My son and husband are headed up to Minnesota for orientation on Monday and Tuesday. Any suggestions as to how much money to deposit into the TCF account or load onto the Gold card? For TCF do you just bring a check to make the deposit and for the Gold card do you just deposit from a credit card? Any thoughts on meal plan? Do you have to decide at orientation which plan? Thanks in advance for any help/advice!
No meal plan choice is made at orientation. Also, even once they make the choice later, they can change it for a short time at the start of the semester. They have a table at the fair to answer meal plan questions.
As for the accounts they accept various forms of payment. I used cash, $100 each. At some small level they get a free sweatshirt from TCF and a free bag from the university cash. TCF will need a SSN but they said the student could provide it later if they don’t have it.
@cubbiefan0711, here are a few answers based on what we have experienced so far:
- You can deposit $100 into the Gopher Gold account with a credit card and you get the free Gopher bag. The office is directly behind the great hall where the orientation is held and very easy to find.
- There are no TCF branches in our area of Wisconsin or states we travel to regularly so we passed on the account. Based on that, be sure to be aware US Bank has a relationship with the university too with branches and ATMs on campus, but their accounts are not tied to the U Card:
https://www.usbank.com/student-banking/university-of-minnesota/index.html - Meal plan choices are selected when you initially sign up for housing but can still be changed through mid September:
“Residents of the traditional* Residence Halls may request a change to their Fall Semester 2018 Residential meal plans by going to www.housing.umn.edu/mealplanchange prior to 5:00 P.M, September 14, 2018.”
@cubbiefan0711 On the TCF account. Know that even though they high pressure you into opening an account (which is annoying in my opinion), there is no reason you need to do so, any bank account will work for your son, so if he already has one, use it and politely decline the offer if you choose. Not that there’s anything wrong with TCF as a bank, but my daughter had Wells Fargo already and never had troubles finding a cash machine to use and honestly doesn’t do that much either, Debit cards are the way everywhere and many use Venmo to pay each other.
On Gopher Gold, I put $100 in the account and it was plenty to start and I only did that because she got the free bag, in fact I believe that she finally added to that money at the end of her second year, only because she had to do some 3D printing that was more expensive.
Meal plan, I’d go 14 meals, they always end up skipping a couple and going out and he can use the guest passes if he’s run out. He can change within the first couple week if he didn’t make the right choice.
This is very good information. Thanks to all. Does TCF bank allow free bank to bank transfers? Our bank where our Son has an account doesn’t have a branch in twin cities. I was wondering what would be the best way to send him money when the balance gets low.
We all use Venmo in my family. It is popular with the kids (you can Venmo them money and they can put it into their bank account. My kids also use it for paying their friends, for example if they all take an Uber and one kid pays. They can pay him/her back through Venmo). Easy and free.
I did what it took to get the gifts, and will add more as necessary later this summer.
There’s a lot to think about with the TCF account, since we aren’t local. The plan now is to have TCF be his day-to-day account and use his local account primarily as a savings/planning device for his summer paycheck and other savings. None of us like the idea of an absent-minded child having his savings be on his gopher card.
bank to bank transfers: At least one way to transfer money to your kid from your checking to his TCF is to pay him like you do your other electronic bill payments (that’s what they told us). This wouldn’t be overnight, but it wouldn’t take more than a few business days.
I thought the $100 on the gopher gold was plenty for now. It will really depend on his printing requirements.