The struggle of living alone and having to take care of yourself while juggling schoolwork and the laziness of wanting to lay in bed watching Netflix 24/7 isn’t always easy. Sometimes we take shortcuts to ease the pain of having to do it ourselves so we can continue to lie in bed, but it becomes easy to spend countless dollars that could be saved. Here are some tips and tricks to saving money in college.
1. Make your
own coffee (I find
myself buying coffee every single day.)
Do I have a Keurig? Yes. Can I buy a large bottle of Starbucks Iced
Coffee in the grocery store for the price of a regular drink at Starbucks? Yes. This is definitely something that I need to work on. The problem stems from laziness. It seems easier to have someone else make
your coffee than for you to do it yourself. In reality, it takes about five minutes and is a great way to save about $20 a week.
2. Stop eating
out between classes – This is one of
the easiest things to avoid.
Pack
yourself a lunch! Odds are, you have leftovers from dinner or some deli meat in
your freezer that you forgot you put there. Everything that is directly on campus is significantly more expensive
than something you could have made yourself. Take 10 minutes before bed every night to make yourself a sandwich and
you will thank yourself at lunch the next day.
3. Grocery shop
at non-gourmet grocery stores.
Fresh
may seem convenient because it is close, but their lack of choices and high
prices can easily eat up your wallet. Copps
or Woodman’s are great options for buying groceries. If you have a car, these are within 10 minutes
from campus. If you don’t have a car the
bus goes right across the street from Copps for free with a bus pass from ASM.
4. Don’t bring
credit cards with you when you go out.
If
you bring out only cash you can monitor exactly how much you are going to spend
when you go to the bars or to eat after. If you don’t have the ability to swipe your credit card, no matter what
state you are in you won’t have any other option than to only spend what you
bring with you.
5. Do laundry on a weekly basis.
This
won’t necessarily help you save money but you will be able to budget
better. Spending $5 on laundry
once a week instead of $15 once a month will keep your monthly budget
balanced.
6. Get a receipt when you take money out from the
ATM.
Getting
a receipt when you take out money will ensure you aren’t living in blissful
ignorance. You will know exactly how
much money is in your account so you will think twice before spending extra
money on a sale at Urban.
7. Turn your
heat on and off as needed.
Leaving your
heat on all the time may seem necessary as it starts to get cold, but in reality this is a waste of your money. Most
heaters in apartments on campus get warm within two minutes. While you aren’t in your apartment the heat
is just money coming out of your wallet. Keeping the heat off whenever you aren’t in your apartment is your best
bet to save money on your electric bill.
8. Turn off your lights when you leave the
room.
It is so
easy to forget to turn off the lights when you leave a room but this is another
cost that can be avoided. Shutting the
lights off when they aren’t needed will save you big bucks on your electricity
bill. If you think you’ll forget, put a
post-it on the front door saying, “Did you turn the lights off?” Odds are you’ll
realize you didn’t and will go shut them off.
9. Instead of
going out to dinner with your friends, have a potluck.
Personally,
I think a potluck is more fun and healthier than going to a restaurant. You can get the same variety of food that you
would on a menu while spending half the price.
This is fun for everyone; you can have each person bring a different
course, i.e. appetizers, entrees and desserts.
10. Make a monthly budget and stick to it.
On the first of each month, create a spreadsheet with
your budget for a month. If you know you
are taking a trip one weekend or need extra money for a concert you can take it
into account before the month starts so you can cut the budget in other
ways.
I hope these tricks help you save a few extra dollars so you have more money to spend on what you want instead of necessities!