Each week, we are sharing a financial wellness tip to help you make the connection between financial management decisions, your overall wellness, and student success. Money touches every aspect of our lives, and a lack of financial literacy can cause unnecessary stress and negatively impact our mental and physical health.
Budgeting Your Meal Plan and Groceries
Perhaps better managing your meal plan or grocery budget was one of your New Year’s resolutions made this January. If so, here are some helpful tips for doing so.
- Use Available Resources – RIT Dining has some excellent resources to help students know how much of their Dining Dollars they have spent, and approximately how much they should be allotting per week to spend down their meal plan over the semester. Checking the MEAL PLAN SPEND DOWN chart often can help alert you if you are potentially overspending, and need to adjust some of your habits. Be sure to download the RIT Mobile app so you can access Tiger Spend which allows you to check your dining dollar and Tiger Bucks balance, see recent transactions, set a low balance warning notification which will email up to 4 people you select to receive the notice when you hit an amount you determine, and request funds to be added to your account, and enter a person to be notified.
- Trim Expenses – If you notice that you are spending a lot of your Dining Dollars/TigerBucks or grocery budget on things like Starbucks, Java Wally’s, or deliveries from Uber Easts – make some small changes that could add up to some big savings. For example, brew your own coffee and take it with you on campus – purchase the coffee at Aldi’s, Walmart or Price Rite or use the RIT membership at BJ’s (just bring your student ID) and get it significantly cheaper. Cutting out purchasing one coffee or latte a day could save you approximately $15-$25 a week. Over a semester – that could be a savings of $240-$400! Did you know that if you bring your own clean, reusable cup to various RIT Dining locations that you can save on the purchase of hot tea or brewed coffee? Such a small act can save you money and help RIT reduce waste.
- Make Savings A Game – Challenge your friends to see who can save the most. There are lots of ways to save on groceries and food. Sign up for the Ibotta app and upload your grocery receipt to earn cash back on purchases you make. Be sure to sign up for rewards and shopper’s savings programs at stores you frequent the most such as Top’s Bonus Card and Wegman’s Shoppers Club. They provide discounts to members and sometimes exclusive digital or bonus coupons that can significantly reduce your grocery expenditures. Utilize paper coupons from the Sunday paper on top of any sale prices or membership discounts and you can really start to stack the savings!
Don’t forget to check out the Financial Literacy website, and/or follow the team on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.