<p>Malapropism’s line of reasoning is entirely correct. In the past, housing and dining even offered discounts (in the form of extra meals) if you signed up for a meal plan within the first week or two of the new semester.</p>
<p>As for your questions:</p>
<p>1) After first year (when everyone has to have a meal plan) I ate in the dining halls 1-2 times a year on average, usually towards the end of the semester when the friends who had bought meal plans realized that they wouldn’t finish the remaining number of meals before they expired.</p>
<p>2) I think the cheapest prepared meal to be had in the area is a slice of pizza from Koronet’s or Chicken and Rice from one of the Halal food carts (I’m not suggesting that you do this though). After my first year, I spent on average $10-$20 dollars on food per day when I wasn’t cooking.</p>
<p>3) Depends on your tastes and habits. I know someone who spent $30 bucks a day on food and others who spent $5. I spent a few weeks spending only ~$3/day when I cooked (not including initial outlay for equipment and basic ingredients like oil, salt, etc.) I’d say that if you ate prepared food for every meal, $20/day should be enough for 90% of people.</p>
<p>4) Yes but it’s very expensive. I’ve never done it but from what I remember, the number is like $14/meal? Someone check me on that. If you are out of meals, it’s more economical to just get a sandwich from Cafe 212 or any of the gajillion sandwich places on Broadway or Amsterdam.</p>
<p>5) Don’t overestimate how much time you’ll be able to dedicate to cooking. When done properly, cooking for yourself can be a cheap, fun and social way to take care of a basic need but isn’t always feasible when you’re low on time. If you are planning to cook for yourself, make friends with like-minded people and try and share the cost of the initial outlay as well as the time burden in prepping, cooking and cleaning. There are a few clubs and organizations on campus that ostensibly facilitate this like the Culinary Society or Potluck House.</p>
<p>Dining hall food can get VERY boring and you’ll find that after freshman year, very students purchase dining plans. What this means is that if you do have a dining plan, you might end up eating by yourself for every meal (unless you make friends with some first years). Now, you can also do take-out boxes but this means that basically you’re giving up the all-you-can-eat benefit of the meal plan for the freedom and convenience of deciding when and where to eat. This isn’t so bad but you’re still paying the all-you-can-eat price.</p>
<p>Finally, I don’t know ANYONE with a meal plan who was able to finish all of their meals before the semester ended. Even my RA friends (who get something like 40 meals / semester if they are in a first-year dorm) were struggling to finish all their meals by the end of the year. </p>
<p>All that said, I think that a meal plan can be a good idea for you as a backup option since you’re a transfer and don’t necessarily want to be worrying about finding food in a new neighborhood for the first few weeks that you’re settling in. I’d just get the cheapest meal plan, eat in the dining halls for the first week or two while you’re making friends and figuring where grocery stores. Then, you can use the remaining meals as a way to make new friends (even though we don’t really like the food, cu students are very happy to accept a free meal swipe) or as a backup when you’re short for time (like during midterms or finals week).</p>
<p>Hope that helps and congrats on Columbia.</p>