<p>Hope - Hard knock life?</p>
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<p>It is a basic assumption of ours that we will pay for tuition, books, room and board for our children all the way through college, and provide an allowance too. What other people do, and the fact that some people are living on their own for years by that time, is completely irrelevant to anything.</p>
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hopeiseternal - so how do you expect college students to pay for room and board while they are going to college full time? I am paying 45+k a year for tuition every year. Would it be better for me to pay additional 15K for room and board so my kid could focus on her school work, or would it be better for my kid to work 38 hours a week ($10/hr to make 20K), and most likely be distracted from her school work? I think it is a no brainer.</p>
<p>My daughter is trying to work out grocery shopping with her soon to be suitemates. Have any of your kids used Peopod for grocery delivery on campus? It actually seems like a good solution - you can by in bulk because you are not doing the carrying and the delivery cost is less than the subway fare would be for two kids to go to the store.</p>
<p>I have personally used Peapod and it is wonderful. You do need to have someone there to accept the delivery in the window they give you. If you order over $100, the delivery fee is very reasonable. I also did tip them but even still, i think they should try it. They usually give a discount for the first shopping order.</p>
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<p>That’s great if you don’t want you kids to ever earn a degree, sure. </p>
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<p>Would you have upped it if they were in a lucrative field?</p>
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<p>Either you live in an extremely expensive area, or you aren’t buying right. Where I live 1 thing of Broccoli is like $1 (usually sold in groups of 2 or 3 for $2-3, though we might be referring to different quantities - must be for such a differential). Milk (I get almond - regular milk makes me gag/vomit) is usually $3 something for a half gallon, Eggs are like $2 something a dozen (maybe you buy 2 dozen packages). No idea what grapes cost here, never bought them. </p>
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<p>Something I might actually eat over the span of a week if I cooked every meal:</p>
<p>3 chickens ($7 each)
1lb shrimp ($7)
1lb flank steak (Somewhere between $7 and $8 - price varies)
Half can beans ($1.50 or so a can so $.75)
8 oz cheese ($2.25)
Pack tortillas ($3)
1 box pasta ($2.50)
2 cups rice (out of a big bag, say it adds up to $1)
2 packs mashed potatoes ($3 or so each)
Various colorful vegetables (Say $14 over a week)
1 Quart Almond Milk ($1.75 - half a half gal)
Quarter box cereal ($1)
Add a $2.50 for sauces, salsa, spices, and oil (Probably half of that is salsa)
Add $5 for coffee and coke (likely an underestimate for me really though). </p>
<p>Adds up to about $74 for a week. Given, there’s a lot of free food at universities that’ll cut that back, but to actually pay for all the food, I don’t see what you can do much cheaper unless you cut back on meat or vegetables, which isn’t something I want to do and probably isn’t something you want your kids to do. Or cut back on variety and figure the cheapest healthy meal you can make that you like and eat that everyday, which I wouldn’t do either. </p>
<p>What do you buy in a week for one person? Do you eat much less, different composition, or are prices much different where you live? I don’t care about this kind of detail but I want to know what people are doing to compose decent meals out of $50 a week, because I just don’t see it. </p>
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<p>You PMed me a list of items and it certainly wasn’t eating well. You did not have meat on your list at all. Additionally, I don’t think that could be bought for a month in my area (and likely many other areas - I live in the Midwest in a relatively expensive area but likely cheaper than a lot of areas on the coasts) for $100. Maybe $150. Though the plan you posted a link to puts me right in the middle of the low-cost and moderate-cost plans, which I think sounds pretty reasonable.</p>
<p>Yep. I live in an expensive area. For example, I just bought 1 lb if shrimp yesterday. It was $13.</p>
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<p>Wow. Where is that?</p>
<p>I live in a very expensive area and our food shopping bill for 2 people is about $45 a week. </p>
<p>When our son moved out of the dorm for his sophomore year, he also got a GF who wasn’t big on paying her own way. I got the impression that he was springing for a lot of her meals, and I wasn’t interested in subsidizing that activity. He had good summer jobs, so I told him it was time he cover his own living expenses. He was fine with that. It was liberating for both of us - how he spent his own money was none of my business. And he became really good at money management!</p>
<p>Last night I was talking about a debit card, but you could refuel a visa gift card with same idea.</p>
<p>Here’s what worked well for many years (hs and college) at our house. I set up both kids with their OWN debit/checking accounts. Then we did the paperwork allowing me to push from my account into their debit accounts. They had some money in own acct, then I pushed money as need for particular expenses. </p>
<p>For OP’s situation, I think ideal situation would be grocery cards or set amount per month. But there seems to be a lot of variation in grocery bills by region and by student. </p>
<p>PS - We live in a CO town, not a pricey metro. Our grocery bill for two is often over $100/week. That does not include DH’s lunches (he eat at work cafeteria). It does include laundry detergent and many other non-food items. We eat well, with meat and fish and a fair amount of convenience foods. But it’s not extravagant… until you add the wine store bill.</p>
<p>OP: we transfer $300 on the first of every month into D1’s checking account. She’s been cooking for herself since freshman year & luckily has a Publix on the edge of campus, so she walks there & back. It’s enough $$$ for her to eat well and afford a trip to Chipotle every week. She works during the summer & breaks so any other eating out is on her. I don’t monitor her purchases. She never liked the dorm food because it was too processed, so her eating habits are healthier now that she’s off the meal plan. She is also my spendy kid and likes $20/lb cheese but she’s seen me shopping with a list & coupons since she was a baby and makes mostly good choices at the grocery store. </p>
<p>While I know you’re concerned about the $$, I’d also be worried about what & how she’s going to buy & cook if she’s not used to it. It does take time to meal plan and prepare. There are lots of good cookbooks for college students. Is she used to going grocery shopping with you? Are there certain foods she likes that are easy to prepare? I think I’d take a field trip with her to the grocery store to point out options & where things usually are, and so she knows what typical prices are. </p>
<p>I don’t worry about D1 in this arena, but I’m afraid when D2 is off a meal plan (and I really think she’s going to try to make it all 4 years with one) she’s going to buy a 5 pound bag of frozen chicken, 2 gallons of milk & giant bottle of Hershey syrup & think that’ll be OK for the week ;)</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>IMO, there are plenty of ways to teach kids money management without restricting their food budget.</p>
<p>"She loves the sweet frothy concoctions at Starbucks. Can’t say I blame her, but alas, a coffee machine won’t help. "</p>
<p>With my daughter, I call these “milkshakes”. Just keeping it real.</p>
<p>My sons “chowhound thread”. He is arising junior in LA, and sometimes cooks in exchange for couch surfing.</p>
<p><a href=“http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/904876[/url]”>http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/904876</a></p>
<p>I think it’s incredibly important to assess the COL, food-wise, in making your determination.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in various parts of the US and there are striking differences in food costs, particularly for proteins, fruits and veggies, and milk.</p>
<p>IMHO, the Northeast is significantly more expensive than the rest of the country when it comes to food costs (Chicago and other large Midwestern cities are still closer to agriproduction in the Midwest; the West Coast has its own agricultural industry, as does the South, etc.).</p>
<p>Yes, maybe a package of Goldfish crackers will be fairly consistent from LA to Chicago to Boston, but a head of broccoli, a gallon of milk, or a pound of chicken is going to vary widely.</p>
<p>Where I live (in the Northeast), our big grocery store chain now has “regular” frozen shrimp on sale for $10/lb, for example. I think the “usual” price is $12/lb. This is not an organic, specialty grocery store - your ‘run of the mill’ supermarket chain.</p>
<p>A gallon of milk (standard-variety) will set you back about $4. (Keep in mind some states have dairy pricing boards and dairy price regulations - that’s why Pennsylvania stores on the NY/PA line sell milk for almost 2x as much as you pay just over the border in NY).</p>
<p>A dozen eggs? (Mind you these are your “regular” eggs - nothing free range, organic, or fancy about them) $3.</p>
<p>Another facet will be competition and grocery store density per population. I have a neighbor who moved to my city from the South who still, several years later, comments on the lack of grocery store competition and options. Land costs and unionized labor costs are expensive here and grocery store financial margins tend to be low (not to mention the headaches of delivering food to a store without easy access given city traffic, just to name one hurdle). If there isn’t much variety in terms of major chains, or if they don’t have many stores near each other (something I didn’t recognize as an ‘issue’ until pointed out to me) to spur competition, there aren’t huge incentives to keep consumer costs low.</p>
<p>All this to say - I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to inform posters they don’t know how to shop 
just because their food bills are more expensive…just consider yourself lucky you live in an area that is so affordable!</p>
<p>Here in SE Florida prices are similar to what justmytwocents posted. There is no way a person could eat real food for $50 per person per week. By real food I mean food free from chemical additives and preservatives, not necessarily organic.</p>
<p>A head of broccoli for $1 does not appear around here. Nor does flank steak for $7 per pound.</p>
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<p>Agreed. I took a look at the online weekly circulars for the closest grocery stores to my D’s apartment this year. I was actually worried $100 per week in LA would be too low compared with here in the northeast but was reassured that the prices are similar. She’ll have plenty of money and will have her earnings from campus job to fall back on for extras. As someone pointed out, you need to figure in laundry detergent, toilet paper, soap and shampoo and so forth as well, not just food.</p>
<p>Sheesh! These grocery prices make me appreciate the COL here in the hinterlands mor and more!</p>
<p>Non-organic broccoli for under $2 is normal, and I can get some sort of steak for $8.00 a pound. Boneless pork was $4.99 yesterday. A whole chicken is usually less than $2.00. All more if you go hormone, anti-biotic, organic etc. That seems in line with what people here are reporting as average - and I shop at a family chain which usually is a little more expensive than Shop Rite or other big chains. I like the short lines. With meat and fish especially, I try to shop the sales.</p>
<p>I know I have put in a plug for Trader Joe’s before, but if there is one in the area your kid will be going to school then I suggest they shop there. They keep their food prices consistant throughout the country. When my D moved to New York City from San Diego the items I bought for her at Trader Joe’s at home cost the same as in New York. This is one of the reasons she is able to buy fresh food at a reasonable cost.</p>
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<p>Whoa what? Why is it so much more expensive here? That’s literally 3.5x as expensive.</p>
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<p>Frozen meals from Trader Joe’s have great value IMO. Other stuff seems a bit pricier.</p>