"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?
It's called being Brady. Not as bad as being Rich but it's not near as good as being Lloyd, or Bo. Or Jim for that matter.
...you could get up to 4 slices for $1. Granted that was 20 years ago, so prices have probably increased--even for burnt slices.
I returned bottles and harvested alot of change out of the bilges of my parents car to have money for that.
Theoretically this allowed me to focus on my studies during the school year, though my grades didn't reflect that. I think about how much time I wasted during undergrad years. And that was without the internet! I'd flunk out today I think.
I had enough money to do some fun things but not enough to go crazy. My first girlfriend lived in a Tower Plaza condo that her parents had bought. She referred to the Comerica ATM as a "money machine" and I think the word choice was relevant - that was how she thought of it. Spending was a source of tension between us.
A girl I dated later was an EMU student and to her I was rich. We were both a bit more frugal.
My parents saved and paid my out of state tuition, and since they were both UM grads and raised me to think that UM=college, that was very stand-up of them. I wonder what it will be like when my kids go off to school, because by the time my first grader goes, UM's out of state tuition might be $100k/year. I loved my time at UM but there's no way that's worth it. It will be scholarship or go somewhere else.
April 19th, 2018 at 10:53 AM ^
As you can surmise, I graduated in 1972. Given my scholarship for room and tuition, I estimate my total out of pocket costs for books, food, beer, fun to be around $10,000 for those 4 years, not counting a trip to Pasadena.
I saved diligently and my son also went to UM and graduated 12 years ago.. We were out of state and at an estimated total annual cost of $40,000 I figured that he blew through my total out of pocket cost in his first 9 weeks of school.
A UM degree is special and does open some doors, but at today's costs, other options may be more viable, and it really comes down to the indiviual person as to his/her level of success, happiness and accomplishment.
Many successful individuals went to no name schools;however, as evident above, there are ways for a student to have an great education at UM, just have to be somewhat creative and find some part time work. Studies have shown that students who work during their undergaraduate years have better grades, etc.
I am so old the McDonalds on campus was new - next to Nickels Arcade long since demolished. That was Sunday night dinner for West Quad.
A guy I knew worked at Little Sleazers when it was in The Union. He'd occasionally give me the pizzas that people ordered but didn't pick up. For the life of me, I have no idea why anyone wouldn't want to eat a little sleazers pizza?
The problem now with college is it getting way too expensive with diminishing returns. But that is what happens when certain forces get involved to "help" make college less expensive. It does just the opposite.
My favorite thing around town now is seeing a 20 year old with a $55,000 BMW SUV drop $150 in "groceries" at Lucky's.
I went to undergrad in Manhattan. We ate lots of ramen and easy mac. Another tip: go to all those events the RA's throw...there is always lots of free food.
April 19th, 2018 at 10:03 AM ^
Mid-70s - Lived in a fraternity, but no meals on Saturday evening or all day on Sunday. Fraternity food wasn't very good to start with.
Standby dinner was Pizza Bob's for a pizza sub and a hot fudge shake. Preferred downtown but would go to uptown if no other choice. Who was that guy that owned the time record for eating a Destroyer sub? His picture was on the wall forever, as was the SI (?) article about Secretariat.
Sunday dinner was usually Holly's Steak + 4 out on Washtenaw.
Sunday breakfast was at a greek restaurant on the corner of Packard and State. 4-6 guys reading one Sunday newspaper, recently purchased at Blue Front. We would be there for 2 hours. Found out years later that my now-wife waitressed at the same place. I hope she never had our table, as we were lousy tippers.
Omega pizza at North U and Washtenaw - $1 large cheeze pizza for Sunday dinner when dorm food was unavailable.
Monday nites @ Pizza Loys (Pizza Bob's wife) on Huron. All the pizza you could eat for $1. They would bring out all sorts of different pizza. First time I had pineapple and ham!
April 19th, 2018 at 10:05 AM ^
Back in the early 90's the restaurant on the corner of State and Hill, which is currently Quickie Burger, was a pizzeria called Geppetto's. Every Tuesday (or Wednesday?) they had all-you-can-eat pizza and soft drinks for $5 from like 6:00 until 7:00. That was always a destination for me as a cash strapped student. You sat in the basement and just ate until you were full.
April 19th, 2018 at 11:05 AM ^
About 20 years ago when I was living in West Quad they didn't serve dinners on Sunday evenings.
Me too. More like 30 actually.
I used to go to the McDonalds off Maynard near Skeeps (Dooley's at the time). What happened to that place? It's rare that they close a McDonalds. It was always busy, so I don't think that was the reason. Did they make them close it for political-correctness reasons?
As a quite-poor college student, it was correct enough for me.
April 19th, 2018 at 12:15 PM ^
1993-1998
Had a job. Worked 10-15 hours a week during semester, worked full time in summers.
Mostly lived a ways off campus, with roommates - 4 people in a 2 bedroom for a couple years.
Pooled money with roommates to buy groceries and actually coooked meals.
Didn't eat out often, and when I did it was usually cheap delivery pizza or Chinese.
Learn when/where all the free appetizer deals and cheap drinks are.
April 19th, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
Washed a lot of dishes, refereed a lot of intramural sports games, tended bar, shared a room off-campus...
And when Einstein's was there, on days I wasn't working, they let me come in, work a half hour off the clock to help with the breakfast rush, make breakfast for myself, and go to class. After class, I came back, helped with the lunch rush, made myself lunch, and went home.
Short answer, you do what you have to to make it by.
April 19th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
I worked for 4 1/2 years in the dorm cafeteria, working my way up to what was the equivalent of a shift leader. I think when I left college, I was making around $10 and hour (that was in 1992, so, hey, big money). My first job out of college made $9.25 an hour. I made less money with my college degree than I did working at college to get my college degree.
Seriously though, at that time, they let people who didn't have a meal plan who didn't live in dorms buy individual meals, and you got a discount if you worked in the cafe, for dirt cheap (like $2.00 lunches and $3.00 dinners, if I remember correctly). All you could eat and stuff in your backpack for later for not a lot of money. Did one or two lunches and dinners a week for an hours worth of pay. Not sure that's still a thing, but it got me by.
Yes, you could also try to sneak food, but you would get in trouble if you got caught, and it wasn't worth it to me, since cafeteria jobs were pretty cushy (well paying, didn't have to work nights, not particularly mentally taxing, etc).
I do remember, back in 1988 when I started college, being pretty bummed at all the rich kids on campus when I wasn't anything close to it. There were plenty of times I skipped class so I could work, because I needed the money. There wasn't a lot of eating out or extras...just paying for phone bills to call home and my friends in Spartyville.
I was pretty broke as an undergrad and graduate student at Michigan. Scholarships, grants and loans paid for everything. Reading this thread is making me wax nostalgic for being broke.....
Boy, this thread brings back memories, not all of them pleasant. I came to U-M in the mid-90s from normal middle-class circumstances, but the combo of out-of-state tuition and my parents divorcing while I was in school meant I was pretty broke as a student. Having lived through the stress that my limited means at school brought me, and the agony of paying off student loans afterward, I often think I would've been better off going to a cheaper school. But I very much wanted to go to U-M for a specific degree program (School of Music) -- and even though I ended up not making music my career, the experiences and connections I gained pursuing another extracurricular interest on campus made possible the career I have today, so I suppose it all worked out.
Had a lot of strange jobs as a student. One summer I worked in U-M's Housing Design office. (Yes, there's actually an office that thinks about how to furnish the dorms!) I spent the summer going around all the dorms with a clipboard, ranking the condition of the furniture in every single dorm room on a scale of 1-5, then crunching all the results in a spreadsheet so they could prioritize which dorms should get new beds and desks first. Another summer, I stocked groceries overnight at the Kroger on Plymouth Road by North Campus. That sucked.
The best work-study job I had was during my last year -- I was a piano key room worker at the School of Music. Basically, you just sat in a tiny room where they kept the keys for all the grand piano practice rooms, which only piano majors could use (they had to sign them out). Essentially, I was getting paid to study.
Living off campus after two years in the dorms on the meal plan was also a rude awakening. I wasn't much of a cook so my diet was mostly pasta, canned tuna for sandwiches, and cereal. (When I send my own kids to college, they're going to know how to shop and cook for themselves, dammit.) "Eating out" was dollar slices at Back Room, cheap Taco Bell on East University, etc.. When it was really cold, the 99-cent chili at Wendy's in the Michigan League was a good deal. Places like Zingermann's or the Gandy Dancer were just names to me. A splurge was ordering Cottage Inn or getting Chinese food at Lucky Kitchen!
I have some fond memories of my time at Ann Arbor, but very few involved money or food!
Ah, Wendy's chili. The very thought of it brings back memories of the Tap Room and student org board meetings and calc study groups and that one dude in every group who won't shut up about what he did on the weekend. Good times.
During my freshman and sophomore years (1998-2000), there used to be a Little Ceasar's in the Union basement They had a $5.00 Thursday special on a large cheese pizza (at least I think it was $5.00 on Thursdays; my memory is fuzzy on the details). It was mediocre pizza, but it was great for the price. Not too helpful for today's students since Little Caesar's is long gone from the Union, but good times.
October 11th, 2018 at 3:25 PM ^
I babysat for several of my professors. That might be a "conflict of interest" these days (I never felt so then), but it was a great way to study and make some money in the evenings and on weekends. I also held restaurants and work-study jobs, and was a research assistant and a TA. Make lunches ahead of time and keep them simple. I ate a yogurt and an apple nearly 5 days a week all through grad school. I never bought alcohol. If I wanted to "party" I would cruise the streets looking for a house party, and I met a lot of people that way. Make some rules, e.g. don't buy anything at full price; don't eat out more than once a week (or month); don't rent videos or buy personal reading books - get them from AA public libraries; buy clothes at re-sale shops (including UM gear - there is plenty of it!); don't bounce checks or use credit cards - it only costs more in the long run; don't have a car on campus - there is no place to park anyway - get an AATA pass if you need to get around town, or buy a used bike (with a good lock - I had 4 bikes stolen in AA). I never traveled outside AA or going home the entire time I was in school. If kids you know are bragging about their stuff, where they go, eating out, etc., just ignore it and only hang with them if they are worth YOUR company. Material things don't make you a better person! I grew up on the east side of Detroit and got a Michigan competitive scholarship then took out loans for grad school, which I paid off in 8 years. Do NOT, repeat NOT, acquire credit card debt. You will never get out of it!