protein is the first casualty of a college student's budget
April 04, 2011

A fairly quet weekend at home--Saturday was a "sweatpants all day" affair, with some spring cleaning of bedding, shower curtain, laundry, and such. Yesterday, we pretty much made it about Nephew and his GF. I baked another batch of cookies for them--my peanut butter cookies this time. And we returned to the GFS store, and stretched a couple of twenties as hard as we could to get them stocked up on some groceries.

The place was ten times the zoo it was on Friday. And it was a HELL of a zoo on Friday.

The line for the checkouts was strung up and down the aisles of the store, and there were so many people in there I'm certain it was a fire code violation. But we were able to get them 5 lbs of the ground sirloin patties (and another box for ourselves, since we cooked them out Saturday night and found them to be delicious), 5 lbs of plain jumbo chicken wings, 2 lbs of sliced ham, a pound of cheddar cheese, two huge bags of chips, a half-gallon of kosher dill spears (GF loves pickles), a dozen hamburger buns, a big bag of pretzels, and a 30-pack of individual Kelloggs breakfast cereals.

Really. The grand opening sale was THAT good--we got all that for around $45.00. Oh, and Spouse took a pound of Hebrew Nationals out of the freezer and threw them in, too.

We looked at it this way: We could give Nephew a $50, like we usually do when he stops in for a visit. But this is maximizing the money in a way he would never be able to manage, and they will have meat for a couple of weeks, without having to lay out for it. And snacks and cereal, too. I know from experience that protein is the first casualty of a college student's budget, and these kids are recovering from a car accident--they shouldn't have to do without.

Of course, I wouldn't do it this way for everyone, but Nephew and GF happen to be two people who love to cook, and would rather prepare their own, (quality) ingredients than be forced to eat the low-grade dogfood that the dining hall serves. I think it's a sin, the way the damn school charges a fortune for mandatory meal plans, and then serves garbage, knowing that over half the kids are never going to eat it. They only have to buy the worst ingredients,for about half the payees, and they can just keep rest of the money.