With spending season coming around, it can be hard to balance Christmas shopping and funding your daily college life. Luckily, being a student means you have plenty of opportunities to save if you look in the right places. Keep reading to discover the best tips for staying frugal while at school!
Make Homemade Coffee
Not only is making your own Starbucks-esque drink easy, but it saves money in the long run. All the extra expenses that come with your daily coffee run add up, so learning how to make your own drinks can be a valuable and rewarding skill. With the busy schedules of most college students, you might think it could hard to fit in the time to brew your own cup, but a quick search on Pinterest can show you 100’s of recipes that only take three to five minutes to prepare!
Use public transportation
Driving your own car might be convenient, especially if you live on a campus isolated from cities and shopping centers, but the amount of money you would have spent on gas could make a big dent in your necessary expenses if you switch to public transportation. Most schools work with or have their own bus systems that can take you around campus and to surrounding locations. Once you get used to the bus route, you won’t miss the constant expenses a car brings.
Buy used textbooks
Two tips that most people will give you when you start college is: Do not buy new textbooks and do not buy a textbook listed in the syllabus unless the professor mentions it within the first few days of class. Although sometimes you cannot avoid textbooks in certain classes, the former option will keep your expenses to a minimum. You can typically buy used textbooks online or at your campus’s bookstore. If all else fails, you can always ask a classmate to split the book or find an online copy if new textbooks are out of your price range.
Look for student discounts
Before your next shopping spree, take a look online to see if any of your favorite stores have a student discount. You would be surprised on how many discounts you have access to just by being a student. There are plenty of websites and apps that are dedicated to showing you all the stores that support student discounts, with the most popular being the app Unidays.
Utilize the food courts
One of the easiest tips to follow on this list is just to try to keep your meals within your meal plan. Although meal swipes can be expensive, if you already have them then you are only saving money by not going off campus and eating out or buying fast food. In addition to saving money, you can create healthier eating habits by eating in using your college’s healthy food options.
Overall, it is important to learn budgeting in college and if you implement these tips into your daily life, you will soon find you have plenty of money saved for a rainy day!