Meal plan or no meal plan..plus can someone explain garnet bucks compared to flex bucks?

Pasbal
Sun, 07 Jun 2015 05:14:44 +0000

A meal plan is absolutely not worth it if you don’t have to buy one. You have to use almost all of the meals on the plan to even make it remotely worth it- which means eating at the campus dining halls or using one of the $6 equivalent meals at Subway/Chick-Fil-A/etc only… and the meals you can use at the non-dining hall locations (Subway, Chick-Fil-A, and the like) are awful choices because it’s limited to a $6 value. If you don’t have to buy a meal plan, you’re much better off buying Garnet Bucks for your kid or just giving them money to eat wherever or however they want.

FlexBucks are included with meal plans. I believe all meal plans this year include $150. You can run through $150 FlexBucks like it’s nothing if you’re eating somewhere other than the 2 dining halls. FlexBucks expire at the end of the year, but can roll over from Fall to Spring.

Garnet Bucks can be purchased in addition to meal plans, and if you don’t have to purchase a meal plan you can buy Garnet Bucks in place of a meal plan. FSU Dining likes to have promotions a few weeks into each semester offering bonuses on Garnet Bucks purchases, so you can sometimes get a decent bonus if you buy $300 or so Garnet Bucks. They can be used like FlexBucks, but roll over until you graduate if you have any remaining at the end of the year.

My personal opinion is to avoid meal plans at all costs. The food is not that great, the per-meal prices aren’t that bad (especially if you eat before about 4:30pm when everything switches over to the Dinner prices vs. Lunch), and the only reason they’re even tolerable is because they’ve added the option of using a meal plan for a meal at the on-campus restaurants… except that the limit is $6 so you’re limited to specific 6" subs at Subway or one of like 2 options at Chick-Fil-A.

Keep in mind too that if you get a meal plan for Fall, you have to get one in Spring, so if your kid doesn’t like it, too bad, you’re still on the hook for another ~$1900+. You can get one in Spring without having one in Fall, so if you try Fall without one and realize it’s just easier to have one, you can sign up for one for Spring semester.

Once you know where your kid is living for the year, you will know whether you have to have a meal plan or not. If you do have to buy one, just get prepared to overpay for it. If you don’t need one, consider yourself blessed or lucky or whatever, and don’t buy one. There are VERY few instances where it’s actually a money-saving maneuver.