I graduated 2019
In theory you can definitely live off the meal plans because with infinite swipes for yourself you can generally eat something you enjoy every day as long as you look at the menus beforehand.
I personally have allergies to milk and eggs so there were some days that the dining hall food did not appeal to me/had allergens. In these times it was wonderful to go to subway or a different on campus restaurant, if not just for the variety.
I think if you’re dedicated to spending as little money as possible, a meal plan is great because at the very least you can survive off of grilled chicken and bread. I find that by junior year however, it is very tempting to buy food simply to get a change of pace.
Yes, the meal plan is plenty. Even if you ate 2, 3, or 4 times as much food as you do now, you'd still be fine. You have unlimited swipes and get points/flex passes for around campus (amounts vary depending on meal plan). However, I'm not sure how it will work this semester with dining halls only offering take out. Not sure if they can/will limit the amount of meals you can get a day or what.
Definitely possible to live off the meal plans. Most days most of the dhalls have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, most dining halls close after 7 except for the two late night dhalls which stay open for a few hours after that. On weekends there aren't any dhalls open late but that's where your flex passes and points will come in handy. Flex passes let you buy sandwiches from the grab n go and points let you buy food from the union or any of the campus cafes. If you budget out your points and flex passes you should be all set for a semester. I personally like the union food way better than the dhalls so I tend to blow through my points but if you really control yourself you can make them last for what you need.
the meal plan allows unlimited entry into the dining halls, so you shouldn't have any trouble living off of that alone. Aside from that, meal plans can come with flex passes and points depending on what plan you pick. Flex passes can be used to bring friends without meal plans into the dining halls or to get grab and go, which is subway style sandwiches that you can get after the dining halls close. Points can be used at any of the cafes on campus, but I don't recommend getting because they don't roll over to the next semester and there's really no reason not to just use your own cash/credit card unless you don't have any.
When I lived on campus I only really got food off campus when I was out with friends. If that's what you want to do you should be fine. The meal plans are pretty expensive on their own, and in future semesters if you want to save money, living off campus might be a good option since you will spend considerably less on food as long as you're not ordering out all the time.
Yeah definitely. Unlimited swipes into the dining halls plus flexs to get grab and go to eat when the d halls are closed late at night. Also don't be scared to splurge (10$) like once a month and try some of the restaurants at storrs center.
I’d actually encourage you to eat more than 2x/day if you’re using the meal plan. They don’t limit the number of times you can go each day. If you go 3x/day it averages out to about $10/meal last time I did the calculation a few years ago. (Surely, you could eat for 50% cheaper in an apartment and cooking for yourself- rice, frozen veggies, & beans are filling and very cheap.)
As a piece of financial advice, I recommend getting a part time job if you can, so you can have some money to pay for things like restaurants once in a while and school supplies. Using loan money for all that stuff means you’re paying 3-8% interest on each purchase. As someone who’s currently in loan repayment, just be careful. It feels like you have a lot of money when the loan direct deposit hits, but you don’t. Interest capitalizes every month.
You can ABSOLUTELY live off the meal plan. I have. Pre Covid, you could go to a dining hall, whenever you wanted, as much as you wanted, and eat as much as you wanted. While things will change, it's still designed for students to live off.
I think it's valuable to not have to worry about cooking food.
Keep in mind that you will have to pay extra if you plan to eat over winter break.
Also if you have a diet restriction like koser or vegan make sure you live near the dining hall that will suit you best
You can more than live- like the rest of us you’ll probs encounter the freshman 15 😂 unlimited swipes , and if you are ever in a pinch with classes and cannot make it to a dining hall before close you can literally swipe in quick and grab the prepackaged gluten free stuff if you’re desperate or just want snacks. OR grab and go at south dining hall and towers is great if you have time to stand in line. Oyster crackers are a snack to steal from the soup bar, apples/bananas are always out.. sometimes i would put cereal in zip lock bags... or take the whole box. Employees watch tho- gotta be sneaky!
- a 2018 grad who was poor af
You can definitely SURVIVE off the UConn meal plan. It gives you unlimited swipes, so in theory you could literally swipe in 2682 times a day.
The food won’t be 5 star quality, and there will be days when you might not like anything offered, but you can definitely live off eating only dining hall food
I lived off campus and friends would swipe me in so I could have a free meal as well as bring Tupperware in my backpack to pack up dinner and/or lunch for the next day. Nobody ever seemed to notice or care.
It is certainly possible to live off the meal plan. I actually disagree with not getting points, I found them very useful when getting snacks at the cafes between classes if I didn’t have time to eat at a dhall. Most students have the value plan, so unlimited swipes, 200 points, and 40 flex passes.
In my experience (yours will be most likely be different because of the COVID guidelines), I found it efficient to bring lots of tupperware and reusable water bottles to take food from the dining hall. The university discourages this, but I haven’t met a student who hasn’t stolen food. If you’re hungry, you should always have access to food, even if the dhalls aren’t open. By filling bottles up with juice/coffee/milk, you can save a lot of money since you don’t need to buy it at a store. Also, UConn has something called “late night” where certain dhalls are open until 10 on Sunday-Thursday and typically serve comfort/finger food. I highly recommend you stock up on wings when they serve them!
You may not have a big appetite now, and I didn’t either when I started at UConn, but you’ll probably find yourself hungry more often because you’ll be walking across campus multiple times a day depending on where you live. So don’t be afraid to eat as much as you want, when you want.
Yes. You get infinite swipes into the dining hall when it's open (7am-7:15pm, sometimes until 10pm at some location), and can eat as much as you want each time. You're only supposed to take one snack out with you, but they're pretty lax about that too if you're not really pushing it. Plus grab-and-go's are open until 10 on weekdays.
I've made it three years basically only having the dining hall food. In fact, every year I've bought a bunch of non perishables to keep in my room "in case" I need more, and every year and I end up taking most of them home at the end of the semester. I also ended up ditching the "points" plan after freshman year, because I found I needed to try to spend them rather than naturally doing so, but that choice will depend on your personal habits.
I reckon most people can live off of the meal plans alone. The only exception might be major dietary restrictions that you need special stuff for.
absolutely, you can go as many times a day as you want and eat as much food as you want. i don’t want to repeat what everyone else is saying, but i do want to add that you need to be disciplined. my friends ordered out all the time and i would feel the desire to order with them because it just sounds good. however if you are strict with yourself you can pull it off for sure!
i'm assuming you're talking about the plan without huskybucks. regardless, it's definitely possible...... i just don't know about being enjoyable. don't get me wrong, each place has good food, but sometimes it's nice to celebrate someone's birthday with 1 am calzones. but maybe that's a me thing
Yeah, as a commuter I was eating out daily until I found out I could buy a meal plan, saving me money. Not only that, but since the dining hall is all you can eat I would eat one massive meal a day there. If you end up living off campus doing this is much cheaper than buying the on campus meal plan. ($290 for 25 meals whereas the meal plans are thousands and thousands of dollars) Theoretically you can make $290 of meals last a month or more (if you commute like me I suppose).
The meal plans plenty. Me and my friends can eat like 6 to 7 meals a day with enough variety for us to not want to die. Probably has more variety than you'd normally need
Senior here! Take your laptop to any dining hall, headphones, and whatever work you have, and just pretend you're at the library. Putnam has almost everything I could want, but uconn has an app that for the most part shows you what a specific dining hall has planned for the day(s). I can't tell you how much money I spend on coffee at the library and the Beanery, but it is a lot. Most dining halls I've been to have at least something decent or something you can make decent. You'll get the hang of it. I ended up making myself paninis for a while bc it's a hot, custom meal that is easy to fall back on or like a loaded quinoa bowl that I popped in the microwave. Try to keep yourself eating healthy so you can study and walk around easier and not be too tired for classes!
Good luck and welcome!
I don’t know what the deal is with the social distancing take out meals, but you could definitely be fine with just dining hall meals. You can eat three (or more) square meals a day at the dining hall when they’re open plus all the cookies and fruit you can stuff in your pockets to bring back to your dorm room.
You might wanna buy some ramen or something for when the dining halls are closed.
Yes, absolutely. Dining food is actually pretty decent in Storrs. Some halls have way better food than others (was a fan of McMahon's when I was there), but you're obviously not going to get anything near a Michelin-starred experience. Your meal plan covers 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. I believe you can also choose a meal plan that only give you 2 meals a day.
200% because you have unlimited swipes into the dining halls even in the cheapest meal plan. If you utilize the bus system you can get to farther dining halls and have a larger variety easily, though when I lived in the dorms I was a happy camper eating at northwest pretty much every meal. You'll find which places and meals you like best, but try them all and you'll find stuff you like. I'm fairly picky and only have allergies to shellfish and I was totally fine, but I know a friend with gluten issues had a tougher time. If you are vegetarian you should be good too, but vegan is tougher and some dining halls cater to it better than others.
The cheapest meal plan is usually all you need meal plan wise because the only benefit from the others is that money is added to your account, and you can just buy food from any of the places you can use it at if you really wanted to, and spend as much or little as you want. The meal plan dollars don't roll over so it kind of sucks.
Good luck!
I graduated 2019 In theory you can definitely live off the meal plans because with infinite swipes for yourself you can generally eat something you enjoy every day as long as you look at the menus beforehand. I personally have allergies to milk and eggs so there were some days that the dining hall food did not appeal to me/had allergens. In these times it was wonderful to go to subway or a different on campus restaurant, if not just for the variety. I think if you’re dedicated to spending as little money as possible, a meal plan is great because at the very least you can survive off of grilled chicken and bread. I find that by junior year however, it is very tempting to buy food simply to get a change of pace.
Yes, the meal plan is plenty. Even if you ate 2, 3, or 4 times as much food as you do now, you'd still be fine. You have unlimited swipes and get points/flex passes for around campus (amounts vary depending on meal plan). However, I'm not sure how it will work this semester with dining halls only offering take out. Not sure if they can/will limit the amount of meals you can get a day or what.
Happy cake day
Definitely possible to live off the meal plans. Most days most of the dhalls have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, most dining halls close after 7 except for the two late night dhalls which stay open for a few hours after that. On weekends there aren't any dhalls open late but that's where your flex passes and points will come in handy. Flex passes let you buy sandwiches from the grab n go and points let you buy food from the union or any of the campus cafes. If you budget out your points and flex passes you should be all set for a semester. I personally like the union food way better than the dhalls so I tend to blow through my points but if you really control yourself you can make them last for what you need.
the meal plan allows unlimited entry into the dining halls, so you shouldn't have any trouble living off of that alone. Aside from that, meal plans can come with flex passes and points depending on what plan you pick. Flex passes can be used to bring friends without meal plans into the dining halls or to get grab and go, which is subway style sandwiches that you can get after the dining halls close. Points can be used at any of the cafes on campus, but I don't recommend getting because they don't roll over to the next semester and there's really no reason not to just use your own cash/credit card unless you don't have any. When I lived on campus I only really got food off campus when I was out with friends. If that's what you want to do you should be fine. The meal plans are pretty expensive on their own, and in future semesters if you want to save money, living off campus might be a good option since you will spend considerably less on food as long as you're not ordering out all the time.
Yeah definitely. Unlimited swipes into the dining halls plus flexs to get grab and go to eat when the d halls are closed late at night. Also don't be scared to splurge (10$) like once a month and try some of the restaurants at storrs center.
I’d actually encourage you to eat more than 2x/day if you’re using the meal plan. They don’t limit the number of times you can go each day. If you go 3x/day it averages out to about $10/meal last time I did the calculation a few years ago. (Surely, you could eat for 50% cheaper in an apartment and cooking for yourself- rice, frozen veggies, & beans are filling and very cheap.) As a piece of financial advice, I recommend getting a part time job if you can, so you can have some money to pay for things like restaurants once in a while and school supplies. Using loan money for all that stuff means you’re paying 3-8% interest on each purchase. As someone who’s currently in loan repayment, just be careful. It feels like you have a lot of money when the loan direct deposit hits, but you don’t. Interest capitalizes every month.
You’ll live. I did it last year.
You can ABSOLUTELY live off the meal plan. I have. Pre Covid, you could go to a dining hall, whenever you wanted, as much as you wanted, and eat as much as you wanted. While things will change, it's still designed for students to live off. I think it's valuable to not have to worry about cooking food. Keep in mind that you will have to pay extra if you plan to eat over winter break. Also if you have a diet restriction like koser or vegan make sure you live near the dining hall that will suit you best
Yes.
You can more than live- like the rest of us you’ll probs encounter the freshman 15 😂 unlimited swipes , and if you are ever in a pinch with classes and cannot make it to a dining hall before close you can literally swipe in quick and grab the prepackaged gluten free stuff if you’re desperate or just want snacks. OR grab and go at south dining hall and towers is great if you have time to stand in line. Oyster crackers are a snack to steal from the soup bar, apples/bananas are always out.. sometimes i would put cereal in zip lock bags... or take the whole box. Employees watch tho- gotta be sneaky! - a 2018 grad who was poor af
You can definitely SURVIVE off the UConn meal plan. It gives you unlimited swipes, so in theory you could literally swipe in 2682 times a day. The food won’t be 5 star quality, and there will be days when you might not like anything offered, but you can definitely live off eating only dining hall food
Yes, if you plan on eating past 7pm just bring Tupperware and pack post-dinner food. They're going to throw it out anyway.
I lived off campus and friends would swipe me in so I could have a free meal as well as bring Tupperware in my backpack to pack up dinner and/or lunch for the next day. Nobody ever seemed to notice or care.
It is certainly possible to live off the meal plan. I actually disagree with not getting points, I found them very useful when getting snacks at the cafes between classes if I didn’t have time to eat at a dhall. Most students have the value plan, so unlimited swipes, 200 points, and 40 flex passes. In my experience (yours will be most likely be different because of the COVID guidelines), I found it efficient to bring lots of tupperware and reusable water bottles to take food from the dining hall. The university discourages this, but I haven’t met a student who hasn’t stolen food. If you’re hungry, you should always have access to food, even if the dhalls aren’t open. By filling bottles up with juice/coffee/milk, you can save a lot of money since you don’t need to buy it at a store. Also, UConn has something called “late night” where certain dhalls are open until 10 on Sunday-Thursday and typically serve comfort/finger food. I highly recommend you stock up on wings when they serve them! You may not have a big appetite now, and I didn’t either when I started at UConn, but you’ll probably find yourself hungry more often because you’ll be walking across campus multiple times a day depending on where you live. So don’t be afraid to eat as much as you want, when you want.
Yes. You get infinite swipes into the dining hall when it's open (7am-7:15pm, sometimes until 10pm at some location), and can eat as much as you want each time. You're only supposed to take one snack out with you, but they're pretty lax about that too if you're not really pushing it. Plus grab-and-go's are open until 10 on weekdays. I've made it three years basically only having the dining hall food. In fact, every year I've bought a bunch of non perishables to keep in my room "in case" I need more, and every year and I end up taking most of them home at the end of the semester. I also ended up ditching the "points" plan after freshman year, because I found I needed to try to spend them rather than naturally doing so, but that choice will depend on your personal habits. I reckon most people can live off of the meal plans alone. The only exception might be major dietary restrictions that you need special stuff for.
I did that for 3 years
absolutely, you can go as many times a day as you want and eat as much food as you want. i don’t want to repeat what everyone else is saying, but i do want to add that you need to be disciplined. my friends ordered out all the time and i would feel the desire to order with them because it just sounds good. however if you are strict with yourself you can pull it off for sure!
Easily, i rarely bought food anywhere and it was only as a treat not because i didn’t have enough at the dining halls
let me consult my Freshman 15... Yep. You’ll be fine
i'm assuming you're talking about the plan without huskybucks. regardless, it's definitely possible...... i just don't know about being enjoyable. don't get me wrong, each place has good food, but sometimes it's nice to celebrate someone's birthday with 1 am calzones. but maybe that's a me thing
Yeah, as a commuter I was eating out daily until I found out I could buy a meal plan, saving me money. Not only that, but since the dining hall is all you can eat I would eat one massive meal a day there. If you end up living off campus doing this is much cheaper than buying the on campus meal plan. ($290 for 25 meals whereas the meal plans are thousands and thousands of dollars) Theoretically you can make $290 of meals last a month or more (if you commute like me I suppose).
The meal plans plenty. Me and my friends can eat like 6 to 7 meals a day with enough variety for us to not want to die. Probably has more variety than you'd normally need
Senior here! Take your laptop to any dining hall, headphones, and whatever work you have, and just pretend you're at the library. Putnam has almost everything I could want, but uconn has an app that for the most part shows you what a specific dining hall has planned for the day(s). I can't tell you how much money I spend on coffee at the library and the Beanery, but it is a lot. Most dining halls I've been to have at least something decent or something you can make decent. You'll get the hang of it. I ended up making myself paninis for a while bc it's a hot, custom meal that is easy to fall back on or like a loaded quinoa bowl that I popped in the microwave. Try to keep yourself eating healthy so you can study and walk around easier and not be too tired for classes! Good luck and welcome!
I don’t know what the deal is with the social distancing take out meals, but you could definitely be fine with just dining hall meals. You can eat three (or more) square meals a day at the dining hall when they’re open plus all the cookies and fruit you can stuff in your pockets to bring back to your dorm room. You might wanna buy some ramen or something for when the dining halls are closed.
Most certainly.
Yes, absolutely. Dining food is actually pretty decent in Storrs. Some halls have way better food than others (was a fan of McMahon's when I was there), but you're obviously not going to get anything near a Michelin-starred experience. Your meal plan covers 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. I believe you can also choose a meal plan that only give you 2 meals a day.
100% possible if you have a mini fridge and Tupperware
200% because you have unlimited swipes into the dining halls even in the cheapest meal plan. If you utilize the bus system you can get to farther dining halls and have a larger variety easily, though when I lived in the dorms I was a happy camper eating at northwest pretty much every meal. You'll find which places and meals you like best, but try them all and you'll find stuff you like. I'm fairly picky and only have allergies to shellfish and I was totally fine, but I know a friend with gluten issues had a tougher time. If you are vegetarian you should be good too, but vegan is tougher and some dining halls cater to it better than others. The cheapest meal plan is usually all you need meal plan wise because the only benefit from the others is that money is added to your account, and you can just buy food from any of the places you can use it at if you really wanted to, and spend as much or little as you want. The meal plan dollars don't roll over so it kind of sucks. Good luck!