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Out of Cash

@Mizzou readers share how they creatively stretched their dollars during college…

I was a J-School student in the mid-1980s, and at that time, there was a Wendy’s restaurant on the corner of Ninth and Elm streets. When my friends and I were a bit strapped for cash, we’d head to Wendy’s and feast at the condiment bar. Keebler club crackers, ketchup, salad croutons, etc., would make a rather filling lunch or dinner. We must not have been the only students to grab an occasional free meal. Eventually the restaurant staff got wise and put a sign on the condiment bar that read “For paying customers only.”

— Brian McNeill, BJ ’84

While at Mizzou, I ran out of money big time. I was living in a 30-year-old trailer, situated on a pig farm, about six miles out of town. The rent was dirt cheap (well, it wasn’t all dirt). I lost my job because the guy that ran the gas station where I was working as the all-night pump jockey thought that my taking finals was less important than his schedule. My car was parked along the road about two miles from my trailer because that’s where it had run out of gas. I scraped up just enough cash doing odd jobs that were posted on the student employment board to get the car back to the trailer before it was towed. But eating was still a problem. Fortunately, the state of Idaho had produced a bumper crop of potatoes that year, and the grocery stores were selling 20-pound bags for about a buck. For two months, I lived on spuds and Kool-Aid until my finances got healthier. I still remember the day that I decided the storm was over and treated myself to a cheap hamburger, without fries. I’d had enough of potatoes for a while.

— Robert Schwaninger, BJ ’81, JD ’81

As an undergraduate in the early 1950s I found a diner on Eighth Street that advertised, “We serve 1,000 – eight at a time.” They had eight stools. You could get bean soup for 15 cents with all the crackers you wanted. I ate a lot of bean soup.

— Robert J. Beyer, BS Ed ’54, M Ed ’74

Four of us who arrived in fall 1946 eventually found quarters on the top floor of a house at 307 College Ave. (it no longer exists), and we soon expanded our group to 10. We cooked our own dinners and posted a schedule that detailed who was to do the cooking and cleanup every month. We each chipped in $50 monthly, which took care of the rent and the food that we purchased in bulk. (The GI Bill provided $75.) Breakfast and lunch were also available on a fix-your-own basis. The savings allowed occasional movie trips – the admission was only 35 cents.

— Ed Meyer, BJ ’49

I brought a car to Mizzou with me, which had its advantages, but was also pretty costly! I would get numerous parking tickets every week. I tried every trick in the book for NOT getting a ticket, such as putting a previous parking ticket on my windshield with an altered date, but to no avail. Needless to say, I was constantly looking for ways to pay my fines, and my part-time job and money from my parents just weren’t sufficient. I finally decided that drastic measures were necessary, so I brought quite a bit of my jewelry to a pawn shop and sold everything for a price well below the real value. To this day I truly regret that I did that, as some of the jewelry pieces were gifts from family members. In the end it really didn’t make a dent in my parking ticket debt – my parents still had to rescue me by paying my fines at graduation time!

— Jennifer Cassidy, BS Acc ‘93

I was a poor, debt-ridden student while I was at Mizzou, but I found a way to make a couple of extra bucks. At the end of every semester I would hop in my dilapidated 1991 Pontiac 6000 sedan with my laundry basket and drive myself to Brady Commons during textbook buyback time. I would take my laundry basket up to the box of used, unwanted books and literally go dumpster diving. I would fill up my entire trunk with books, and then I would go home and get on the Internet and type in the ISBN numbers to see which books certain web sites were buying and for how much. The web sites paid for the shipping, so the only expense on my end was the boxes and tape (not to mention the 50 cents in gas money required for the drive to Brady). The first semester I did this I made almost $200, and I made at least $100 every semester thereafter.

— Sean Murphy, BS BA ’02

Of course money was tight when I was a student. I worked, but always needed a little extra income. When cash was running low, I’d mention to my mom during our weekly phone calls that I was thinking about donating plasma because it paid pretty well. That about sent her over the edge, so she quickly promised to send a little money to “tide me over” until I got paid!

— Pamela Harrison Debandt, BJ ’83

I lived in a rooming house after my freshman year. Eight of us lived on the second floor of 1308 Anthony and shared a tiny kitchen, which was the center of our rooming house life. It was the place where we ate, socialized, argued, etc.

“Kitchen privileges” were a key to our cheap living. We ate on as little as $2 a week, when really broke, and up to $10 per week, when more flush. Favorite cheap foods (most no longer cheap) included:

• Day old bread, at 5 to 10 cents a loaf
• Greasy hamburger and pork steaks, at 33 to 39 cents a pound
• Chicken wings, at 10 cents a pound; and chicken backs and necks, at 5 to10 cents per pound (At Wilson’s Meat Market, Price and Hinkson, I believe?)
• Pepsi and coke for 39 cents a six-pack
• Taught by a student of German descent from Gasconade County, we made our own beer for about 6 cents a quart (until the landlady made us pour it out).
• Spanish rice and fish sticks
• The 25-cent casserole, which was a mixture of macaroni, maybe tomatoes, cheese and a few strips of bacon

The diet wasn’t perfect. I don’t remember the vegetables, but I’m sure we found some cheap. Powdered milk was cheaper than regular in those days, and A & P instant coffee was used by the jar. Some students who wanted cheap, but better food, waited tables at Stephens College for some of their meals.

Cheap splurges in Columbia that I remember were Ralph’s Ever Eat Cafe,
which was succeeded by the now-burned-down Heidelberg and the Bull Pen Café on East Old Highway 40. There also was an all-you-can-eat fish special at Breiches on Ninth and Locust streets. Some places still had hamburgers for 20 cents.

— David (Scoop) Peery, BJ ’64

I remember when Hardee’s introduced a new cheeseburger some time around 1988, and one way the chain promoted the new menu item was to include coupons for a free cheeseburger in the Maneater. Well, of course, that may have been the single most coveted issue of the Maneater ever during my four years at Mizzou. Students accustomed to eating Ramen noodles or cereal for dinner were furiously seeking as many Maneater issues as they could find. The crowd at the Hardee’s on Providence Road overflowed into the parking lot, with students waiting in long lines for their chance to feast on the free fast food.

— Kevin Worley, BJ ’88

Not sure if Harpos still honors this tradition, but when I was a senior and in search of a job, I brought in my rejection letters for a free draw of beer. It definitely helped ease the pain!

— Heather Hartmann, BJ ’96

I am qualified to write about this subject because a university administrator asked me and another fellow to comment on the part of the course catalog that dealt with finances. He said he knew nobody else was going through college on less than we were.

I lived in the cheapest rooms – $17.50 per month was the most rent I ever paid. I ate at the university’s cafeteria and at the cheapest restaurants I could find. One year I cooked lots of pork chops and fried onions on a sandwich grill. My favorite lunch was a dime glass of beer and an 11-cent bologna sandwich at Jack’s Shack. If I was really flush, a bag of Fritos was 15 cents more.

The ex-GIs set a very economical tone fashion wise, and I dressed like them, wearing old fatigue pants and khakis.

Very low tuition helped. My first year I believe I paid each semester only $50 for tuition and $1.25 for the activity fee.

Most important, I worked in the University Bookstore the first semester, then as a student assistant in Psychology and, later, History. I also worked in Read Hall (the student center) at the desk and in the snack bar. My last two years I read for a blind veteran, Bill Winstead. He and I had classes together, so I was being paid by the Veterans Administration to study! (And Bill taught me to study in a systematic way for the first time in my life.)

Finally, I benefited from the University’s very limited computerization. A student was not supposed to have as many as four jobs, as I did my senior year. Checks were arranged by department, and, without a computer to scan all the payrolls, the rule against multiple jobs could not be enforced. By picking up only one paycheck at a time and from more than one clerk at the paycheck window, I got by with it.

If the prices I have mentioned seem ridiculously low, remember that the minimum wage at that time was 50 to 75 cents an hour.

— Gordon E. Parks, BA ’50, MA ’55

Bringing back the ’70s …

My college roommate, Rebecca McKee, and I had not seen each other since 1976. We found each other last year (accidentally through a small-world thing) and were finally able to get together. We revisited campus and even found our old room, 217 Laws Hall. The girl currently living there was from Africa I believe, but most gracious as two “ole Mizzous” asked to see the room and have our picture taken. Even though many changes have occurred at MU and in Columbia, we still were able to bring back the ’70s. We did not, however, streak through the Donnelly courtyard this time or sneak our guys on to the floor after hours! Thanks for the memories and thank you, 217 Laws!

— Carla Talbot, BS Ed ’78

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Last Update: March 12, 2007