, you should really be consuming the same calories as you would otherwise. In other words, if you’re doing IF on a daily basis where you’re doing time-restricted eating (say one meal a day), that one meal should in theory contain as many calories as if you were eating breakfast lunch and dinner.
If you’re doing extended day fasting, you don’t have to consume as many calories overall, but doing this regularly Isn’t necessarily a good choice for many people and it would suck to have to do it to survive. In other words, if you’re doing it for financial reasons I would question sustainability of it long term, and wonder if it wouldn’t just make you crave food and resent your situation even more.
And as IF experts will tell you, you should always stop a fast if you’re feeling uncomfortable, dizzy, etc. So you would need to have on hand healthy and nutritious food pretty much at all times, even if you weren’t eating it. (Also, if you’re ending an extended fast, you wouldn’t want to fill up on simple carbs like pasta afterwards. You would crash so hard.)
Pasta and rice and veggies is a peasant diet that is lacking in energy and nutrition - better would be to eat cheap ground beef and cheap cuts of meat like chicken or chuck roasts. You can easily (after getting used to low carb eating, which can take a week or so to adapt to) eat that once per day or even every other day