I was planning to purchase the meal plan for my dd but a few people along the way have said it’s not worth it. I did a rough estimate of the cost of the meal plan which came out to about $20 a day which seems reasonable to me. She doesn’t want to cook. She is a vegan (if you are unfamiliar, she doesn’t eat any animal products - no meat, fish, cheese, or eggs,). She eats a lot of fruits, veggies, beans, tofu, quinoa, etc. Any thoughts on the meal plan? She’d be perfectly happy with a really nice salad bar.
My DD14 lived in the dorm as a freshman and didn’t get the meal plan. Each week she, with her roommate, would take the bus to Winn Dixie or Publix and buy groceries (neither had a car). They had mini fridges (one, but by the 2nd semester, each had their own) to keep the food and drinks. They both enjoyed cooking, etc.
My DS17, on the other hand, doesn’t cook, so we’re thinking of doing the meal plan. I can’t see him making it a priority to get fresh produce, each week, and then preparing it. He’s much more likely to live off ramen noodles, can soup and cold pizza. However, at some point, he has to learn…perhaps his freshman year is as good as any (before he moves into an apartment).
Does she already have a roommate? If so, what they do may influence your choice.
@Gator88NE Just curious, I’ve been seeing the term DS# or DD#. I assumed it was Daughter/Son and their graduation date but I’m not sure. What’s the D at the beginning mean?
A different experience from @Gator88NE .My Gator son, though not a vegan, had the meal plan his freshman year and recommends it.(he never would have eaten if he needed to shop & prepare his own meals his freshman year!) No, the food isn’t like mom’s and can sometimes be repetitive but the convenience is a huge plus with the demands of studying and all the fun things going on on campus! I also think friendships are developed around those dining hall tables. My son & his friends adored the cookies for study breaks & still talk about them.
We will be choosing the meal plan for our DD who is an entering freshman. Too much fun to be had. Too easy to just dash in to Gator Dining and eat!
My daughter did it for one year. After fall semester she realized she could eat better if I just gave her the cash from the meal plan. If you take the plan in the fall you must take it in the spring. In the spring they allowed her to change her plan from unlimited to a declining in balance plan. She was able to use that money more efficiently. All in all she has lived well for about half of what the meal plan costs.
My D is a vegan freshman at UF. She spoke to a lot of older students and decided on declining balance as opposed to a meal plan. A lot of parents and students at UF have been a little disenchanted with the meal plan. She has a mini fridge with a small freezer on top. She goes to Trader Joe’s and has found a lot of vegan friendly restaurants. She also eats a lot of Krishna food on campus at the Plaza of the Americas. It is $4 a day I think and you can eat and take food home with you in your own container. They have vegan and vegetarian options.
Hope this helps! She is moving off campus this fall to have a full kitchen. Which will make life easier.
To me I always felt it was quite expensive to eat a fresh healthy diet. That is a major problem for inner city poor in that it oftentimes costs more to eat healthy than it does to eat mass produced food. Does it really save that much to have her buying all the items herself?
My D saved a lot by fixing her own meals. However, it did require that she go shopping each week for fresh produce, and prepare her own meals (often with her roommate).
My S, on the other hand, is likely to live off Ramen noodles, dry cereal, and cold pizza (and be happy about it), unless we get him the meal plan. If we don’t get him the meal plan, it’s because his 4th year engineering sister will be coming by each week and forcing him to go out shopping for groceries.
Krishnas have been serving meals on the plaza for over 30 plus years. The price used to be fifty cents! Yes, anybody can buy–just realize you are supporting them
when I was a student about 30 years ago, the Krishna food was free but they requested donations. I gave a dollar when I had one and ate for free when I didn’t. I’m not a vegan, but the food was very good. Also, they never tried to preach to you or convert you.
I’m a vegetarian living on campus, and although I’m not totally vegan, I’d suggest not doing a meal plan, or doing declining balance if you do any meal plan at all. It isn’t a bad deal, but honestly you just get tired of the same choices and it is smarter and nicer in my opinion to spend money elsewhere! Yes there’s a salad bar and one vegan meal option in the dining hall, but I’d rather walk to midtown (I recommend Murphree Area for the convenience of being across the street from so much food) and get a really good salad for less, and the vegan meal choice just rotates and gets old pretty fast. I take the bus to Publix once a week and get food to make for lunch, and Krishna has great vegan options. It is “free”, but requires a donation of $4, or you can get a punch card and $20 for 5 meals. There are some good aspects to the meal plan, but I prefer options to them. Sometimes I’d rather walk over and get Planet Smoothie rather Jamba Juice, or Jimmy Johns instead of Subway. And a lot of the places in Midtown have good vegan options from what I’ve come to learn!
for those who have had a meal plan - I noticed the meal plan allows a certain combo meal from places like Pollo Tropical, Wendy’s, and Papa Johns at either lunch or dinner times, but they don’t list what type of combo you get. Is it like a 6 in. sub combo at Subway or a hamburger meal at Wendy’s, or are there multiple choices?
@RCGator - At Subway you have 6 or 7 different 6 inch sub options and get chips and a drink with the meal plan that you can use for lunch or dinner, at Wendys you have 3 or 4 different meal options you can get once a day, at Pollo it is up to $6 in food once a day, which means most people get the bowl thing from there because it is about 6$, at Jamba you can get a medium size of any smoothie except ones with boosters in them, at Moes it is up to $6 in food, and it is a similar kind of thing for most places, either so much money in food or they give a few options. But how these things work, like how much or what you get, changes from year to year from my understanding!
