College Meal Plans & Spending $$

[wenmc]

Deleted

 

[Skatermom23]

My DS is on the 200 meals a semester plan. He said that next semester he wants the 15 meals a week plan. Pretty much the same thing except they expire each week. He said most of his girl friends like this plan as well. It gives them two meals a day with an extra. They can pick up sushi and save it for later! I see my DS once a month and give him all his laundry soap and bathroom supplies so he has no need to buy that stuff. I generally send him around $20 a week for fun stuff. I don't want him to have too much cash on him...too much fun is never a good thing!

 

[MUFFYCAT]

My DD is on a 17 meal a week plan which also expires each week and $200 which goes to snacks and stuff. I believe the plan costs about $2100 a semester. I put $300 in her school account for when she buys something on campus. It can be used some local restaurants too.

We don't give her any other spending but did give her a credit card this year which she uses for food and supplies. She does call when she's using it.

 

[msmayor]

My daughter's meal plan provides for 15 meals per week, and she has $150 in "dining dollars" on the plan which can be used for snacks and stuff in other school dining facilities. (each level of plan at her school offers a certain $$ for these 'flexible' dining dollars).

We provide $0 in the way of extra cash for food.

We had started her freshman year on the 18-meals-a-week but she said that was too much; that 15 would be fine.

Any extra snacks or meals out must come from her own funds. Its just like here at home: I am buying groceries every week for the family to eat (in her case, paying for a meal plan). If you want anything over and above that, you have to pay for it yourself.

 

[tar heel]

My boys preferred the block plans where you get the meals per semester. That way they didn't lose meals when they came home for the weekend or ate out a lot. They also could get extra meals during exams or when they were on campus real busy. They both went to schools that had things like Chik Fil A as well as dining halls. I think theirs was 150 or 160 meals a semester, which works out to 10-12 a week.

We gave both of them a modest amount of spending money. The one who went to a lot of concerts and bought a lot of beer worked part-time.

 

[SnowWtch]

A lot of students I've talked to find that the meal plans are too much and it's cheaper to just buy meals when they want to.

 

[tar heel]

A lot of students I've talked to find that the meal plans are too much and it's cheaper to just buy meals when they want to.[/QUOTE

Many schools require freshmen to have a meal plan.

 

[LISMYLIFE]

My freshman daughter has the unlimited plan. She says this works great, as she can enter any dining hall, at anytime. She can choose to sit with friends without eating, pick up a yogurt or fresh fruit, or eat a full meal. She is used to eating multiple small meals throughout the day, so she doesn’t have to give that up by wasting a “meal” on a bowl of cereal. It is also not uncommon for a group to go down in the evening for cookies or frozen yogurt. Those items can add up fast if they are coming out of pocket! This also allows her to not need to use her own money for snacks if she is short on cash.

It was the same price as the 20-meal plan with $25 less dining dollars. By going with the 15-meal plan, we would only save $100 a semester.

Don’t forget to consider the social aspect as well.

She is also on her own for spending money. She has a small job at school.

 

[HM]

My son is a senior too. We've visited a few schools and each has different plans. BUT, they all require a freshman to be on some type of meal plan.
One school had 10 and 20 meals a week plan (you can use them how you want during the semester) + a flex card. One school had the 'all you can eat'' plan mentioned above, and another had three different sized meal plans and a flex card (for getting snacks and eating at other establishments that took it in the town).

I personally like the 10 meal a week plan (if he's not on an unlimited plan). My son can eat breakfast from his refrigerator (instant breakfast and milk for example) and eat dinners and lunches in the cafeteria and use flex dollars for other meals (or if he comes home, he won't be wasting).

 

[MUFFYCAT]

My freshman daughter has the unlimited plan. She says this works great, as she can enter any dining hall, at anytime. She can choose to sit with friends without eating, pick up a yogurt or fresh fruit, or eat a full meal. She is used to eating multiple small meals throughout the day, so she doesn’t have to give that up by wasting a “meal” on a bowl of cereal. It is also not uncommon for a group to go down in the evening for cookies or frozen yogurt. Those items can add up fast if they are coming out of pocket! This also allows her to not need to use her own money for snacks if she is short on cash.

It was the same price as the 20-meal plan with $25 less dining dollars. By going with the 15-meal plan, we would only save $100 a semester.

Don’t forget to consider the social aspect as well.

She is also on her own for spending money. She has a small job at school.

I agree the price difference is very small.

unlimited cafeteriag access, $200 dragon dollars = $2,270
19 meals $100 dragon dollars- $2,145
17 meals $200 dragon dollars- $2,115- Required for Freshman
14 meals $200 dragon dollars- $1,945
10 meals $350 dragon dollars- $1,915

Last year my DD had a few meals left over. The price difference is small so we kept the same plan.

 

[Tistal]

Many freshmen, at least where I work (you'd think I would know as a faculty member what their meal plans are, but I don't), do not use all of the meals the HUGE plan that is marketed heavily towards freshmen contains. Remember, a university is a business too, and you (general you, not the OP per se) are parents sending your baby off to college. The school attempts to monopolize on your emotions. Sit down with your son/daughter and realistically think/discuss the options. You should have something from the school (or on the school's website) that outlines the different plans, and chose the one that makes the most sense for your situation.

 

[RitaE]

My son's isn't really a meal plan. You deposit money in and then food prices are a la carte. On campus residents have to purchase a minimum plan and then when that money is used up they can deposit more or just pay out of pocket. There really is no advantage to depositing larger sums of money than required into the plan - cash prices are the same and they accept a debit card just as easily as using his student id to pay. Plus, unused money is forfeited every June.

So .. we deposit the minimum required and then I add some more sometimes.

 

[RachaelA]

I went to two different colleges that each had a different type meal plan.

As an 18 y/o freshman in 04-05, I went to school in Boston. I was on the lowest plan. I think it was 14 meals a week plus XXX dollars to be used in the "Union" (a bunch of fast food places like Burger King, Bagel Place, Wrap Place, Starbucks, etc). I always had meals left over. I never had enough time to eat breakfast so I always just grabbed something the night before from the cafeteria for the following morning. Plus we didn't eat dinner on campus every night especially on the weekends so if I needed to eat breakfast I always had meals leftover.

In 05-06, I transferred schools to a state university that you just paid for a certain level of plan and you had that much money to spend. I once again got the smallest plan. I think I had like $1400 to spend on food a semester. It could be used anywhere on campus. It was still way too much and I was eating at least 2 meals a day on campus and DH (then my boyfriend) ate with me at least 4 days a week as well and I paid for him.

I can't even imagine having one of the bigger plans. I would have had so much leftover!

I can't be much help on spending money because I had a credit card my parents paid for and they never gave me a limit. So I bought whatever I wanted

 

[hopemax]

My son's isn't really a meal plan. You deposit money in and then food prices are a la carte. On campus residents have to purchase a minimum plan and then when that money is used up they can deposit more or just pay out of pocket. There really is no advantage to depositing larger sums of money than required into the plan - cash prices are the same and they accept a debit card just as easily as using his student id to pay. Plus, unused money is forfeited every June.

So .. we deposit the minimum required and then I add some more sometimes.

This is how it worked when I was in school. There was 3 levels of deposits. First quarter, most of my roomates (we lived in a "cluster" of 5 girls) had the middle level, but we realized that we would end up with far too much money. So then, most of us dropped down to the lowest level for 2nd and 3rd quarter. The last week or so, we were on fumes and ate chicken burgers and fries twice a day, because it was the cheapest option. We could have just paid OOP but we didn't want to spend our own money. One of our male friends did run out of money in the last month, so we had been buying his food out of our plan, so if we hadn't been doing that we would have had enough.

 

[punkin]

My DD has the unlimited plan (she's a first year and it is required). However it is working so well for her, we might do the same thing next year. We provide no extra money to her for anything outside of tuition, room, board, and books.

 

[erincon23]

DS's school offers three $ levels -- $60, 90 or 120/week. The money doesn't roll over -- it's use it or lose it. He can go to any dorm cafeteria, but the only one that's near him is his dorm's cafeteria, which is an "all you can eat" for one price (the others are all ala carte pricing). He's on the lowest plan. I think he could probably be better off on the middle -- for the $60, he eats dinner every night and lunch a couple of times a week -- rest of the week, he has like Kraft Easy Mac or other microwave meals that he brings from home, and breakfast is instant oatmeal or PopTarts from home (he's not a big breakfast eater). I've offered to increase his plan, but he says he prefers it this way and he'd have money left over. If he needs extra in a week, he has money loaded on his ID card (use like a debit card) that he can use in the cafeteria or at the union. We don't give him any additional spending money -- any extra money he spends is from his savings -- but we do give him the PopTarts and other food for his room.

Every school is different on how they work this out -- once your DD picks her college, you should be able to look on the Housing and Dining website and figure out how much she'll need to spend in a week or figure out how many meals she thinks she'll eat on campus.

 

[Hannathy]

My freshman daughter has the unlimited plan. She says this works great, as she can enter any dining hall, at anytime. She can choose to sit with friends without eating, pick up a yogurt or fresh fruit, or eat a full meal. She is used to eating multiple small meals throughout the day, so she doesn’t have to give that up by wasting a “meal” on a bowl of cereal. It is also not uncommon for a group to go down in the evening for cookies or frozen yogurt. Those items can add up fast if they are coming out of pocket! This also allows her to not need to use her own money for snacks if she is short on cash.

It was the same price as the 20-meal plan with $25 less dining dollars. By going with the 15-meal plan, we would only save $100 a semester.

Don’t forget to consider the social aspect as well.

She is also on her own for spending money. She has a small job at school.

totally agree with you. My DD also has an unlimited plan. I didn't want her worrying about whether she should eat or save a meal, her first year. I also didn't want the not eating breakfast if all she wanted was a bowl of cereal so that she could use that swipe for a bigger meal later. She is loving it. she can run in in the morning on her way to class and grab coffee and fruit, or in the afternoon run in just for a cookie or ice cream or in the evening. There was very little difference in price at her school either and when you figure in a meal per weekend at a fast food place it quickly added up to be what the unlimited cost.
Her plan came with I think $50 extra dining dollars to be used for extras like malts or "fancy coffee" at the coffee place in the union.
We put money on her student card for her to use for laundry and to help towards books.
Spending money is on her from her jobs over the summer. She really hasn't spent that much. A few minor shopping trips, a comedy club outing, and she went to a concert.(which only cost 21) Her group goes to a lot of the things on campus that are like $2. We did buy her basketball student ticket cause my DH wants her to go, he really enjoyed going when he was in school. I did send her a $20 with her Halloween card.

 

[hj0519]

I'm on the "average" plan at my school. At my school you don't buy by meal, everything has a price and your meal plan costs whatever amount of $. I've run out of money every semester (junior now). It's fine because I have money on the "other" side of the account that they start taking meal money from.

I eat breakfast on days where I have early classes/am in class all morning, I almost always eat lunch, and always eat dinner on weekdays. On weekends there's brunch instead of breakfast and lunch, so I just eat brunch and dinner. I have snacks in my room, too. I guess I just tend to get hungry, lol.

It depends on the kid, though. I have friends that always have money left over on smaller plans than me, friends with the highest plan that run out, etc.. It depends on if your kid always eats breakfast at the caf or would rather just get something in her room (I tend not to, because I always feel bad digging around in my stuff and making noise on my early class days when my roommate is still asleep) or tends to skip lunch or dinner or whatever. Totally depends on each person's eating habits.

 

[Fyrefly]

I'm a girl, but I'm hypoglycemic so I have to make sure I eat three meals a day or else blood sugar does special things and I tend to pass out.

My school had dining dollars and was a la carte in the dining halls, plus some extra money each semester that could be used in the smaller sandwich shops and such around campus. I found if I used the average one and ate three meals a day, I generally only had about $50 or less at the end of the year, which worked okay and I wasn't scrambling to buy a cake or something random to use it up. We had a full-service restaurant on campus that you could use your dining dollars in on certain days, so I would just treat my parents to dinner when they came to get me at the end of the semester and I'd be fine.

In my experience, if you ate breakfast in the dining halls on an almost daily basis, the average plan was fine. If you brought your own breakfast food for your rooms and only ate two meals a day in the dining hall, you could do the smaller plan. Also kids who ate a lot of takeout from other sources had a lot of money left over at the end of the year. Yeah the food is bad, but you already paid for it. Why pay more money on takeout then lose what you already paid? So if she likes her midnight lo mein or something, maybe the smaller plan as well.