"Being Not-Rich at UM" Guide
A UofM student created a guide for students at UofM that don't have a lot of money on how to find deals, get good jobs on campus, etc.. You can find her guide here - LINK.
I certainly wasn't poor, but I wasn't rich either. I often meet fellow UofM graduates and as we talk they rattle off a dozen or so of their favorite Ann Arbor establishments and I always feel a bit ridiculous as I never have been on the inside of most or even all of the places that they go on and on about.
I simply couldn't afford to eat out a lot.
About 20 years ago when I was living in West Quad they didn't serve dinners on Sunday evenings. So my roommate and I would grab loose change and walk up State Street to a place that I think was called "State Street Liquor," because they had a special on Sundays where you could buy an entire extra large cheese pizza for like $5. We would pour the free crushed red pepper seeds all over it in the store and then take it back to the dorm room. I thought it was pretty good and it was a lot of food...half the pizza could stuff me and for just $2.50.
Does anyone have any other tips for those currently at UofM that don't have a lot of money?
1. Do some of those psych studies. Good pay for a few hours of "work."
2. Eat ass, pass class.
I bet that's what Kaczyinski thought, too.
And H. H. Holmes.
We also have Richard Loeb, of "Leopold and Loeb" fame. And if that's not good enough, Loeb had noted Wolverine Clarence Darrow as defense counsel!
April 19th, 2018 at 10:27 AM ^
In all seriousness, in the psych building ( I am forgetting the name now), there are a number of postings from psych students where they pay you $20+ an hour for a few hour study on your emotions etc. etc. Nothing too crazy. I did this a number of times and make some quick cash.
April 19th, 2018 at 12:59 PM ^
Back in the early 90s, the econ department and B-school sometimes ran trading simulations where they paid participants. Your pay was based upon outcomes of the simulation, but you generally pocketed arround $20 for <=60 minutes. Sometimes you would show up and they would have too many people and they would still pay you $10-15 to go away. Back in those days you could stretch $20 to two nights of drinking and a slice or two.
about Amos Tvesrky who was a psych researcher/professor at UofM starting in the 60s. He's essentially the father of behavioral economics and a bunch of theories about decision making and common errors of the human psyche.
Anyway, he essentially started these paid experiments first at Jackson State Prison by offering inmates candy and cigarettes to participate in studies. Since college students are just about as deperate, the practice soon found its way to campus.
I feel like you have to participate in at least one voluntary psych experiement at UofM as a requisite for a true UofM experience.
like Zingerman's. Couldn't afford that stuff.
...and then you get to eat there.
At Shehan Shah (Indian Restuarnt)... low pay but I got a shift meal. My idea of eating out.
It used to be reasonable, like a massive sandwich for $3.95 if I remember correctly
I only went there once and that was years after I graduated. I took my future wife and sister there for lunch...if I remember right my bill for our three sandwiches, sides, and drinks was something like $65 and that doesn't count extras that they bought to bring home. All told, I dropped $100+ there.
I was so happy to pick up the tab for them.......but didn't voice anything...
Iz you my great-great-granddad ?
Is your great granddad brutally handsome with an enormous middle leg?
Time, and the fact a lot of the ingredients came from European countries which subsidized agricultural products pre-WTO, changed that.
I offended someone.
Never ate there in college (early 90's). Same with Angelos, just wasn't in the budget. Gumby's 5 for $25 was the high life for us, when we wanted to splurge.
Gumby Pizza on Sunday night was tradition in Markley in the early 90s. $2.50 for half an extra large pizza
We used to go and get the day-old bread, I think it was $3 a loaf at the time (07-08). Stick it in the freezer and use as required for much more delicious toast than you can make with supermarket bread.
than I ever did while in school. In fact, I can't remember ever eating there while in school and none of my friends went either.
The expensive restaurants (Anything on Main St., Gandy Dancer, etc) were treats for when the parents came.
It was a lot of $5 footlongs from Subway, Mr. Spots and tons of pizza for me while in school when I "ate out". Otherwise, a lot of PB&J sandwiches, spaghetti and other cheap stuff cooked at home.
April 26th, 2018 at 11:10 AM ^
When I was an undergrad Zingerman's started making their own bread for sandwiches. The heels would be left over so right next to the register they would sell little bags with three or four heels in them for a quarter. Those were great because the bread was so substantial and chewy that you could make a meal out of it--even if you weren't full your jaw would be so worn out from chewing that you would have no desire to eat for a while.
I was there a few months ago and found out that they will still sell you heels for ten cents each. I bought ten and got three lunches out of it for a buck.
was only 19 cents a box when I was student.
Man, I'm old.
April 18th, 2018 at 10:40 PM ^
with either ketchup or mustard on it to get me through....
PS: And most likely it was the heels of the loaf
You can work in the Dining Halls starting at $11/hour as a student, they supposedly really need student help so an easy job to get, probably get free food also I would guess.
I worked at several sororities. In retrospect I probably should have gone for student halls although I lived off campus all 4 years. The pay was about the same but in the student halls I would not be hand serving fellow students like I did at sororities. That sucked. I took psychology tests that paid 40 bux usually.
How did the sorority sisters treat you, doesn't sound great?
I did that for a year while a freshman in South Quad, and it wasn't the worst job in the world. Of course, I just had to clean dishes and pull them out of the industrial washing machine they had, so wasn't all that taxing mentally.
what I would consider the worst job I've ever had.
Usually there were no books to put away so when that was the case, you had to just go into the stacks and read through all the texts to make sure they were all in order. Had to document your starting spot (which was where someone else documented a stopping point), your ending spot and all of the books you found out of place. The most tedious thing ever. I didn't last longer than a few months.
April 25th, 2018 at 11:59 PM ^
Dining halls. After we moved from the dorms to off-campus housing several of my friends routinely just slipped into a back door of any dining hall for a meal. Really not that hard to pull off. I guess technically it was stealing but if you got no $$ in your pocket it was a necessity.
Shit, even when I had money (thanks to a fellowship for my Master's year and the internship I had that paid me reasonably well for doing basically nothing while living with my parents), I rarely ate out. My roommate and I bought really cheap stuff at the grocery store (dinner was often garbage-tier deli sandwiches or pizza rolls), and our idea of 'eating out' was going to Subway before games at Yost.
I did occasionally treat myself during my grad year to a nice beer or five at Ashley's, especially once I accepted a job offer around Thanksgiving. At that point, I was in my "survive to get your degree and go make real money" mindset.
My Depression-era Mom used to take leftover spaghetti noodles, mix them up with scrambled eggs, and serve that. My sisters hated it, but I never understood why. It's eggs. It's spaghetti. You like them separately. What's wrong with them together? (That's a mindset I've retained into my adult years.)
Addendum to your pro tip: Cooked macaroni is a great meal stretcher, too. A cup of that, added to a can of chunky soup, makes a half-assed stew that really isn't too bad. It's certainly filling.
Food was extremely cheap if you were willing to take time to shop and prepare it yourself. I consider myself a very good cook today and it all started in college when I had to figure out how to fill up and stretch a dollar on my own. I considered it a vital part of my education.
April 19th, 2018 at 11:07 AM ^
Same story. Where did you end up going? I went to Miami University...liked to pretend it was b/c of Bo, but it was really b/c it was the best school for the right price.
Plus, Miami accepted my college credits I earned in high school, while Michigan said no. I walked into Miami as a second semester sophomore with 1/2 my Miami Plan classes out of the way.
This was 15 years ago but the students working at the Subway in the basement of the Union had a BLATENT disregard for the guidelines on how much stuff they're supposed to put in a sub. Ask for everything and you'd basically end up with two subs worth of stuff crammed into one bun.
The Heidelberg has free chicken wings and nachos from 5-7pm on Friday (unless they've changed recently). That used to be 90% of my Friday caloric intake.
April 18th, 2018 at 10:22 PM ^
They were very generous and I thank them for it.
/pours one out