<p>The meal plans are waaaaayyy overpriced. Most of the people that I know wasted money on the silver that we had to get freshman year. Now we are dropping to either the Bama 50 or no meal plan at all. Save your money, buy groceries, cook, eat out, cut coupons 
Life gets cheaper as an upperclassman, though books get more expensive IMO.
And I agree with momreads about transportation being such a huge cost. I flew home twice last year and it was really expensive. Not only because of the plane tickets, but for parking my car or taking the shuttle.</p>