Sophomore Anna Morton stands in line at McCorkle Place, waiting with other hungry students and locals for the free Hare Krishna dinner that is served every Thursday evening. Anna arrives at the table, reaches into her pocket and pulls out a handful of loose change. She deposits it into the donation bin on the table.
“I usually never have any cash on me,” Anna says. “This is one of the first times I do.”
Anna has come to the Hare Krishna dinner almost every Thursday this semester. It is just one of the ways she gets her meals, since deciding to drop her meal plan before returning for spring semester.
“The past three semesters here I’ve had a meal plan,” Anna says. “And it’s nice for a social activity; all your friends have meal plans, you all go eat together, you run into people in the cafeteria, and it’s still fun. But when you think about the price compared to the amount of food you eat, I didn’t think it was worth it at all, especially with the quality of the food.”
So, this semester, Anna has been making her meals in her dorm, utilizing one of the amenities of dorms that is rarely used: the kitchen.
“When I came back this semester I ended up bringing a lot of groceries and a lot of pots and pans and cooking utensils,” Anna says. “So, I just started saving a lot of money by cooking myself.”
She also saves money by saving food after she has gone out to eat. Instead of eating all of a huge meal, she saves part of it, ensuring she gets two meals for her money instead of one. But it’s the cooking aspect of not having a meal plan that she really enjoys.
“Having the time to cook for yourself, it can be hard to find. But for me, I see it as a stress relief, and I can read while I’m waiting for water to boil.”
Anna has made several dishes in her dorm kitchen on a regular basis that others would rarely make, like tortilla pizzas, pancakes and pasta.
As for the social aspect to the dining halls, Anna has a few friends who also gave up their meal plans in order to save money and cook more for themselves. They also cook for each other, and have planned dinners every week.
“We’ve had tacos, chili, pesto pizza,” Anna says. “So that’s a lot of fun too, to be able to cook with your friends.”
At times, Anna does miss eating at the dining halls on campus.
“Sometimes I just want a huge variety of dishes,” Anna says. “And it gets kind of hard to make lots of different well-rounded meals; you end with a lot of pasta and pizza because it’s easy.”
When living on campus, it can seem that a meal plan is the most convenient way to eat and stay up-to-date with friends at the same time. But with meal plan prices seemingly always rising, Anna might be on to something that more on-campus students should try.