$175 per week? It’s not that expensive.
The school meal plan was about 30/day, so it was still saving money
My daughter’s first meal plan was $2600/sem. It was ridiculous. Sophomore meal plan was $1750 (because sophomores eat less than freshmen? no, because sophomores can move off campus so they charge them less). Still ridiculous. There is no way she spends that much on food. Her rent is similar to the cost of the dorms but the real savings of living off campus is not having to get a meal plan.
Son’s school had a pay as you go dining plan- cheaper than the cash/public prices. We put money on his card when funds ran low. Info about typical students’ expenses on the card (it included the pay washers) was about $1000 to $1200 for the year. This did not count other venues (unions, off campus). I believe most schools will have estimates of costs which can be a rough guide.
We gave our D $100 a week. We came up with that amount after a couple of trail shopping runs,
We gave our daughter what the school charged for room and board each quarter. We withdrew it from her 529. She was responsible for using that money to cover rent, food, utilities. Because of her major and sport schedule, she purchased the 10 meal plan to make sure she was able to eat well during the week when she didn’t have much time to prepare meals. We were fortunate to be able to cover those expenses.
Is mine the only family that found grocery shopping to be a stumbling block to saving money on food while living off-campus?
Everybody talks about their kids having access to kitchens. What good is a kitchen if you can’t get groceries to put in it because there’s no supermarket you can walk to?
Lots of grocery delivery services nowadays - peapod, amazon, etc. Many of my daughter’s friends (despite living in Boston where grocery stores are pretty easy to get to) used these services while in school. Don’t know what the cost was, but they were generally frugal kids and so I doubt it was expensive. The roommates shared one grocery account (to make it even cheaper).
Bicycles, roommates with vehicles, and living in group housing which functioned as a food co-op of sorts were some solutions of my kid for 3 years off meal plan.
Well my estimate of $50 a week was pretty accurate ( this does not include the dining dollars to be used for lunches). We are visiting and last night we took her food shopping … she is living away for most of the summer… and we spent $61.00. This included a few items that are not weekly items and will not have to be purchased again.
We do $100 per week, but of that my son pays half of an electric bill. This is money for about 10 meals a week plus incidental fraternity expenses like t shirts but also his formals, which involve hotel rooms and so forth. Also gas and other entertainment and toiletries. If he runs over, then he has to tap into his summer earnings.
thanks for all of these answers, folks! That’s the thing about college…everytime you think you have it all figured out financially, all of the pieces move! 
I never had a car in college, and the grocery store was over a mile away. Most of the time did walk, but also got rides from friends. I bought one bag of groceries at a time. My daughter has the same issues, except she has a boyfriend with a car, lots of friends, the school has a grocery store (it’s expensive, but convenient) where she can pick up a few things or order things for pick up. I was sending boxes from Amazon but she said she didn’t need them.
Most campuses have some store that sells those perishable staples (things like milk) and unfortunately the students are forced to buy from them because of the convenience. (As many have noted, that will still b e cheaper than the meal plan.) My daughter did become a savvy campus convenience store shopper - frequently buying the huge size iced tea they sold for $1.
Our kids each got the amount of the lowest price full meal plan at their LA private U. There was a market walking distance of campus and another one that was a further walk who would transport students back to campus. They also made friends with other students with cars.
Both felt the $$ we gave them for food was more than adequate. Now that D had graduated, she is able to pay $600/month rent and use about $400 or so for utilities, gas, entertainment and food, basically living on about $1k/month for everything, still living in LA (cooking and eating at her home more).
we have always been on the meal plan with boys. in fact, we had to change to the platinum plan for our last son since he ate so much. when I was in school they had a pick any 12 or a pay as you go where you had a card with so many meals paid for…I was never on the big meal plan… #bigboyseatbigmeals
We just give the amount stipulated by the college for an unlimited meal plan. That covers food and entertai
We paid: Price of room and board in dorms - Price of her apartment. I wasn’t going to pay more for her to live off campus. This ends up $200/ mo
Interesting and timely thread for us. Our son will be out of the dorms for the first time in the fall and is currently on his own during an internship this summer. Seeing that quite a few people are providing $300/month makes me realize we should probably up our subsidy this summer. It’s something we’re keeping an eye to figure out how much to provide because, yes, big boys eat a lot.
We will be OK with providing a 5 meal/week plan during the school year if he determines that would help him.
My daughter lived in her school’s only off-campus house her senior year and she chose not to go on the meal plan. We were a little leery because she didn’t have a car, and the closest grocery store was a mile away. The first month, we just watched her account to see what she needed. She ate mostly vegetarian, but since the closest store that delivered was Whole Foods(!!) it wasn’t as cheap as you might expect. And there were many times when all she had time to prepare were the pre-made frozen convenience foods. In the end, we were pleasantly surprised by how much less preparing her own food cost us than the college meal plan. I think she spent 40-60 per week for most of the year.
Then the annoying vegan cafe opened, serving avocado toast to the masses, and this went up slightly. But it was singularly delicious avocado toast so we cannot fault her for succumbing to this temptation.
She did get a few free dinners or brunches each month because her house (French-speaking) required the students to make community meals for the entire house and then eat together on those occasions, but the school paid for the supplies, including the wine!!