University students find new ways to get affordable meals

K-campus

Published: 02 Apr. 2024, 16:48 Updated: 02 Apr. 2024, 18:33

University students find new ways to get affordable meals

Students line up in front of Goreun Haetsal, a restaurant selling bunsik, or Korean snack food, near Korea University. [PARK JONG-SUH]

Finding an affordable meal is difficult, even near university neighborhoods where food should be cheap, and students are finding their own ways to budget during hard times.

Cho Hye-jun, a 22-year-old student at Korea University, recently compiled lists of affordable restaurants near her campus via Naver Map and uploaded them to the university's community website.

The lists are nicknamed the 8,000-won Club Map and 10,000-won Club Map, and compiled restaurants that have dishes sold for 8,000 won ($6) or less and 10,000 won or less, respectively.

"I was keeping track of my living expenses, and I noticed that food costs went up a lot compared to 2022," said Cho. "I also had a lot of friends who were worrying about how much they spend on food, so I wanted to organize restaurants based on their price points."

A screen shot of the 8,000-won Club Map, which shows restaurants that sell meals that are sold for 8,000 won or less near Korea University [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Goreun Haetsal, a venue near the university that sells teokbokki (spicy rice cakes) and sundae (blood sausage), and the sandwich franchise Quiznos are some of the restaurants on the 8,000-won Club Map.

Cho's post received a positive response, getting 286 likes and 1,086 bookmarks.

"I eat out at least twice a day, and having to pay more than 10,000 won for each meal is a bit too much when you are a student," said Lee Ji-won, a 23-year-old Korea University student, who was eating at one of the restaurants included in the 8,000-won Club map.

"Restaurants known to be affordable are always full with people if you go a bit late," Lee said, who entered Korea University in 2019. "I feel like prices have gone up by more than 20 percent compared to when I was a first year student."

"I think the 8,000-won Club map is a nice compilation of restaurants that are a good value for money."

Soaring food prices is one of the biggest concerns for students.

According to a survey of 2,076 university students conducted by the University Student Council network in March last year, 56 percent said they struggle most with rising food costs. Another 15 percent said they were struggling most with rising tuition and 6.2 percent stated public utility bills.

"Before Covid-19, it was rare to pay more than 10,000 won per meal unless you were trying to treat someone at nice place," said Hwang Se-hyun, a 24-year-old attending Korea University. "But now, a meal easily goes above 10,000 won even if you just try to have an OK meal."

Eating out isn't the only problem. Costs of everyday supplies are also going up.

The Korea Consumer Agency looked into 306 products sold at convenience stores, department stores and supermarkets in March, and found that prices rose by an average 1.5 percent on year. A total of 167 out of the 306 products saw prices rise by 9 percent on year.

To cope with costs, students are buying cheaper bulk products and splitting them with peers.

More than 210 users are part of a KakaoTalk open chat room called Sogang University Group Purchases as of Tuesday. The users buy products like toilet paper, wet tissues and microwaveable chicken breasts in large quantities and split them with others in the chat room.

As many of the participants are students, those who purchased the split orders pick up their products at the university dorms or lockers around campus.

"After purchasing products in bulk, the person who made the purchase will split the products and leave them in certain areas around the university campus for the other students to pick up, and the process is very convenient," said Oh Sang-heon, a 25-year-old who bought products through the chat room. "I live by myself, and I've been part of the chat room to see if there's more products for me to buy."

There are also efforts to organize group purchases within majors as well.

"Students also find people to split purchases with in KakaoTalk group chats made between students in their majors or departments," Lee Hyun-woo, a 23-year-old Sogang University student explained. Because most university majors have group chats to share announcements and school knowledge, students are tapping into the already existing spaces to coordinate splitting bulk purchases.

BY SHIN HYE-YEON, PARK JONG-SUH, LEE YOUNG-GEUN, LEE TAE-HEE [lee.taehee2@joongang.co.kr]