regarding the fridge rentals...how would you go about doing that? i was thinking of buying my own, but why do that when you can rent?! how much does it usually cost?

Originally Posted by shleyaa

regarding the fridge rentals...how would you go about doing that? i was thinking of buying my own, but why do that when you can rent?! how much does it usually cost?

McMaster rents with Coldex, and their pricing can be found on this website.
http://www.coldexrents.com/mcmasterpricing.html

those rental prices are insane!! you can buy your own fridge for less than that!!

http://www.walmart.ca/wps-portal/sto... tegoryId=240

that way you could have it for future years too!

Yeah i definitely think I'm going to buy my own. Even if the rental prices were better, because I think i
ll have uses for it the next year. Either I'll keep it as my own fridge, or give it to my sister when she goes to university next year.
Sam's club and Costco also have good prices on some 4cuft fridges.

Buying one is a good idea for a student, I rented mine and I wish I had just bought one

As for eating healthy I would reccommend Bridges the vegtarian cafe. They have a lot of great options. If you're not vegetarian (I'm not) don't let the fact that it's vegetarian scare you. The food is excellent and you won't even notice that you're not eating meat or anything. Bridges is my favourite place to eat on campus. It's not super cheap though, but really filling.

There is a budget planner on the website somewhere that tells you according to your meal plan what you should have at the end of each week to get to the end year and spend all your money. It tells you an amount you'd be spending each day I believe too. I found this to be pretty helpful because I could look at it every once in a while and see if I was on track.

I bought the smallest meal plan last year and first term I was spending so little because I was afraid to run out and once it got closer to the end of the year I found out I had a lot of money left over so I started spending more. If I had worked it out in the beginning it would have been a better plan.

$20 a day sounds about right, unless you go somewhere like Bistro (also awesome food btw) for dinner.

I bought my own fridge too. They aren't that expensive and I found it was great to buy juice and water and keep it in my room because I find drinks are what takes up a lot of extra money. You can spend a little more on food you'd like to eat if you have drinks in your room to eat with it.

Where can I find that budget planner? I've searched for it but couldn't find it.

Be sure to check out our articles on Food & Meal Plans, as well our The Secret Files articles which give tips on where to get the cheapest food, some great places to eat off-campus, etc.

Hey MacEng, if you see this could you post how your budgeting went? Since it was a year ago, I'm sure you could provide some good insight for anyone stressed out about it this year. (:

Did you make any mistakes? Did you run out of cash early, or have a big lump sum at the end you had to 'waste?'

Originally Posted by tiger

Where can I find that budget planner? I've searched for it but couldn't find it.

http://hospitality.mcmaster. ca/mea...008_2 009.pdf

If you know how to cook, $7-8 is enough to eat healthy each day.

I try my best to keep it under $7 per day when I don't eat out.

Cooking your own food is a lot cheaper than buying the same meal already made

I also heard from my friends down at UWO, that Toronto market places ALWAYS have very competitive prices in terms of fresh veggies & meats.
So if you're down in the T.O to visit, bring along a cart and grab some goods before you head back up.

If you ever wanna check out Farmers Markets in downtown Hamilton, they have fresh and cheap foods that come in bulks! Check this out if you want, it has all the locations of Farmer Markets in Hamilton here, under the title "Mmmm Healthy". http://macpopthebubble.wordp ress.com/2009/07/

Microwave + Soup or Kraft Dinner = best balance between cost and healthiness (okay, well maybe not the Kraft dinner... but it's only $0.70 a box! ).