<p>Are there any grocery stores on campus and close to dorms that allow you to use your dining dollars?</p>
<p>Not really. There’s a couple QuickZones (Towers basement and Sutherland Lobby) which are somewhat of a grocery store, but on an extremely small scale.</p>
<p>QuickZone’s so expensive I never bother shopping there. It kind of caters to “health foods”, like they sell organic fruit juices and Kashi bars. So it’s only nice if you’re willing to pay $6 for a soda drink-sized bottle of all natural mango pomegranate stuff. Also, the Starbucks drinks they sell for $3-$4 you can buy from the vending machines nearby for $2. </p>
<p>I don’t know of any grocery stores, but there is a 7-Eleven right outside the Towers and a CVS and Rite Aid a short walk down Forbes. You can also take the bus to Target. The CVS or Rite Aid might take Panther Funds, not sure.</p>
<p>There is an IGA grocery store at 3609 Forbes, about a block away from the Forbes Hall dorm. It’s actually on the second floor so many people are not aware it exists. It’s quite small, but handy. I do not believe they take dining dollars, however.</p>
<p>My daughter got a lot of use out of the IGA on Forbes (mentioned by QuietType) when she lived in Towers. I think it does take money that’s on your Panther Card (sorry…forgot what that’s called).</p>
<p>This is all correct I just think that the difference between dining dollars and panther funds ought to be clarified. </p>
<p>Dinning dollars are something you get with your meal plan that allow you to buy overpriced foods which the school sells at a huge profit. You can’t use these anywhere else but school owned eateries/quickzone. You can’t even use them at the cheaper school owed vending machines. </p>
<p>This is annoying because like a coke costs $2.75 at quick zone, $2.00 in a vending machine, and like $6/6 at 7 eleven but if you want to use dining dollars you have to use the first. </p>
<p>The only places that aren’t significantly inflated are pitt owned fast food places like taco bell and burger kind where you can use dining dollars. </p>
<p>Panther funds are like real money except you can only use them certain places You absolutely need them for laundry. SOME of the vending machines accept them. A lot of places on Forbes claim to accept them but often they are broken. In practice they serve the following functions.</p>
<ol>
<li>Laundry</li>
<li>Allowing you to not carry cash</li>
<li>Allow parents to make sure you are not using their money to buy alcohol</li>
</ol>
<p>With that said, Dining dollars are 1,000,000 x more useful than meal passes. Plus dining dollars can be used to get in to market CHEAPER than dining passes for breakfast/lunch and with only a slight penalty at dinner.</p>
<p>I would strongly suggest the 50 dinning pass 900~ dinning dollar plan (it is what I am on now)</p>
<p>CuttingEdge – thanks for the tip about it being cheaper to pay for breakfast/lunch at Market Central rather than use a dining pass. I hadn’t thought of that.</p>
<p>Just to make sure I understand…if you enter Market Central, I presume you have to swipe your Panther Card. Is there then an option to use either dining pass / dining dollars / Panther Funds? Or does it automatically use a dining pass if there is one on your card?</p>
<p>It doesn’t look like you get much extra value from buying dining dollars vs. using cash or Panther Funds; but dining dollars are forfeited if not used by the end of a semester.</p>
<p>Would a perfect scenario be: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Buy the minimum “Tier” allowed (for freshman it looks like Tier 3) </p></li>
<li><p>Within that Tier, select the plan with the number of Dining Passes = the number of dinners to be eaten at Market Central. </p></li>
<li><p>If you eat breakfast, lunch, or latenight at Market Central, pay with dining dollars not a dining pass.</p></li>
<li><p>Use dining dollars for the other on-campus eating options.</p></li>
<li><p>If you run out of dining dollars before the end of the semester, ask mom & dad for cash to get you through. If they want to make sure the student uses the money for food instead of partying or a shopping spree at the nearest mall, the wise mom & dad will send money in the form of Panther Funds. :p</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You could always use Panther Funds at the Market District Giant Eagle in Shadyside (it’s within walking distance… less than 5 miles total there and back). For the less exercise-inclined, there are Pitt shuttles as well as public transit buses (71A, 81B, 86A) that drop people off directly in front of the store. As a freshman, I learned Giant Eagle was definitely preferable to IGA/Pitt-associated eateries. As someone else mentioned, Target is also a good option (59U or 61C for the one in Homestead; 500 for the one on Freeport road), as is Walmart (I think the closest one is in Waterworks Mall–the 500, 94B, 1A, and 91A all take you there… at least until May '10).</p>
<p>The Giant Eagle in Shadyside is called Market District. It has “Giant Eagle” in smaller type above that. It’s about a 30-minute walk from my daughter’s dorm on campus, or about a mile and a half. The address is Shadyside Market District, 5550 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15232.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info about the bus!</p>
<p>mrsref,</p>
<p>You can just tell them what you want to use to get in (DD vs Passes) at MC and they will charge you appropriately (hopefully) though most people don’t do use anything but passes so who knows how good they are at running that. I have trouble using 50 passes so its not a worry for me. </p>
<p>For dinning dollars, you lose them at, you get very little “discount”, and i would say a dinning dollar has about 60 cents worth of real purchasing power (like if there could be a black market that would be the exchange rate).</p>
<p>If i were to run out of dinning dollars i would immediately switch to eating at cheaper places like qdoba, panera, taiwan cafe, chipotle, subway etc etc etc </p>
<p>This is why i am living in apartment style living and not buying a meal plan next year.</p>
<p>And yeah, thats a perfectly rational way to play the system. The one question to ask yourself is if you really want to eat 50 dinners at MC (i really really really don’t) but otherwise that is PERFECT and what every freshman should do.</p>
<p>Regarding DD vs. DP: the Pitt website says 50 passes + 930 DD costs $1660. This amounts to $14.40 per pass! Yikes!
In all tiers the passes range from $8.87 and up with an average of $10.49 including all plans (outside of the Ultimate).</p>
<p>Can anyone give an idea of meal cost (breakfast/lunch/dinner) using Dining Dollars at MC? Thanks.</p>
<p>Why didn’t I search first???
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062308560-post19.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062308560-post19.html</a></p>
<p>Passes are a waste of money: First of all there is no way to tell in the panther
usage center how many Passes are even being used they only show Panther funds, your money that you deposited and Dining dollars I was told there is no way to keep track of dining Passes being used by the school and if you don’t tell Market central specifically to take it out of the passes part of the panther card they can take it out of the dining dollars side of it instead. To me this sounds like all your dining dollars and panther funds part of the card gets used first and thats why kids are left with so many passes at the end of the semester because they not being accepted properly by a cafeteria cashier that doesn’t care what part of your cards funds are being used. I can’t believe some of the financial students at Pitt don’t address this issue and I’m just an average joe that figured this out.
For Pitt to say they can’t keep track of Food Pass usage and only dining dollar and Panther fund usage sounds very underhanded and sly. It’s a school of science yet they can’t figure out this simple flaw in the Panther card system I would always suggest get the smallest passes
the smallest of dining dollars and send money in another way to your child until Pitt figures out a way to smooth this bump in the system.
they must think we are all stupid to think they can hide this fact.As a parent that pays for my childs education I take it personally</p>
<p>You have to go to mypitt use password and email name then click on Panther central after it goes through click on dining not housing . Then click Panther funds usage report and it will show the usage of Panther funds (extra cash) or dining dollars( to be used in or outside of market central) but not Dining Pass Usage which Pitt claims they cannot keep
track of .There is a name given on the website that you can contact through Market central a lady is in charge. If you have a complaint. Personally i think everyone should be complaining about such a lame system.
Another thing is if your child has late classes and hasn’t eaten till like 8:30 or so the only thing they can really eat good that late at the cafeterias is like a waffle they make themselves. Everything else is old and dried up and the Pizza lady retires way before closing Oh she’s there but the pizza’s are not. Whose gonna ask before closing… will you make me a pizza Pizza lady. They should at least have a pizza sitting out for a quick meal. Talk to your child. Find out where your moneys going or not going. Oh yeah and I figured its 13 dollars a meal that’s an expensive waffle … Sept 2012</p>
<p>By the way there is also a HUGE new Target down in Shadyside/East Liberty on Center Ave, just past Highland Ave.</p>
<p>I’m currently a junior at Pitt, lived in Towers freshman year, Panther sophomore year, and am in Amos now. My advice to anyone picking a dining plan (especially girls) is that dining dollars are MUCH preferred to swipes. Market may seem like it has a lot of options, but by late October you will most likely dread going there. My freshman fall I had a decent sized meal plan and had a TON of swipes left before finals and no dining dollars, thus leading to me studying in Market to use swipes on soda and bagels. I changed to a smaller swipes/more DD plan. I ate at market for dinner nearly every night except 1/2 and was able to get lunch on campus plus coffee/breakfast some days and snacks without many problems. As an upper classman in a dorm with a kitchen, but a required meal plan, I have 50 swipes and 500 something DD which is working well so far.</p>
<p>IGA is good for small, urgent grocery trips. Giant Eagle is only a bus ride away, and has 3 locations nearish by (Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Waterfront). There is a Trader Joes you can take a bus to as well. It isn’t too bad since the buses are free, I usually go shopping every 2 or 3 weeks.</p>
<p>Hope this was sort of helpful :D</p>