<p>As a incoming second year student, I am thinking about buying a meal plan from the DC, which is 180-meals+$100 aggie cash for $1599. I am fine with food at the DC, but value it for its convenience. Also, after my 180 meals expire, will I be able to purchase meal blocks and just add it to my plan…or buy a new seperate plan?></p>
<p>Just depends on your lifestyle. If it’s convenient, do it.</p>
<p>after your 180 meal plan expires, you can buy another 180 for $1599.
or you can buy the 150 or 120 meal plan. </p>
<p>dorm meal blocks are differently priced/set-up because they are attached to student housing.</p>
<p>I’m a bit confused. The price per meal for these plans are:
$1599 / 180 = $8.88
$1439 / 150 = $9.59
$1369 / 120 = $11.41</p>
<p>If paying up front for a meal with cash costs $8, why would anyone want to purchase any of these meal plans?</p>
<p>wait its only $8? i thought it was $10?</p>
<p>if you like the convenience and the money is worth it for you, go for it.</p>
<p>Those prices are for the year, not the quarter. You get 180, 150, 120 or 90 meals per quarter, so the prices are a pretty good deal.</p>
<p>As for the original poster, there is a new unlimited plan that allows you to swipe in/out of the DC as many times as you want a day. Pretty sweet if you like to eat a lot of small meals per day. Other than that, the 180 is a pretty big plan…I wouldn’t worry about running out of meals with that one…though you can buy meal blocks if you do.</p>
<p>And it is about $8.50 per meal when you pay at the door.</p>
<p>@arabowner20 the price is actually for the quarter. for example, for the year, its actually $4130.55 to go from no meal plan, to the 180 meals/quarter. so you would get 540 meals for the year at $7.6 per meal. If you also consider the price of paying at the door, you are really overpaying if you only get the 90 meal plan for example. for the year you get 270 meals at $12.96 per meal, the 90 meal plan is $3500.75 for the year. This is going off of the 2011-2012 single student apartment fee schedule. maybe its a little different in the dorms, but id imagine it would be the same.</p>
<p>PerfectSky, </p>
<p>Unless something has changed recently, those prices should be for the year. I’ve been working/living in the reshalls for two years, and the meal plans are generally cheap and per year, not per quarter. That’s part of the way they draw students in, through the cheapness of the meal plans versus paying at the door. You pay around $2-3 per meal. At the end of the year, I received $2.25 back per meal for unused meals, which sounds about right.</p>
<p>This is the page I was referring to: <a href=“Dining at UC Davis | UC Davis Student Housing and Dining Services”>Dining at UC Davis | UC Davis Student Housing and Dining Services;
<p>Though it appears that non student housing students cannot get the unlimited plan unfortunately. :(</p>
<p>yeah, i think something must have changed, because here is the price sheet for 2011-2012. </p>
<p><a href=“http://housing.ucdavis.edu/__pdf/Shared/2011%20SSA%20Fee%20Schedule.pdf[/url]”>http://housing.ucdavis.edu/__pdf/Shared/2011%20SSA%20Fee%20Schedule.pdf</a></p>
<p>you can see the difference between no meal plan and the 90 meal plan is $3500.75 for the year. so it would be $12.96 per meal for 270 meals. this is the single student apartment, things could be different in the dorms, im not sure, but i know its $3500.75 to go from no meals to 90 meals per quarter.</p>
<p>I think the biggest question is how much do you eat. If you’re the type of person who eats enough to make a game out of how many same-colored plates you can get, then yeah, it pays off. If you don’t eat much, maybe not.</p>