<p>Hi to all the helpful members of this forum!</p>
<p>As my husband and I sat pondering a question, I realized that I should turn this over to the CC community. My daughter will be living off campus for the first time next year. We know how much room and board costs in the dorms and in her sorority, but we have no idea how much it costs for a student to feed herself per month in an apartment. D will be living with 5 other people, but I'm not sure what their food arrangements are going to be. If you have any ideas about this, I'd certainly appreciate hearing from you. Ballpark figures are fine. Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m currently living off campus in Evanston, and I’ve been able to eat extremely well on approx $1000 a quarter, split 700-300 between grocery money and munch money. I actually didn’t need that much munch money and probably ended up averaging 200 a quarter over the whole year. Groceries vary widely depending on what you eat on a regular basis. If you like going out to eat, then you’ll blow through your budget pretty quickly. But if you don’t mind cooking a majority of your meals and shopping for deals at Jewel you can get a lot of mileage out of a pretty small grocery budget.</p>
<p>My daughter is no cook (takes after her mother!) and buys microwaveable food from Jewel and take out from Whole Foods. It does vary tremendously by what your daughter eats, how she splits purchases with roommates, how often she eats out, etc. etc. There’s really no easy answer.</p>
<p>I’m wondering the same as my S will also live off campus for the first time. He’s a vegetarian so will probably live on pasta and veggies. Hopefully it is a lot less than the approximate $10 per meal average for his on-campus meal plan.</p>
<p>MomCares - I am surprised your daughter wants to stay on the meal plan given that she’s a theatre major. One of the reasons that, traditionally, theatre majors move off Sophomore year (most others move off Junior year) is because their schedules make eating during meal plan hours difficult. She should speak to upperclassmen. If she is not a cook (my daughter is so not a cook!) there’s fresh prepared meals from Whole Foods and microwaveable meals from Jewel. She has sandwiches for lunch, often brown bagging it when things are really hectic and always carries at least two pieces of fruit for snacks.</p>
<p>And to agree with APOL a mom - my daughter is eating a whole lot healthier off meal plan than on meal plan.</p>
<p>@amtc - Ironically it’s because of all her late rehearsals (which she had almost every night this year) that she likes her meal plan. D is a non-cook, but I think she found that the meal plan lets her grab food at odd places on campus after most local restaurants have closed. Plus I think her roommates next year may be asleep before she gets home so she doesn’t want to wake them by using the kitchen after midnight. She seemed really healthy this year (lost some weight and has used the gym regularly) so I guess whatever she’s been doing has worked for her so far.</p>
<p>First of all, thank you, everyone! This has, indeed, been helpful. It’s a base from which to start.</p>
<p>amtc, I had the same question for MomCares. My daughter was in dance, but now is in engineering. However, she is in one of the dance troupes on campus, her classes run right into rehearsal time, and she has never been able to eat in a healthy way. As a freshman, she was constantly grabbing things from Norris. As a sophomore, she was beholden to her sorority’s schedule. She is a quasi-vegetarian (she gave up when all she could ever get was pasta and she was having low blood sugar issues; now she eats chicken somewhat grudgingly), and I hope that her eating will be better now that she can eat more fruits and vegetables.</p>
<p>@EnoughAlready - Your post brought up a meal-related question for me. D joined a sorority this year but hasn’t lived in the house. Do her dues include some meals in the house?</p>
<p>MomCares, I find the whole sorority thing very confusing. I know that all the members eat at the house on Mondays. I don’t know exactly how the payment works because D lives in the house now, so that is where her meal plan is as well.</p>