Extreme savers: College students embrace cheapskate mentality


Will Thomasen is like a lot of college guys with a big appetite, constantly eating pizza, coffee, bananas, hush puppies, sandwiches, mac ‘n cheese, you name it. The difference is that Thomasen doesn’t pay for any of it. The ultimate college cheapskate, Thomasen is on a mission to eat free for an entire year, Good Morning America reports.

“It is a little bit of, you know, seeing if I can live off the land, in the jungle of Chapel Hill,” the 21-year-old business major said.

At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., where an unlimited meal plan runs $1,700 per semester, Thomasen says scavenging for food isn’t a gimmick, it just makes sense. Every day he checks a Facebook page that lists all of the events on campus offering free food. On the day ABC News visited in January, freshmen doled out doughnuts and coffee. A gesture of good will from the class of 2015 means a free breakfast for Thomasen…From lectures to study breaks, the campus is overflowing with events that have free grub, he explains. His system seems to be working. The last time Thomasen spent money on food was in August…

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