I have meal plan. I want to make most of my meal plan. What places and what type of food should I be eating to do it? I be eating 7 days so must conserve meal plan.

The best way would be not to buy drinks from campus. They add up very quickly if you get one for every meal or every day.

I agree with jhan523, drinks do add up VERY quickly. The typical meal on campus cost around $6 ~ $8 at the student center. Bistro meals are a bit more expensive leaning towards $8 - $12 If you have a normal meal plan, you should be fine. If you think about conserving as much as possible through out the year, you will be left with left over money when the year is finished. Try to buy at a constant pace. You can always add more money onto your meal card if you happen to finish early.

A water filter could help too. One time purchase for 8 months of saving on drinks!

Drinks alone will run $2-3+, so don't buy them.

dont go to bistro all the time.

honestly i bet the cheapest food is getting a Gino's slice for $2 or whatever it is.

seriously the food on campus is so expesive. grilled cheese is like $4! they're making like $30 on a loaf of bread!

if centro still has the place where you can "make your own" pasta, i found that lasted 2 meals, so you could save half in the fridge

For the amount of money you're paying, Bistro's food is sub par. Their idea of a spaghetti parmesan is Ragu on top of plain spaghetti, a bit of melted cheese, and peice of garlic bread. That ran me $12.

Always buy meals that are big in servings. The A La Carte section of Commons gives pretty big servings, and so does their pasta place. My boyfriend and I easily share Commons meals and are more than satisfied afterwards. One Commons meal, is basically two.

Everyone else is right about drinks. Best place to get drinks is probably Union Market, but they don't take student cards, just cash credit or debit. Water, unless it's bottled, is free everywhere. People don't realize that at Commons you can take any glass near the drinks dispenser, fill it with ice, and get water from their tap.

Don't buy sushi on campus. Just don't.

Pillers Subs and PizzaPizza in the Student Centre are decently filling for a meal under $6.

So pasta bar is cheapest option. What time do they start serving the cheap food at?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So pasta bar is cheapest option. What time do they start serving the cheap food at?

do you mean the hours?

Lunch for Commons starts around 11, lasts till either 4 PM or 5 (can't remember), at which point they serve the dinner menu. This includes everything else- Pillers, the Asian place, pasta bar.

The Pasta bar in the student centre opens at 11 as well. Creation X, however, will make you anything at any time. They prepare the ingredients for the food before opening.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So pasta bar is cheapest option. What time do they start serving the cheap food at?

It's definitely not the cheapest option. It's $7-8 for pasta depending where you go, and it can last 1-2 meals (if you're hungry, you can eat the entire serving at once, especially from the student centre).
Your cheapest option is to not solely eat food on campus, and to buy groceries as well. Make your own pasta instead of spending a ridiculous amount of money on it.

your meal plan is split into 2. the main one which has most of the money on it can only be used on campus. the other one which has around 300-500 on it can be used in shops off campus (which include and are not limited to; ginos, boston pizza, east side marios, etc.)

I suggest you stay on campus as much as possible, and only use the off campus account when you go out with friends to places like boston pizza or east side. its a waste to spend it on a slice at ginos. I say this because the money that you can spend off campus is on the freedom account which can carry over to your next year (unlike the money on the main account which gets wiped if not used by the end of the year)

Also bistro is expensive and IMO not the best food around.

Though to be honest, unless you are like my friend and 1 meal for you is the equivalent of 2 meals for the normal person there isnt anything to worry about. I had close to a 1000 left over a month before school finished and was buying food for others like crazy and stoking up on candy bars and chips.

What I did, since I eat tons of food but had a very light meal plan, is bring a pan and I had eggs and toast every day for brunch (I eat 2 meals a day) by cooking in the common room on my floor and just bought dinner. That way I could buy a more awesome dinner within my smaller budget, since it tastes about the same to buy or cook your own breakfast.

Originally Posted by AelyaS

do you mean the hours?

Lunch for Commons starts around 11, lasts till either 4 PM or 5 (can't remember), at which point they serve the dinner menu. This includes everything else- Pillers, the Asian place, pasta bar.

The Pasta bar in the student centre opens at 11 as well. Creation X, however, will make you anything at any time. They prepare the ingredients for the food before opening.

Creation X is also very, very, very gross.

Dont ever start drinking Alo Water... one cannot simply stop drinking Alo Water.

For delicious and decently priced sandwiches, you should visit the cafe in the Engineering building! So good .