Hey all I am going to be living on residence and I am trying to plan out how to spend my meal card to eat cheap and healthy.

I have calculated that I will have ~$10-12 to spend per day and I was wondering it is is possible to eat healthy on that little money?

I have already considered not buying any drinks and only drinking water.

I am assuming that I will have to make my own breakfast (eggs/cereal/toast) because I am not sure if $12 can cover breakfast-lunch-dinner?

Any tips about cheap and healthy food on campus?

Thanks

I was really worried about food budgeting as well, and so for first term, I budgeted VERY carefully. I made trips to Fortinos to get fruit, veggies, and yogurt, and had a Brita in my fridge so that I drank water most of the time, just so that I could stick to the $12/day budget.
Imagine my shock when, after coming back after Christmas break, I still had over $2000 to spend! Needless to say, I started eating much more richly...buying breakfast more often(especially on weekends - mmm Commons waffles!), buying more drinks, and getting fruits and veggies from the salad bar instead of going to Fortinos to get them.
My advice to you would be to supplement your meal plan somewhat with your own food, and use your meal plan dollars to buy more "main course" meals. But try not to be TOO frugal - it makes you cringe when you have to buy cases of chocolate bars at the end of the year, just so that Housing&Conference Services doesn't get your unused money.

Hey thanks for the response!

The Brita filter sounds like a good idea!

Yikes at the cases of chocolate bars! I was thinking that you could roll over the money till next year!

What kind of things did you buy for breakfast, lunch, dinner? And for what price?

When I wad @ the student center, I had some Teriyaki for lunch, $6. Kinda expensive!

Unfortunately, no. H&CS takes any unused money.

You may also want to buy a really small meal plan, and add money as you need it.

Buying food for breakfasts is a really, really good idea. If you buy cereal from Commons it's something like $2 a bowl. You can buy a box of cereal and a carton of milk for around $6-7 (I like expensive cereal because it's more nutritious and have to buy lactose-free milk so it's more expensive...so I'm basing these costs from what I spend)...and that will last you many more bowls of cereal. You can also buy a loaf of bagels, your own cream cheese/butter etc. And your own fruit! Buying fruit at Mac is nearly a dollar a piece, while it's sometimes 0.99/lb for apples at Fortinos.

Only some of the money can roll over...whatever is in your flex/freedom account (I can never remember which one is which...). All the money in your Basic account ( the 2250 or whatever that everyone has to have) needs to be used up before you leave in April.

On a typical day...
Breakfast....usually a croissant ($1.25 ish) on the way to class. I also brought cases of breakfast bars from home, which were great to grab as I ran out the door for my 830 classes.
Lunch....varies depending on the day. Sometimes a sandwich or a wrap from Pillers (~$4-$5), sometimes pizza ($4, and I recommend the one in Commons, cause then you can load it up with your own toppings), sometimes other things, depending on my mood haha.
Dinner...again, depends on the day. I would say that you should plan to spend $6-$7 at least on dinner...it's the time with the most variety of food, and you can also usually get a pretty well balanced meal. Also, I found that the portion sizes were pretty big, so much so that even if I got like a $10 dinner, that was enough for almost two meals, so that I was really only paying $5ish.
I hope this helped somewhat...feel free to ask anything else!

So would it be recommended to rent a fridge?
Or should i just save my money?

Yes I would say rent a fridge. You can keep left overs for one and anything mum/dad/family sends home and it's cheaper to buy bulk drinks like juice boxes and bottled water than on campus. Drinks will eat up your meal card.

Make sandwiches and have cereal and stuff in your rez, it takes a bit more time but it'll save you the money. Trust me, by the end of 2nd semester students will be running out.

You may be recieving a fridge based on your residence assignment as well...the good side of triple rooms!

and quads!

The fruit, bagels, pizza, double meals are all good ideas. Thanks!

I was also wondering if the commons appliances are usually busy with people cooking food?

Depends on the time and day that you go. Weekends are busy for waffles. Chinese isn't open all the time so if you really want it, get there a wee bit earlier than when they open.
Sizzles is ALWAYS open so long as Commons is open and of course, is the WORST for you. NOTE about Sizzles: when getting any EGG meals, always ask for a fresh egg and you won't get that out of thr carton crap

And don't buy fruit from anywhere on campus, they charge you an arm and a leg for it.

lol by commons appliances I meant the appliances in the common room in your residence hall :p

But thanks its good to know about Commons, I hope my rez is close by

You're not going to be able to keep frozen pizzas in that fridge freezer (unless they're the mini ones)! It's pretty small!

The thing about the common kitchen areas is although they're not too often used, they're not cleaned thoroughly by the cleaning staff, and people tend to leave messes there.

I have a large meal plan now but I am thinking of bringing a small refridgator to my room and therefore I am thinking of downgrading my meal plan to regular. If I was planning to buy food (like fruits and breakfast) from Fotinos, would a regular meal plan be too much/just enough/too little?

Couple things to help you:

1) ARTICLE: CHOOSING A MEAL PLAN

2) Food on campus will cost you an arm and a leg. A standard lunch is $8-10. There isn't too many 'dinner' choices on campus since most of the places run by Hospitality close in the afternoon. However, dinner at Commons can run you another $8-12. So on average if you were only to buy on campus for 3 meals a day in locations that ONLY accept the student/meal card, you're looking at $3-5 for breakfast, $8-10 for lunch, and $8-12 for dinner. On average you can get away with $20/day.

3) To keep costs lower, as I suggest in my article, go for the cheapest meal plan and then fill it with flex dollars when you run out. Keep cash handy and buy from places that aren't run by Hospitality such as Union Market and Quarters. Breakfast at Quarters is cheap, and just about everything else is larger portions and lower cost than Commons. For fresh fruit go to union market in the morning, they have apples and other fruits for really really cheap. Plus as mentioned in the Secret Files series, large carton of chocolate milk and a buttered bagel can cost you only $2!