I need some opinions on meal plan approach. My 2 are sophomore and junior so this isn’t my first rodeo but I struggle with this every semester. In general, I’m torn between choosing a specific meal number with meal bucks (i.e. Carolina 10, Garnet 14, etc.) versus simply one of the Declining Balance plans.
They never use even close to all the meal bucks- like this last semester, they each had the Carolina 10 Platinum (incl. $325 meal plan bucks, thinking they’d use that for any meals > 10 for the week) but they still both had A LOT of left over towards the end. In fact, my D bought a CASE of poptarts for $91 just to burn down the meal bucks and still had ~ $100 left. My S had about the same left after buying his friends meals for the last 2 weeks. The waste of money sickens me but if you don’t use it, you lose it. Unfortunately, meal bucks do not roll over from semester to semester.
So, I’m thinking of not choosing any meal number (i.e. Carolina 10) but instead just go with Declining Balance, where it’s all meal bucks a la carte. Any thoughts on this? What do others do?
Do they live in apartment styles dorms? Do they actually want to eat in dining halls or is it only because they have meal plan? My D lived on campus in apartment and after sophomore year we stopped buying any meal plan. I guess if she regularly ate a meal on campus (if they live off campus and are on-campus for class most of day) maybe a declining balance has some cash advantage (discount? no tax?).
We just went to cash. However D was able to easily run by dorm for breaks/lunch.
If you don’t want any meal plan you can also put money on Carolina Card in general. It doesn’t expire and unused portion is returned at graduation. It can be used everywhere on campus plus now a few off-campus eating places. Does prevent you from having to have cash with you (although students all seem to used debit cards for even the smallest amounts).
Coleman- My son (sophomore, off campus) wanted to go with the declining balance plan, and seems to like it. We haven’t really had a detailed discussion, but he’s happy, fwiw.
D has 10-meal plan as a freshman and I supplement with $100/month on Carolina Card so she can get breakfast foods, juice, etc., at CVS, an occasional dinner at Mo’s, extra on-campus meal, snack, coffee, etc. Next year she will be in 650 Lincoln and is thinking no meal plan. I will provide grocery money and also some Carolina Card funds (mainly for lunch on days she can’t make it back to the dorm) and we’ll see how that goes.