<p>How much do you spend for food when you live off campus? Do you include some sort of debit meal plan? Full mean plan is 2900/semester. Would that be more than enough for my daughter, excluding dining out? She eats healthy - organic food, fresh fruit, very little sandwich meat.</p>
<p>I can’t give you an exact number but I can tell you about my eating habits and maybe you can guess from there. The difference between males and females living in Collegetown is that a lot of males in Greek houses still eat at their fraternites Sun-Thurs for dinner, whereas sororities do not offer this to their upperclass members. Anyway, I’d recommend signing your daughter up for the meal plan that is 500BRBs plus 10 meals per SEMESTER. This gives her the opportunity to eat at the a-la-carte places on campus such as Trillium, Ivy Room, Statler, etc. She can grab a meal and go or sit down and eat it. She can also grab coffee and a snack from Libe Cafe. On top of this I would recommend signing her up for CityBucks. CityBucks acts as a pre-paid debit card. Either you or her can add money to the card (same as your Cornell ID card). You can then use your card to pay for items at CTB, Ruloffs, Jason’s, Plum Tree, and a bunch of other places in collegetown. BRBs + CityBucks works great because you only need to carry around 1 card. I’d also expect that every week or so she would want to go grocery shopping with her roommates at Wegmans. Girls tend to cook a lot more than guys.</p>
<p>Thanks. Anyone else outside of fraternity? She will be having a few meals at her sorority, but will be mostly on her own. On the parents board, many parents are posting $50/week. I am very dubious of the amount. 2900/semester works out to be arund 150/week. Is Cornell over charging or kids on their own are starving?</p>
<p>I had the cheapest Collegetown Debit Plan (I think around $500/semester plus 10 meals). I spent a lot on groceries…but that’s because I suffer from a digestive disorder and have to follow a special diet. So that won’t give you an accurate representation of money needed for groceries :)</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s necessary for your daughter to have a full-blown meal plan. I used the debit plan for lunch and coffee breaks and made my own dinners.</p>
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<p>I think that it is always less expensive to be buying groceries and cooking your own food rather than buying hot, prepared meals. If your daughter plans to go grocery shopping and cook a lot of her own dinners, then you simply need to calculate how much it would cost to go grocery shopping once every week or two for those meals. You mentioned that she eats mostly organic food, which, of course, usually costs a bit more. Then, you can add BRBs for lunches on campus (I believe you can replenish these throughout the semester, as the need arises). For breakfast, the costs will depend on whether your daughter plans to eat cereal at home most of the time before class, grab a bagel somewhere or eat a full breakfast on campus. I would question whether your daughter would even need to have a meal plan that includes actual cafeteria meals – would she plan to visit cafeterias after she is living off campus? Is there anywhere she would eat where she couldn’t just use BRBs?</p>
<p>Also, you might consider stocking her up with some basics at the beginning of the semester – nonperishables from Costco or Sam’s, for example, that would be good staples if she couldn’t get down to Wegman’s sometime.</p>
<p>The amount of money for food that students need when living off campus varies wildly from student to student.</p>
<p>Maybe I am not asking it correctly here. I am trying to give my daughter a reasonable budget for her food. I don’t really care if she has a full meal plan or cooks all of her meals. Is 50/week too little, or is 150/week too much? Don’t necessary want her to make money on this deal, but want to make sure she won’t starve.</p>
<p>$150/week is a lot. I got by just fine on $50/week. Of course, I didn’t dine out that often. If your daughter eats a lot of organic food, I would give her a little more than $50/week.</p>
<p>work up an average weekly menu and look at how much it works out to be. </p>
<p>i think 80$ might be good for organic</p>
<p>I dont understand the complexity of the question. how much would you spend on food for a month? calculate that and there ya go…</p>
<p>I live in an apartment now. my boyfriend and i probably spend around ~200/month, shopping wisely on groceries. and thats two of us. $150/wk would be a LOT of food in just groceries. that is FAR FAR too much. calculate how much for groceries for a month, then give her maybe an extra $30/wk? for grabbing bagels, etc. like people said or for going to restaurants.</p>
<p>1) Get her the Collegetown Debit Plan which is 500 BRBs and 10 meals per semester. This will cover her eating lunch on campus.</p>
<p>2) Give her about $75 a week for groceries. She can go shopping with her roommates at wegman’s. A lot of the groceries (bottled water, toilet paper, alcohol, rice, fruits) can be split between roommates.</p>
<p>3) I’d also recommend putting $200 into a CityBucks account for her every month or so. This will allow her to eat at various restaurants in Collegetown or pick up a quick bagel and coffee from Collegetown Bagels.</p>
<p>CUgrad09 - I have come to the same conclusion as you. I went on a grocery online shopping site, selected a whole week worth of grocery for her, excluding lunch. It came to about 75-90 depending on if she needed to buy extras (spice, oil, toilet paper, cleaning stuff). She’ll have her regular allowance for going out, so I am not going to worry about that. I am sure she probably will go to her sorority for a few meals.</p>