By Andrea Ordonez, Contributing Writer
After years of using a piggy bank and a Lisa Frank notebook as a means of keeping personal finances, my parents gave me my first debit card last June. Three months later, the University handed me my HofstraCard, with the endless power that 1,700 dining points can give a hungry college freshman.
In the beginning, I meticulously budgeted both accounts, using the debit card for mainly train tickets and the dining points for three, and only three, meals a day. Closing out the first semester, I was pleased to see about 200 points carried over into the spring. As I continue to spend preposterous amounts on food daily, however, I find it odd that it is the nearly 2,000 dining points from this semester, and not the debit card, teaching me how to throw away money.
In attempts to stop Lackmann, the University or whomever from taking my unused points, I've bought unnecessary amounts of candy, chips, and water bottles that sit on my floor uneaten from Dutch Treats. I find delight in watching a register tell me that a meal I could get at McDonalds for $5 will cost me 11 or 12 meal points at Bits n Bytes. I've walked out of the Student Center café proud to purchase a 17-point Easter basket.
Of course, I am not the only one learning how to throw away money. In fact, I may just be an example of "point depletion moderation." I've watched a friend grab everything she laid her eyes on at Dutch Treats in an attempt to bring her dining points to fewer than 1,000 at the end of March. I've seen numerous people not ask, but beg, to pay for their friends' meals.
Sure this unhealthy desire to spend could be countered with just choosing smaller meal plans, but that's such a concrete decision. Once you choose one plan, you're in it for good…or at least the whole semester.
So what is to gain from the fear of runaway meal points? Perhaps this is supposed to be a financial lesson on budgeting or one on finding creative ways to throw away money. Regardless, all of us with absurd amounts of meal points will find joy once that card scans and reads "0"…what an odd price to pay for momentary happiness.