<p>My parents pay for it. Considering what meal plans here cost (Like $1800-2300 a trimester), it’s actually about the same cost as if I had gone with meal plans instead like everyone else, it’s really not tremendously expensive. The $1500 or so I could reasonably save from that is just my bad habit, like smoking and drinking to others in the thread.</p>
<p>wow where do you go?..even here in CA, it isnt that expensive</p>
<p>Michigan, but I just looked at Berkeley’s meal plans and I don’t know why they’re so much cheaper than ours. At Michigan dining hall meals work out to be like $11 each, where as at Berkeley they’re like $7.</p>
<p>Also, right now when I’m at home all day, I’m not spending nearly that much. That $500/month really only applies to 6 or 7 months out of the year.</p>
<p>I guess the meal plan issue really depends on where you go. For the coming academic year, the unlimited meal plan at Georgia Tech is $1,676 a semester. I had an unlimited plan my first and second year before I decided to cook on my own. I actually did eat four times a day, not including late night glass-of-milk runs, so if you assume four months per semester and thirty days per month, I ate 480 times a semester at the various dining halls, meaning that my per-meal cost averaged out to less than $3.50 per meal. So for me, going unlimited was the right thing to do. </p>
<p>Why’d I leave the plan? Ultimately, I felt that I could probably have done a better job (viz. I could eat more meat of higher quality if I cooked on my own), and I was right. When Publix had boneless skinless chicken breasts or boneless pork loins on sale for $1.99 a pound, I bought ten pounds worth. I “splurged” every now and then when they had T-bones on sale for $4.99 a pound. Marinade the meats with Italian dressing or store-bought marinades, stir-fry or bake, and I was very happy. It just so happened that I saved money cooking on my own.</p>
<p>how’d you buy ten pounds at once w//o it spoiling? :O</p>
<p>The stanford meal plan is $5,176 a year (for 19 meals a week)</p>
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<p>The freezer did it for me. I ate it fast enough so I never had any “freezer burn.”</p>
<p>^I save more money by buying used and reselling them.</p>
<p>Better to buy and resell than rent.</p>
<p>Drink tap water and only tap water. You don’t need any other form of beverage. </p>
<p>Your wallet, teeth and waistline will thank you.</p>
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<p>I did some research and found that it’s much cheaper to buy used and resell for half of the amount you paid. It’s more work, sure…</p>
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<p>I probably wouldn’t recommend drinking straight tap water, but a Brita/PUR pitcher and filters are much cheaper than bottled water and sodas. My plan is to buy one of the Brita ~1 gallon fridge dispensers and use that to fill those aluminum (or plastic) water bottles.</p>
<p>nick- that depends on where your school is.</p>
<p>At my school, the tap water is completely legit to drink.</p>
<p>well unless you live in third world country, tap water is almost always safe to drink ;)</p>
<p>There’s a difference between safe and tastes good. In America there are lots of places where the water tastes awful, though I still presume it is safe to drink.</p>
<p>how much do they cost though?</p>
<p>Mint.com is the best tool for college students. here are other sites but Mint is the best
<a href=“Five Best Personal Money Management Sites”>Five Best Personal Money Management Sites;
<p>Mint is awesome becuase it will truly let you see where your money is going. </p>
<p>Keeping your housing expenses down - your parents were right. Put on a sweater. Or open the windows. Shower at the gym, you’ll save on your water bill. Only run the dishwasher full, and do full loads of laundry. Hang dry your clothes. Trade the bigger bedroom for a proportionally smaller rent. </p>
<p>Run all your books through bigwords.com search engine, most of the time it came up cheaper to rent for me, yay chegg.com</p>
<p>Eat in. Cereal and milk won’t kill you, rice and beans are healthy, you can eat for a month on $100 if you cook in bulk. PS, learn to cook. How to Cook Everything and Joy of Cooking are classics that you shouldn’t be without. Eat seasonally, and shop sales.</p>
<p>Don’t speed, it kills your gas mileage. </p>
<p>Make your own coffee! A bag of starbucks is six bucks at the grocery store, that bag will make you 8-10 pots of coffee…</p>
<p>Appliances are cheap at Goodwill. Clothes are cheap at Goodwill. Furniture is cheap at Goodwill. Goodwill!</p>
<p>Volunteer for those less fortunate, it’ll make you feel richer!</p>
<p>Also, a Brita is like $20 at Target. They’re cheaper at Lowes.</p>
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<p>This is completely wrong. First, it’s rare that a full meal at a college dining hall averages $6. But assuming that low-ball number is true, that’s 14x$6 = $84 a week if you never eat breakfast or snacks or late night food.</p>
<p>$84 a week at a grocery store will buy you a LOT for a week’s worth of food. REAL food, not PB&J sandwiches. This is assuming you are not shopping at whole foods or some ‘organic’ place.</p>
<p>Plus, the stuff at the school servery/ cafeteria usually starts flash-frozen and is not exactly healthful or very tasty. The food you buy from the grocery store is fresh and usually tastes better if you know how to prepare a salad or cook.</p>
<p>Yes, the trade-off is you have to spend time cooking. Convenience + pure laziness is traded for money, health, and flavor.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard anyone seriously argue that the ‘campus dining plan’ is cheaper than buying your own food at the grocery store. Because it isn’t. Anywhere. Now is it very convenient and more social? Probably yes.</p>
<p>It is a little easier to make meals when you have a kitchen close and a larger fridge, though I won’t argue that it’s cheaper to eat out or eat at the cafeteria, because it’s not. Also, I get sick from tap water from other cities, so if I weren’t in the same city as I grew up, I’d need a filter (I don’t know why, but for some reason the way my region filters it makes me unable to handle water from other regions). And smoking = empty wallet + blackened lungs + more wrinkles = eww.</p>
<p>we used to get cigarettes on our meal plan, back when i was a freshman.</p>
Sure in recent time most of the student are applying financial loan for their studies. I hope this thread is very useful.
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