As college student many of us have tuition bills, overly priced textbooks, and school schedules who that don’t allow us to work as many hours as we may like. With wanting to have a fun senior year while trying to save for post graduation I have found some ways to save my money and some easy budgeting tips to keep your money in order.
- Less Money is More Money
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The number one trick that I use is I tell my self that I have less money then I ever do. After paying any bills or necessary payments from my account every month or pay period, I re budget/ trick budget my bank account. When looking at my bank account I will pretend/ tell my self that I only have the last digits in my bank account not the whole thing. For example if I have $550 in my bank account I will i only let myself spend the $50 by telling myself that I only have that much money until the next pay period. This tip doesn’t always work when you only have
- Try and Eat Out Less
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This one is pretty easy, I started buying a lot more groceries so I’m not spending as much on eating out. I would easily swipe my card anytime friends and I would go out, telling myself that its okay to spend money to eat out because it food so you have to eat right? However, my roommates and I have started to cook “family” dinners and all meals on the weekends and it has helped my bank account so much by cooking at home then speaking $10 on a chipotle bowl every other day.
- Budget you Coffee or Drinks in General
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I am a avid coffee drinker to say the least, when I first started to really budget myself I thought it would be easy to cut out topping at Starbucks, dunkin, or tim hortans. I found out very quickly I would still find my self picking up a cold brew from Starbucks, or a thin mint ice coffee from Dunkin. The obvious answer to this would be to just to make the coffee at home (which I have started doing more of), but coffee at home never hits the same. So, it you want to save a little money while still getting your coffee from your favorite coffee shop is to download the coffee shops app, or take a local stores punch card and track your purchases. Most places will offer a buy so many, or collect so many stars and you can a free drink or free merchandise! It might not save you a lot of money but a free drink every days or weeks can help you save a few bucks.
- Student Discounts
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Find as many college discounts as possible, if you do your research I bet over half of the places that you spend your money at have a college student discount. Even places like Apple will offer discounts to save money as a college student. Use them as much as possible because once your out of school you’re back to paying full price for your Spotify premium account.
- Think About What You Buy
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Think in terms of something you really want. Do you want to spend the $50 on a Yungblud concert ticket, the next time you’re thinking about buying those two pairs of joggers from American Eagle with no thought start thinking if I not buy this since I don’t really need it I can buy the concert ticket it’s the same price. This is just a way to trick your brain into prioritizing the things on your wish list without buying it all.
- Write it Down
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Start writing down all of the things you buy an how much you spend on it. Have you ever watched your favorite youtuber do the trend “what I spend in a week” video? Most of them at the end of the video will twist down and talk about how much they spent and that they never really realized that they spend that much money in such a short amount of time. That is something that I know happens to me and I’m sure a lot of other people. So, after I started writing down all of the times that I swipe my card or dropped some cash it started showing me how many stupid things I was spending on an I started making myself feel bad for spending money.
- Venmo
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Venmo, is a great app to payback friends and family however it can also be a way to save a little money/ have more money to your name than you believed you did. If a friend Venmo’s you five dollars for pizza or ten for drinks leave it in your Venmo account you may forget about it and when your bank account is looking a little empty and you believe that you don’t have enough money to do things you can surprise yourself by have a significant about of money in your Venmo account.
- Bring Cash Out to the Bars
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This is for the 21 and up group, if you are heading out for a night out to the bars bring cash and only use cash. If you only bring a certain amount of cash then that’s all you will spend. You wont be able to buy and entire table of people drinks and put it on your tab. It will limit how much you can spend and you wont go crazy when your in a intoxicate state. It will help you not want to cry when you open your banking app the next morning.
- Bring Cash Out in General
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The same idea as number eight also works when you decide its time to shop. If you’re going on a shopping spree bring cash with you because there is a limit you can spend when using cash and you’re less likely to pull out your card when spend all of your cash and have a hands on number of how much you spent. I’m one to just keep swiping my card not even thinking about how much I’m spending at stores, but with cash it is a physical representation of how much you spent. If you really don’t want to spend any money but are just a long for the ride on a friends shopping trip, then give a friend your wallet that you know you wont give you your card back.
These are just a few quick tips an tricks I have found in the past few months of cracking down on my budgeting. A few google searches will load thousands of tips to help you save money, these are just the ones that have been actively working for me. I wish you all the best of the luck in your spending and saving in the future.