@2014novamom, that is a nice raise!
DS had the best semester since college with all A’s and A-'s. He is starting to have most of the weed-out classes behind him so big relieve for me.
60% is quite the raise @2014novamom!
Wow @glido - that’s one long road trip. Are you taking an RV? How long do you think it’ll take you to drive that far?
Congrats to your son @4beardolls!
@CT1417 and @Agentninetynine - the 2700 is one-way! It’ll take us a little over three days. Not many side trips on the way there, but we are driving to a family reunion after DD’12 graduates. We were going to fly, but the car rental rate for a large enough vehicle was crazy high. So we are going to drive (minivan, no RV), but fly the kids and grandma east. It will be the first time we have all four of our kids on the east coast, so we are going to visit family. I will fly back with three of the kids. (Part of the calculus was having some extra space for our 2016 college grads’ stuff. She plans on giving away and throwing away a lot of her dorm material - things it seem as though I just bought at BB&B yesterday!)
Holy smokes @glido. We will of course expect a full trip report, lol!
@glido — oh my goodness. Here I am still whining about the 900 miles I drove over the course of five days and you are going to drive 900 miles/day for three days in row. Unbelievable. I hope your children appreciate you!
Completely unrelated…I have been off this thread while supposedly focusing on college search for S17. Older son, the one from this thread, will be living in a Collegetown apt next year and apparently preparing his own food. How have you all handled the food budget? How did you arrive at a number that encourages cooking, recognizing that all lunch and some dinner will be grabbed along the way?
Thanks!
@CT1417
My daughter is living in an apartment this school year. Not sure how we came up with a figure but I’m giving her $1000 per semester for her grocery. But I also bought her a meal plan (Off Campus Value for $690 per semester, 45 meals/sem, $150 Big Bucks per sem). It seems enough, but she also has a job. She goes to Wegman and or Target once a month. Not sure how much cooking she actually do. I noticed a lot of Grubhub on her Visa.
My daughter lived in a dorm suite with a kitchen last year, but was required to have a meal plan ($1700!) in flex dollars. She ate at the dining hall a few times because her boyfriend had a lunch plan, but mostly she bought sandwiches or pizza and stuff a la carte from school deli or bought food at the school grocery store (overpriced) and cooked at her boyfriend’s house.
Next year she’s living off campus but has enough in athletic scholarship to buy a meal plan. She’ll do the same thing, shop at the grocery store and cook at home.
Her boyfriend figured it out. He had a lunch plan at school. He could eat at the dining hall any M-F between 10:30 and 3 pm, as that was ‘lunch’. Sometimes he’d eat 3 times in one day, at 10:30, at noon, at 3. He got his money’s worth.
@CT1417 That is a tough question. Too much money encourages restaurants, so I’d probably keep it very lean
My oldest lived off campus. I bought her a commuter meal plan, which I think covered lunches on days when she was on campus and gave her some flex dollars. I paid her share of the rent, so she was on her own for other groceries. She had a job. She had no other real bills. Time of pony up for something.
My youngest (D for this board) will live in an on-campus apartment next year. Rather than build new dorms, her school bought apartment buildings, and that is where juniors and seniors live. She still has to have a meal plan, but a smaller one than she had in the regular dorms. I’ll leave her to her own devices for non food plan groceries as well. She has an on-campus job during the school year which should cover most of her needs, and she is working all summer.
I had a kitchen for 3 years of my undergrad: mac & cheese is always good to have as a back up when you’re too busy to run to the store and the fridge is empty. I found that there were several different ways to cook chicken that were affordable and provided a little variety. Spaghetti is easy. I think the key is fresh veggies and to get educated about healthy and affordable protein choices that do not require a degree I the culinary arts. Stir-fry veggies and rice was pretty common, now that I think about it. (Oh yea, we ordered pizza delivery a lot too!)
My son is staying at school this summer and just had his second promotion at work so he’ll be making plenty to cover his expenses. He started a host/busser at this restaurant in September. He was promoted to server in January and they just made him a supervisor/team lead for hosts. They have been talking to him about an assistant manager position. He has a dream of someday owning a restaurant so this has really been great experience for him. They also have him as a trainer. He’s getting to see all the aspects and is analyzing what works well, what doesn’t, etc.
He had a fantastic year at his new school. He made some good connections with professors he really likes, got a 4.0, started a recognized student organization, lived with his best buddies and earned a lot of money at his job. He has $4000 more now than when he started school in September! I love this kid!
So, I’m just going to say, just because they can succeed at a highly selective and prestigious school, doesn’t mean they have to. He went from feeling like a number in a mass crowd of people to feeling like a valuable contributor again on many levels. He’s so much more himself this year. Phew!
We’re heading to New York for my daughter’s graduation from Barnard and it will be nice to spend time with my son in the car, where we can really talk and catch up!
@2016BarnardMom – CONGRATS on your D’s graduation. Hope the weather cooperates.
Will she be staying in NYC to work?
@2018dad – a new grocery store will be opening in September down in the 300 block of College Ave, probably not far from where the IGA was 30 years ago. Now to teach him how to cook…
Thanks everyone for the food budget suggestions. Will probably be a bit of trial and error the first few months to come up with the right $$ figure. He has become a fan of microwavable Kraft Mac & Cheese this past year. He made it to 19 years old without ever eating that and now asks for it whenever I offer to send him something.
@CT1417 My S14 still has about $1000 in non-refundable food debit to spend in less than two weeks. I suggested he buy enough Easy Mac to get him through next year when he’s not on the meal plan. Though he’ll have to find a place to store it all over the summer. He’s moving off campus, which thankfully means he won’t have to buy the required minimum meal plan. That was obviously too much $$.
@2016BarnardMom I’m glad to hear your son is thriving!
My S14 has had a slightly rocky semester. Even though he dropped a class and is down to 12 credits he is still struggling to finish assignments. I am hoping his strong start to most of his classes means he’ll still do okay. Looking forward to having him home for the summer.
@CT1417 Are you talking about the new food coop that some students are trying to start at Cornell? DS '15 is talking about working there. He’s a CU freshman who loves to cook but is a little horrified at how hard it is to get decent food to cook with if you’re living on campus. (He once bought a salad at one of the take out bistros to pick through for ingredients for stir fry.) He has a fair amt of Big Red Bucks left, and will probably try to buy some nonperishables to donate before he leaves.
DD’14 is also moving to an apartment in Collegetown next year. I’m a little sad that she and her friends have to leave their beautiful suite, but two of them are doing a semester abroad next year and this is the only way they could stay together.
Both will be home in less than two weeks! DS’15 will be working at a summer camp all summer, but we’ll see him for a couple of weeks first. DD will be working from home. I’ll enjoy catching up with them so much.
Re: Food budget.
I may have said this before earlier in the thread, but for S '14 we signed up for a meal plan even though his university apartment had a kitchen(ette). He lobbied us to let him drop it over last summer, so he did. He got a refund of $2000 to use over 16 weeks; $125 a week. I think he used it for his entire budget, not just food. For second semester, he never signed up and we just gave him the $2K.
He’s not your typical college student when it comes to food though. Enjoys cooking, took weekly bus trips to Trader Joes for groceries, ordered grass fed on-line from Texas (we alternately referred to this as the “sketchy meat” or the “mail-order road kill”), etc. He usually cooked 3-4 times a week for lunch and dinner and then re-heated. He also eats a tremendous amount of eggs, 3-4 for breakfast every day.
Congrats on your daughter’s graduation @2016BarnardMom - one less tuition to pay! Does she have a job lined up or is she going on to grad school? Great to hear about your son’s job and the great year in school. Sometimes it just takes them a little bit more time to blossom.
D has a fairly comprehensive meal plan on campus. And Trader Joes is a few blocks from school. Since she’s in Los Angeles there is fresh produce year round and lots of options for anyone with dietary restrictions. But this summer may be a challenge since D will be interning at a different campus in the south. Not sure if this will be an issue. She is allergic (one of the 5%) to dairy. Not intolerant, but allergic, so she’s going to have to cook more for herself. I think the challenge is not in the cooking but in the time it takes to plan a meal, shop for, cook and clean up. We’ll see how it goes.
@2016BarnardMom, so happy to hear of your’s son’s newfound happiness! Can’t believe your daughter is graduating already. Congrats!
@momreads, I heard on another thread (^^her fault 
) that you have a track and field son at UAH; if that’s right, do you have any thoughts on the school, the team, the courseload, etc.? I’m thinking UAH might be a school to look at, but we need to have the full tuition merit last throughout his undergrad, and I’m worried about DS being able to keep a 3.0, run track, and still graduate on time.
Hi mdcmom, my younger son did run cross country his freshman year, but took a redshirt for track and field. He eventually decided that he really did not like running at the college level, because it “is a 40-hour a week job and you don’t get paid.” His words, not mine. Instead, he found life beyond the track, and he loves it. He still does intramurals with his fraternity, playing soccer, volleyball or football. He also is a member of various clubs and organizations. He recently was elected to the student government as a senator. He carries 15 hours a semester as a double major in finance and econ with a minor in math. He will graduate on time, but he also started college with 56 hours from AP/DE. If you want additional information, send me a PM.
@mdcmom — I think it is a co-op. Slated to open this summer in the 300 block of College Ave. I hope one does not need to participate in the growing or harvesting of the food in order to shop there.
I cannot believe another multi-story building is going up on College Ave. It is such a change from 30 years ago.
http://greenstar.coop/collegetown/
Son knows nothing about this and has not given food a passing thought. We may have cooking boot camp here this summer!
@crowlady – son uses every single dining dollar and then I keep adding money. He seems to eat more as the year wears on.
@CT1417 when I was living off campus on Lake Street and Stewart Ave (30 years ago for me, too!) I ate a lot of peanut butter and tuna fish. I think cooked spaghetti a few times. The new co-op in Collegetown sounds exciting!