My S22 transferred after his first year from a LAC that required a meal plan, to a larger university where he lived off campus and didn’t need a meal plan last year. I bought food dollars for him, which was essentially a declining balance for on campus places that could be refreshed anytime. I had him buy food dollars in $300 increments so we didn’t have one huge bill at the start of the semester. In addition, he is an authorized user on my credit card, so with that card I told him I would pay for grocery store trips. Any other food purchases off campus had to be paid for out of his own bank account, or on his own credit card that has a low limit.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much his food costs went down since he had no actual meal plan last year. I literally saved thousands of dollars over the course of last year. I didn’t go into the year with a set budget, as I really didn’t know what to expect, especially with grocery purchases. My son doesn’t cook much, but makes an occasional dinner for himself. All his breakfasts were eaten in his apartment, as were many lunches. He really kept his off campus, restaurant meals limited, since he had to pay for those. I will say though that his university has great food options, so it was easy and reasonable to use declining dollars at campus locations.
D23 is in a HCOL area working and we are helping her a bit with her summer food expenses. We told her we’d deposit $300/month in her account this summer.
She said it was more than enough for the month of May. She does eat a ton of fresh fruit/veggies, but relatively little meat. That’s basically $75/wk - so it isn’t enough for her to buy groceries and go crazy eating out.
She said she spends about $50 at the beginning of each week with her planned grocery list and then has the other $25 to fill in if/when she realized she needed an extra ingredient, etc.
She has also been slowly building up her condiment/staples collection (and is finally realizing how expensive condiments and spices are). She bought mustard and everything but the bagel spice the first week, mayonnaise the second, sriracha and chili crisp the third. Nut butter was on the list this week, I think.
Edited to add: Here are some links to USDA’s ideas of how much it costs to feed individuals broken down by age/sex as well as 4 different levels of spend. All are based on eating every meal prepared from home (no eating out).
According to USDA calculations, we are giving D23 somewhere between “low cost” and “moderate” meal plan money. The “thrifty” meal plan is about $50 less per month.
I was going to guess between $50-75 per week. With younger S, he was an authorized user on my credit card and he just used that at grocery stores and Walmart. I probably paid for some beer, but I was ok with that. The charges never seemed excessive
S22 moved off campus as a sophomore and did not have a meal plan. He’s in a relatively expensive part of the country so we were depositing $400 a month into his checking account and he paid for things with his debit card. He mostly grocery shopped and cooked for himself but could occasionally go out with friends on that amount. It was still much cheaper for us than the meal plan he was on freshman year.
My son didn’t have a meal plan last year. He did have $350/semester for dining Dollars to use on campus. He has almost $200 of those left at the end of the year. And he spent an average of $65/week the first semester and $75/week the second semester. That includes groceries, any household things he needed, as well as eating it a couple times a week. I was fine with both amounts. I’d like him to eat out less and cook more and we are slowly working on that this summer.
My son, doing internship in Mexico City, texts pictures of his food as his “proof of life”.
We get absolutely no updates or calls from him, except notices of his draining bank account or Uber charges (to get to/from restaurants),
but I can see that he’s alive with his Instagram food pics.
My SIL happened to be in CDMX for her trip, and was able to meet up with him for lunch on his 7th day there.
She sent 2 pictures of him, our 1st actual proof of him.
My gfs’ daughters would text/call/send about 20 pictures A DAY when the girls study abroad.
1 phone call would be nice, but I guess too much to ask from my son.
Same.
(And sometimes I’ll give a bit extra on top of that if he needs some extras like more internship appropriate clothes; or he’ll use our AMEX, etc.)
My S22 attends a college that doesn’t have any food service. We started with a $500/month “food & fun” budget (our thought was that he should be able to chip in for pizza with friends while studying once a month or so), and he hasn’t asked for any increases yet. So, I figure we were a little generous to start out with, and he hasn’t hit the point of “I am on beans & rice for too much of the month” yet.
He’s in Tacoma, WA, so not a big city, but semi-adjacent. And he’s generally really good with money, so I’d wager he had put some aside when he didn’t spend it, and hasn’t worked back through that. We also got a Costco membership, but he’s limited by “what he can carry home on the bus”, since he doesn’t have a car.
I have a question, D22 has been living off campus with her batchmates with an address, started paying taxes etc. she has two years of college left. Is her in-state tuition at Berkeley still dependent on parents being around in California or can we explore options to move outside the state? My employment situation changed and we want to explore going to a less expensive area. Thanks in advance for any input.
My general understanding is that they want the student to have been resident in the state before college (so their tax-paying parent(s) has/have helped support the school system before the student begins using it). I don’t know if they expect the tax-paying parent(s) to continue to reside in state for the entire 4 years, or if they’d allow a student to finish an already started course of study.
Definitely check with the UCB financial office and see if they can give you a firm answer.
Judging by Residency Requirements: Undergraduates - Office of the Registrar – it seems like you’d need to remain instate or the student would need to be declared financially independent for an entire year. Otherwise they’d shift to the non-resident tuition.
Oh, but wait – " * You reached the age of majority (18) in California while your parents were California residents for tuition purposes and your California resident parents left the state to establish a residence elsewhere, and you continued to reside in California after your parents’ departures" – this might mean you can move.
But, again, the college has the only actual answer that applies.
I am basically paying the same amount now than the meal plan cost us last year. I just give the money now to my kid instead of to the University. It’s on the upper range, but we are in a high cost of living area, and I did not want my kid to be stressed out about budgeting for food. She has additional challenges and is doing remarkably well despite them.
D22 is thinking of studying abroad in her junior year. Does anyone have an advice what debit card charges no foreign transaction fees and is widely accepted. Discover seems like a no-fee card but isn’t accepted by many foreign vendors.
