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So this is why young people stay living at home.


LucyStoner
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I also question the congregate kitchen. If there aren't multiple refrigerators, multiple ranges, etc., I don't see how this works as any kind of reasonable solution to a housing/COL crisis. The no hot plate/no microwave clause leaves tenants 100% at the mercy of that kitchen especially given there is ZERO storage in those rooms to keep any kind of food, and no space for even a mini-fridge by the time one puts a bed, a desk, and clothing in there.

 

With that many tenants dependent on the kitchen for food, if it isn't pretty much a commercial size kitchen, they are toast. All of their "savings" in renting these closets with a toilet are eaten up in take out and convenience food. 

 

Since the article really said pretty much nothing about the robustness of the communal living space, I really have my doubts. My college boy living in an apartment with a kitchen he wasn't using found out in the first month how much money goes to the deli, McD's, the pizza place, etc. for convenience food. It was startling, and quickly taught him, "I must cook for myself".  Shared refrigerators can be a real problem. My sister was in a quad with a shared kitchenette when she first started her Master's at Universitie de Caen and had most of the food she bought stolen by other students. She eventually had to buy a large lock box about the size of a refrigerator shelf and put everything in it with a padlock. Then someone stole the lock box and tried to beat the lock off it. It was found in the garbage. Sigh...that was when she moved off campus.

 

So I just don't see this many people being dependent on that shared kitchen unless some seriously good planning was done such as a locked cupboard and a locked mini-fridge for each tenant. In this country, in my experience, most developers of low income housing don't do all that much decent planning. GRRRR.....

Edited by FaithManor
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My ds is living in 150 sq ft with another person! His toilet is down the hall, and until May has a two burners down the hall for 10 rooms. Oh, and he has a shower down the hall too. He loses the two burners this spring. He looks at as being nicer than living in his car, which he did last year. They're each paying $400.

 

Holy cow!  Can you say where?

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I think this has been posted here before but it offers much in a tiny space. The OP's view is better, though. In the link below, be sure to scroll down to the video. I can imagine a flat tv and extra folding chairs hung on the wall.

 

 

http://dornob.com/tiny-8-sq-meter-apartment-is-full-of-space-saving-secrets/

See that's cleverly designed and the shower and toilet are around a corner.

 

I lived in a dorm for 2 quarters when I was 21 and I had a large closet, drawers built into the bed and a built in shelf and desk thingy.

Edited by LucyStoner
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I also question the congregate kitchen. If there aren't multiple refrigerators, multiple ranges, etc., I don't see how this works as any kind of reasonable solution to a housing/COL crisis. The no hot plate/no microwave clause leaves tenants 100% at the mercy of that kitchen especially given there is ZERO storage in those rooms to keep any kind of food, and no space for even a mini-fridge by the time one puts a bed, a desk, and clothing in there.

 

With that many tenants dependent on the kitchen for food, if it isn't pretty much a commercial size kitchen, they are toast. All of their "savings" in renting these closets with a toilet are eaten up in take out and convenience food.

 

Since the article really said pretty much nothing about the robustness of the communal living space, I really have my doubts. My college boy living in an apartment with a kitchen he wasn't using found out in the first month how much money goes to the deli, McD's, the pizza place, etc. for convenience food. It was startling, and quickly taught him, "I must cook for myself". Shared refrigerators can be a real problem. My sister was in a quad with a shared kitchenette when she first started her Master's at Universitie de Caen and had most of the food she bought stolen by other students. She eventually had to buy a large lock box about the size of a refrigerator shelf and put everything in it with a padlock. Then someone stole the lock box and tried to beat the lock off it. It was found in the garbage. Sigh...that was when she moved off campus.

 

So I just don't see this many people being dependent on that shared kitchen unless some seriously good planning was done such as a locked cupboard and a locked mini-fridge for each tenant. In this country, in my experience, most developers of low income housing don't do all that much decent planning. GRRRR.....

Aside from the kitchen area, there isn't really communal living space. They have 23 units stuffed into a height restricted building on a 3000 sf lot. I doubt they even have a spot for each person to lock up a bike. Some of the units are 200sf but that will cost about $1000.

 

I think a lot of students aren't cooking much. I agree it's not the most economical way to live but certainly there are students who eat out most of the time, even if that means living off of pizza slices and cup of noodles from the corner store.

Edited by LucyStoner
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The single room, no frills, open toilet seem to be a lower cost alternative to these:

 

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattles-newest-apartments-prison-cell-with-no-door-for-toilet/

 

These have in-unit bathrooms and kitchenettes and often come partially furnished or with some built in storage. Some have sleeping lofts. There's a full size kitchen on each floor but such extravagances will cost 😂----it looks like these are $850 and up, with many units coming in at $1000.

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The shock over an open bathroom is quite interesting to me. Folks used to keep chamber pots in their bedrooms--was that shocking? Parts of the world still commonly use open style public toilets--the kind without dividers between seats or holes in the ground or a common trench or whatever works.

 

Maybe I'm jaded after years of zero privacy in the bathroom because of young children, but toileting just doesn't feel to me like something that absolutely has to be reserved for an enclosed stall all its own. No I wouldn't sit on the toilet in public in an culture where that was not socially acceptable, but in the privacy of my own bedroom? Even the germ thing--if it's my personal toilet it's got only my personal germs. I'm not going to catch someone's super bug from toilet spray.

 

I'm just assuming that folks who rent these rooms aren't planning on significant entertaining there.

 

Chamber pots were big the same time outhouses were, then stuck around through some shared bathrooms or when the bathroom in the house was on a different floor than the bedrooms and occupants weren't sure about being able to "make the trip."  So yes, they are better than some circumstances, but not better (to me) than a separate area close by.  There's a reason they haven't stuck around as common in this country.

 

Public toilets elsewhere depend upon the culture, but I can't think of anywhere we've been where private bathrooms are stuck in the middle of the living quarters out in the open - except for prison cells.

 

Apparently most of these places have a no microwave/no hot plate clause in the lease. I'm sure people violate that all the time though.

 

They never passed the zoning code for having kitchens... hence, not allowed.  If too many people have them illegally, I can't help but wonder if that would strain the electric system or if they happened to build for that knowing it would be likely.

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Apparently most of these places have a no microwave/no hot plate clause in the lease. I'm sure people violate that all the time though.

 

Wow.  But I think a lot of young people these days don't cook anyway.  But I would at least need some good coffee in the am.

 

Never mind.  I see now that there is a shared kitchen space.

 

I wonder who cleans it?

Edited by DawnM
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Without a coffee pot and caffeine by 7:30 am, I not fit to live around man or beast

Even my poor cocker spaniel knows this. He gets this pleading look on his face while he scatches at dh's leg, and I am pretty certain if he could bark out some English he would say, "Dude, stop typing on that computer and get that crazy woman some coffee before she kills one of us!"

 

So ya....for the sake of humamity no one caffeine addicted should be renting a place like this if the coffee pot is not allowed. The worst of us simply cannot be prevailed upon to be civilized all the way to the corner coffe shop and especially fully dressed and looking at least partially human

 

 

:D

Edited by FaithManor
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One thing I don't get either is, I know here at least, they have all kinds of rules about building stuff.  You can't have a toilet too close to a sink in a new build, for example.  I don't know the exact rules.  So it's surprising they can just plop a toilet in a room where you are doing everything else. 

 

There was a quote in there boiled down to, "Because there isn't a kitchen, this is legal".   

Which I guess makes sense.  What is the thing you'd most want to keep out of the bathroom?  Food and food prep.  

 

eta:   Why wouldn't a coffee pot be allowed?    Is that classified as a hot plate?  

Edited by shawthorne44
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In my current situation during the work week, I have a kitchen available, but I don't use it much because there's a toaster oven, microwave, and mini-fridge at work and only one other person in the office. So, I just get up, shower, and go to work to have my coffee and breakfast. I heat up leftovers for lunch and dinner, or have something simple like canned soup and bread, sardines and crackers, etc. I'll go cook at the house where I rent a room maybe once a month.

 

I would actually be quite happy with something like one of those apartments because I don't like sharing the bathroom. I'd probably hang curtains around the toilet so I wouldn't have to look at it, though. And get poo-pourri.

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There was a quote in there boiled down to, "Because there isn't a kitchen, this is legal".   

Which I guess makes sense.  What is the thing you'd most want to keep out of the bathroom?  Food and food prep.  

 

eta:   Why wouldn't a coffee pot be allowed?    Is that classified as a hot plate?  

Often it is. Depends on the state. There are many colleges that do not allow coffee pots due to "open heating element". Ds cannot have any kind of regular coffee pot, but he can have a keurig because the heating element is enclosed. Sigh...we are against keurigs due to the packaging waste and such so he doesn't have one.

 

Thankfully, he is not yet as caffeine dependent as dh and I. :D

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You'd think you'd at least be wanting to make tea or a hot chocolate.

 

When I lived in a dorm, I had an electric resistor thingy that you put into a cup of water to make it boil.  That was all the cooking I did in my room.  (Other cooking was done in a basement shared by 200 people.)  The water boiler could provide all sorts of hot drinks, soups, Ramen noodles, and maybe a few other things.  :P

 

My dorm room was way smaller than the room linked in the OP, but it was probably cheaper in today's dollars.  Still, it was a lot more expensive than the much bigger apartment space I later rented off campus.  Student housing is a rip-off.

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When I lived in a dorm, I had an electric resistor thingy that you put into a cup of water to make it boil.  That was all the cooking I did in my room.  (Other cooking was done in a basement shared by 200 people.)  The water boiler could provide all sorts of hot drinks, soups, Ramen noodles, and maybe a few other things.  :p

 

My dorm room was way smaller than the room linked in the OP, but it was probably cheaper in today's dollars.  Still, it was a lot more expensive than the much bigger apartment space I later rented off campus.  Student housing is a rip-off.

 

It is a total rip off.  We weren't allowed to have any electrical device that produced heat of any kind.  And they'd do inspections and look through our stuff to make sure.  No joke. 

 

They didn't put land lines in the rooms either claiming it was some sort of hazard (BULL).  They had pay phones out in the hall.

 

I lasted one semester in the dorm.  I thought it was so stupid and a rip off. 

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Ds happens to go to school in a lower COL so his apartment, utilities, and food is cheaper than dorms. He lives 10 minutes from campus and has a nice kitchen with pantry, living room, balcony with a table and chair and tiny grill, nice size bedroom, full bath, and two walk in closets plus a hall linen closet.

 

His total costs for one full year off campus with no roommate is less than 8 months room and board on campus sharing a small room with someone else.

 

It would be very cheap if he got a two bedroom apartment and a couple of roommates. But I recognize that this is the case only because he is in a much lower COL than students in PNW, the coasts, etc.

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Student housing is a rip-off.

 

Not always.  My guys have all had fridges and microwaves in their rooms, so I suspect a bit has changed from the old days.  I had a fridge too - microwaves weren't allowed in rooms back in the 80s.

 

But at some colleges, on campus living is less expensive.  Where youngest goes to school there are occasionally kids who opt to move off campus.  Many return.  Why?  It's less expensive.

 

It certainly helps to do a cost analysis individually rather than making broad assessments.

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Yes. Cost analysis.

 

My boys have a good deal. They have a 3 bdrm/3 bath apt, full kitchen, washer and dryer less than a mile from campus, which actually put them closer to classes than their dorms would have been at this huge sprawling campus. All utilities included and fully furnished. Each room in the apt is a separate lease, so no frustration with a roommate who doesn't pay up. In fact, their third roommate has never shown up, but their rent is being paid still so it's just my two there until at least next August.

 

Saving $200+ over a shared room shared bath traditional styled dorm. Granted, the dorms are nicer than in generations past. I joke all the time that when I retire, I'm going to college instead of an old folks home.

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But they still have their food cards. Those things are a dang good deal. 20 hot meals a week for less than a $100 a week and their campus cafes are actually really good mostly fresh healthy-ish food.

 

The only thing I don't like is whatever money is left on the food card at the end of the semester goes poof instead of rolling over to the next semester. So my boys still have like $300 to literally eat up last week and this week. Everyone on campus is eating and feeding others with their food card like it's some kind of survivor competition to be sure to use it all. Lol

Edited by Murphy101
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Not always.  My guys have all had fridges and microwaves in their rooms, so I suspect a bit has changed from the old days.  I had a fridge too - microwaves weren't allowed in rooms back in the 80s.

 

But at some colleges, on campus living is less expensive.  Where youngest goes to school there are occasionally kids who opt to move off campus.  Many return.  Why?  It's less expensive.

 

It certainly helps to do a cost analysis individually rather than making broad assessments.

I can see why. Rochester is a much higher COL than here. So it really, really pays to do that cost/benefits analysis, and definitely look at what is involved.

 

I know one college that throws in laundry facilities for free with dorm costs, so if the student is doing 2 loads of laundry a week you can add that benefit. At middle ds's school it costs about $3.00 per load. But a friend has a daughter at a college where it is $7.50 to do a load of laundry. Talk about price gouging! That's $15.00 a week, and if bedding needs to be done, one has topped $22.00. That's $60-84.00 a month for laundry for a single person. (yah...my boys are weirdos, they occasionally wash their sheets and blankets. :D )

 

Really college???? Seriously. That is just wrong. So if the room and board bill is already very high, and then you add $180.00 to $232.00 a month for three people to do laundry, it may mean taking a look at off campus housing with roommates.

 

For us, we prefer dorms for the relationships and activities as well as convenience. However, for the one with the bad leg that often paces at night due to muscle spasms and pain, the roommate thing was not going to work. Once we have three guys in school at once, we definitely will be to the place that the practicality of economics will rule.

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Why don't we have something like this for the homeless/long term unemployed?

I have no idea. I'd possibly be for it though.

 

You mean like food stamps or in addition to food stamps or like a paid soup kitchen or ?

 

Their campus also as little minimarts they can use their food card at to buy cereal, milk, prepackaged salads or sandwiches, fresh fruit and other grocery stuff.

 

Basicly the entry to most buildings on campus have some kind of food place. A minimart, the taco hut, the burger place, the pasta place, each dorm entry/lobby has some kind of themed cafe area and the student union has a food court of various cafes with more selection than the one at our city's large shopping mall. All of these are small, the actual resturant/cafe place is about the size of a large open kitchen/living room arrangement and then there's a bunch of soda shop/patio seating spread out. Kinda like a Starbucks layout.

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I can see why. Rochester is a much higher COL than here. So it really, really pays to do that cost/benefits analysis, and definitely look at what is involved.

 

I know one college that throws in laundry facilities for free with dorm costs, so if the student is doing 2 loads of laundry a week you can add that benefit. At middle ds's school it costs about $3.00 per load. But a friend has a daughter at a college where it is $7.50 to do a load of laundry. Talk about price gouging! That's $15.00 a week, and if bedding needs to be done, one has topped $22.00. That's $60-84.00 a month for laundry for a single person. (yah...my boys are weirdos, they occasionally wash their sheets and blankets. :D )

 

Really college???? Seriously. That is just wrong. So if the room and board bill is already very high, and then you add $180.00 to $232.00 a month for three people to do laundry, it may mean taking a look at off campus housing with roommates.

 

For us, we prefer dorms for the relationships and activities as well as convenience. However, for the one with the bad leg that often paces at night due to muscle spasms and pain, the roommate thing was not going to work. Once we have three guys in school at once, we definitely will be to the place that the practicality of economics will rule.

 

Not my Rochester boy - I'm not sure how that one would work in general. My guy loves living on campus and gets his room for free due to being an RA (Resident Adviser in the dorm) so we've never looked at other options.  They won't be cheaper than what he has.

 

My St Pete, FL boy is the one where it's definitely less expensive to live on campus from what he tells me.  I'm not surprised.  There are plenty of snowbirds who reside there during the winter months and his campus is on Boca Ciega Bay - in a wealthier section of the city.

 

Like you, we prefer dorms and campus living too, but where hubby and I went (Va Tech), many lived off campus after freshman year and it worked out fine because that's the way the campus was set up.  The bus was free and went by all the main apt areas.  (We lived on campus due to being in the Corps of Cadets - it was required - but we loved it anyway, so no problems.)

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Yup every college can be really quite different, the town, the COL, everything. It all ends up needing to go into the bucket of information you use to try to decide the best thing.

 

Middle ds is going to try for RA for junior and senior year. He wants to stay on campus, and man it would be a big help to us if he got free room and board. I think youngest is going to end up in honors, engineering housing, and it is more expensive than regular. Sigh....but for a lot of places he is looking at and his major, it probably can't be avoided.

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Yup every college can be really quite different, the town, the COL, everything. It all ends up needing to go into the bucket of information you use to try to decide the best thing.

 

Middle ds is going to try for RA for junior and senior year. He wants to stay on campus, and man it would be a big help to us if he got free room and board. I think youngest is going to end up in honors, engineering housing, and it is more expensive than regular. Sigh....but for a lot of places he is looking at and his major, it probably can't be avoided.

 

FWIW, at UR, only the room is free for RAs, not the board.  That can differ at different colleges, so again, needs to be looked at individually.

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But they still have their food cards. Those things are a dang good deal. 20 hot meals a week for less than a $100 a week and their campus cafes are actually really good mostly fresh healthy-ish food.

 

The only thing I don't like is whatever money is left on the food card at the end of the semester goes poof instead of rolling over to the next semester. So my boys still have like $300 to literally eat up last week and this week. Everyone on campus is eating and feeding others with their food card like it's some kind of survivor competition to be sure to use it all. Lol

 

I looked up the food plan cost at the school I graduated from.  It works out to about $150 a week.  I don't spend that per person at home.  Not even close. 

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Speaking of food plans, my friend was there on scholarship and her scholarship included the meal plan.  The food wasn't to her taste as a foreign student, so she got permission to cash in the meal plan and used the difference to travel all around the USA over winter break.  :)

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I looked up the food plan cost at the school I graduated from.  It works out to about $150 a week.  I don't spend that per person at home.  Not even close. 

 

True, but it comes with time savings in not having to buy, prep, cook, or clean up.  For my guys who are super active in their schools and still want time to study, this is worth quite a bit.  The fact that they get oodles of tasty (healthy or comfort foods as they want) options at their schools is an additional bonus.

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Same here Sparkly. $21.97 a day for two meals per day and the problem we are having for ds is everything offered is heavily laden in simple carbs, deep fried, etc. The salad bar is limited. The taco bar is open everyday so in order to get good, healthy fats that he needs he is eating quacamole at every meal. This is our ds with metabolism issues who loses weight easily. So we are dropping him to the commuter plan which is 100 meals for $903, a dollar less per meal and he can still eat once a day at the taco bar as well as on crepe night plus get fresh fruit at that meal.

 

He and four friends who all cook and are worried about health issues are pooling resources to make dinner in the evenings. Two are ROTC guys who need more protein and higher calorie count due to how hard they work out, one is a type 1 diabetic gal, and another with an autoimmune issue that responds well to strict diet. We parents are banding together to provide supplies and simple recipe ideas. I am canning 35 quarts of my extra hearty chicken stew over the Christmas break. They will each store 7 quarts in their rooms. I am also sending dried fruits and veggies, coconut oil, and canned salmon. I showed ds how to make quick salmon patties when he was home at Thanksgiving. He doesn't absorb omega oils well so even though he takes supplements he is supposed to eat fish regularly. Fish was only served once this past semester and it was deep fried. We were told that during Lent grilled/baked fish will be offered every Friday night so he can get that on his commuter meal plan.

 

We knew before we sent him though that we might need to adjust the food plan. I am thankful that the RD and the RA cook for themselves so this fledgling band has role models making it work. With eldest ds coming home due to his leg, his kitchen supplies can go to his brother. The kitchen in the dorm is partially outfitted and the kids will be keeping it very simple, nutritious but not complicated so no need to send the turkey baster!

 

Not ideal, but launching young adults is an adventure in creative parenting!

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True, but it comes with time savings in not having to buy, prep, cook, or clean up.  For my guys who are super active in their schools and still want time to study, this is worth quite a bit.  The fact that they get oodles of tasty (healthy or comfort foods as they want) options at their schools is an additional bonus.

 

Absolutely.  I enjoyed having the meal plan!

 

I hated living in the dorm though.

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True, but it comes with time savings in not having to buy, prep, cook, or clean up. For my guys who are super active in their schools and still want time to study, this is worth quite a bit. The fact that they get oodles of tasty (healthy or comfort foods as they want) options at their schools is an additional bonus.

Absolutely! My kitchen does not have to be commercially licensed, and unfortunately I draw no pay for cooking and cleaning in it. There is a very big cost to providing these meal plans.

 

Some schools have good food and really try. I feel like WMU could and should try a little harder. I have friends whose daughter is OOS at an LAC with tons of healthy, yummy food choices, a small gf kitchen, also a nut free kitchen. She does not pay more for her meal plan than we do for ds so it is a little frustrating that some schools are doing a crappy job when it is possible to do the job right without.

 

For what it is worth, ds food is still better than the gruel and unrecognizable while drowning in vegetable oil synthetic manufacturing byproducts that passed as "food" at my college way back in the day. I survived on cereal which was out 24/7 and the salad bar which in general was not food poisoning waiting to happen unlike many of the entres!

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Wow. But I think a lot of young people these days don't cook anyway. But I would at least need some good coffee in the am.

 

Never mind. I see now that there is a shared kitchen space.

 

I wonder who cleans it?

I don't know about the one in the original post but the Apodment/micro studio link I posted spells out that the rent includes janitorial services for the shared kitchens. Those have actual bathrooms and in unit kitchenettes though and seem a bit more livable to me. Edited by LucyStoner
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FaithManor, maybe get this book for one of your sons.  I think this book, or one like it is needed by every college student.  It is mostly cooking in the dorm, but also stain removal, etc.  My mother got it for me.  

 

"Where's Mom Now That I Need Her?: Surviving Away from Home"
https://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Mom-Now-That-Need/dp/0961539011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481552920&sr=8-1&keywords=where%27s+mom+now+that+I+need+her

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My boys' came out to less than $100 a week and they can buy from the campus minimart for home stuff too. Given that they are both taking 5 classes a semester, plus working two part time jobs each (bc neither could find one full time job that would be flexible enough for their class schedules) - this means they are able to eat well, eat quickly, eat anytime and still have a somewhat stocked apt pantry too. They do still "cook" a bit in their apt. Usually late at night when they don't want to leave to eat. They make spaghetti, oatmeal, breakfast rice, biscuits and gravy, popcorn, cold cereal, if they have leisure time and company, they do real cooking. Last time, they fried up some catfish and cheddar biscuits and corn on the cob.

 

It's easy to say we moms could feed for less dollar per day, but many of us are also spending more up front to buy larger quantities that are cheaper per unit, which also requires storage ability, and we have the luxury of time to cook too.

 

I know my rice is cheaper than the rice they are buying. But I'm also buying a Costco membership and using it to buy a 30lb bag of long grain rice. My boys are using one large box minute rice. I do send them pantry items every week of items not sold in the mini mart. I could send them a ziplock bag out of my bin of long grain rice, but for now, minute rice is more practical.

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