Hana: Grant, the housing form wants me to choose a meal plan, either fourteen meals a week or nineteen. Nineteen is every single meal, so that seems safer.

Grant: My sister chose nineteen her first year, and she says it was the most expensive mistake she made.

Hana: Why? Was the food bad?

Grant: The food was fine. But the meals reset every Sunday night, and whatever she had not used that week just disappeared. She almost never got up in time for breakfast, so she was paying for five meals a week that she never ate.

Hana: So I should think about which meals I will actually show up for, not every meal there is.

Grant: Exactly. And most colleges let you add meals later in the term, but they will not give you money back for the ones you did not use.