College -- the best time of your life but also possibly the poorest time of your life. You’re too old to ask mom and dad for money, but too busy to work a full-time job. This leaves you pulling out every single resource you can to save money. From the food you eat, the beer you drink, and clothes you wear, you’re a seasoned veteran of getting away with spending the least amount of money as possible. These are seven struggles that only the most experienced broke college students know
1. You drink Natty Daddys and Nikolai
When you’re ballin’ on a budget, your drinking habits take a turn for the worse. You resort to drinking gross $1 malt liquor concoctions from gas stations, and your vodka may or may not taste exactly like rubbing alcohol. You forgot what Captain tastes like because you can only afford his less popular cousin, Admiral. You feel rich when you drink a Corona, and when someone buys you something besides a well drink at the bar, it feels like Christmas morning.
2. Ramen is a real meal
The poor college student stereotype is right. The beginning of the semester you bought food that functioning adults eat, but eventually you had to make some sacrifices. You live off boxed rice and pasta, and your meat of choice is chicken. You forgot what snacking is because you literally can’t justify spending $3.50 on a bag of chips that you could eat in one sitting. Free food is the motive behind half the events you attend, and you have no shame in that.
3. Duct tape and superglue are your only way of fixing things
Broken heel? The normal thing to do would be to buy a new pair right? Ha, no. You just glue that sucker back together. I recently broke my door after locking myself out, did I buy a new one? LOL, no -- cardboard and duct tape to cover the hole. You can’t actually afford to replace the things you need to or fix them properly, so you just temporarily hide the problem. This probably applies to your actual life problems too.
4. A dining hall visit is an open invitation to steal food
When your friend on campus guest passes you, or if you’re still fortunate enough to have a meal plan, you leave the dining hall with your hands full of food. It’s a competition to see how much you can carry out, because you’re too poor to buy actual dinner later. I once saw a kid walk out with at least 20 little containers of butter in his hand; he was a true champion.
5. Your friends circulate the same clothes
If you even college at all, you go out at least once or twice a week, sometimes even three times. Your drinking habits mean lots of outfits that need to be available to you. Since no one realistically can afford a different outfit for every night, you probably share closets. The next few times you’re out, observe how much that one black dress gets passed around a group of girls; I swear you’ll see it on a different person every week. You’re a living example of this if you would never buy the same article of clothing as one of your friends because you know the type of closet agreement you have would make it a waste of money.
6. Looking your absolute worst the end of the semester
Unless you’re fortunate enough to have a friend you trust that’ll do it for free, you haven’t had a haircut in ages when the semester starts to come to an end. Your physical upkeep schedule is based on breaks in hopes that your parents will dish out money to help you out when you come home looking homeless. If you’re a broke college girl, you end the semester with roots and eyebrows that aren’t on fleek.
7. Sleeping with extra layers instead of turning up the heat
If you are one of the less fortunate that doesn’t have utilities included, then you know this struggle. You would rather sleep in a winter jacket than jack up your heating bill. Bonus points if you pay for water too and use campus water fountains to fill up your water bottles instead.
