Make Your College Meal Plan Last: 6 Easy Tips

College meal plans are expensive. The food on campus may be of varying quality, but regardless, it will cost you. Here are some ways to make the most out of your college meal plan and stretch your budget.

#1: Buy some items at the grocery store.

A common food served on college campuses is spaghetti. However, you are charged for the pasta, and then the sauce is extra. While it may be inconvenient for you to cook your own pasta, having your own sauce in your room’s fridge could save you around $10 over the lifespan of your sauce, saving you possibly $30 a semester if you eat pasta a lot. The same goes for bread. If you are in a hurry, toast in the morning can be an easy breakfast substitute when you’re heading out the door. Not only will a loaf of bread plus a spread like peanut butter or jam be faster to make in your room, but the cost of a whole loaf is likely less than what you’d pay for one bagel on campus. It adds up.

#2: Eat in the dining area.

Some places will charge you for a to go box. Depending on how much you are charged, if you get something to eat a few times a day and always pack it out, you could easily rack up around $100 in to-go box expenses per semester. How? Let’s say a to-go box costs 25 cents. If you get three meals to go a day, that’s $0.75. Doing that every day of the week comes to $5.25 a week. Over 17 weeks that’s just under $90! For to-go boxes people! Save yourself a little money and eat in the dining area every once in a while and you’ll prolong the life of your meal plan and it’ll even allow you to splurge on a few items now and then.

#3: Do not shop for food on campus.

If you want to pick up some groceries, go to your closest grocery store. Avoid on campus groceries in any case. Items can easily triple the cost of what it would be in any other store, and there’s just no reason to be spending $8.00 on a box of Oreos. Find a friend with a car, ride the bus, or get some exercise buy walking yourself to a real store. Avoid food shopping on campus!

#4: Avoid the $6 salads.

If you are buying yourself a meal in on-campus dining areas, you could easily spend over $10 on food that won’t even leave you full after you’re done. Choose your purchases wisely. It may not seem like a big deal to buy a $6 salad or $7 chicken wings every night for dinner at the start of the semester, but towards the end you’ll really regret it because you’ll be out of money.

#5: Eat in all-you-can-eat facilities only when you’re really hungry.

Seems like a no-brainer, but people go into these places to get only a slice of pizza that would have cost them $2 tops. To have this option available to you, you’re likely paying somewhere around $10 each meal. So get your money’s worth by only going when you’re really hungry and get yourself some quality food there.

#6: Set a daily budget.

No, this isn’t the most fun of all the tips, but it will probably help you out the most. Let’s say you have $1000 for the semester. Broken down into the 17 weeks in a semester, that’s about $59 a week. If you plan on being at the school for the entire week, that’s about $8.50 a day for food. If you’re only on campus during the week and go home over the weekend, you’ll have almost $12 a day to spend. Keep these numbers in mind when you’re checking out. There’s nothing wrong with having a day where you go over your amount, but know you’re going to have to make cheaper decisions later down the line.

Making your meal plan work for you can be challenging, but you don’t have to spend a ton of money on food when you’re in college going to school. Set these practices up at the beginning of the semester and you should at least be on the right path towards using your meal plan efficiently.