As I stare at my perpetually low bank funds, I can’t help but worry about the days to come after graduation when Financial Aid will no longer supply me with helpful grants and loans. I throw myself onto the bed thinking, “Why didn’t I spend my money more wisely?” Just the little things here and there added up to a huge amount of money that I just carelessly wasted away. Now all I have to look forward to after graduation is being homeless. I kid, but thankfully I have a job, so I don’t have to live under a bridge after college. But that doesn’t stop me from regretting my carelessness when I first entered college. There was so much offered and I did not take full advantage of all the resources (that I probably already paid for by the way) and now I’m older, wiser, and so much smarter than my know-it-all freshman self that I just cringe every time I think about money. So how do you avoid being a poor senior like me? Just got to pay attention to the little things… and hey, if you are not graduating like me, you have another quarter to get into the habit of saving money. Take my advice!
–Meal Swipes: First and foremost… Take advantage of those meal swipes!!! I can’t stress enough how much you will miss and dream about these mandatory to buy (given you live on campus) meals after your first year. Why do you think the upperclassmen would keep asking you for swiping them in? They may not be starving but it is because they know what a good resource for food Mesa Commons, Pippin, or Brandywine really is. The school forces you to have meal swipes your first year living on campus anyway, so you’re already paying for these meals… why go off campus and pay for another meal? I remember my first year I had the privilege of having access to a car and therefore always wanted to drive somewhere for my meals, and by the end of the quarter I had about sixty meals out of hundred left over. Meals range from $6-12 depending on if you go for breakfast/lunch/dinner so I wasted about $360-$720 that quarter!
-Get Good Grades: Did you know there are many grants and scholarships out there that are dependent on your G.P.A.? If you filled out the FAFSA, usually you are given a grant based off just your G.P.A. I remember my first year my G.P.A fell under 3.0 my second quarter and I lost that $500 grant and could not get it back up again for a few quarters, meaning I missed out on a few quarters of $500 worth of free money. If you maintain good grades, the grants will be easily be distributed to you to help you for your academic future.
-Use the Shuttles: Here is another great school resource (that you already paid for) that can help you save some more money! Like I said before, in my freshman year I had a car. That means I drove myself and all my friends everywhere. Sometimes I would get lazy and drive to class. And all my friends that didn’t have cars would ask to get picked up. You would also have to buy parking permits too, and they can get very pricy. I probably spent approximately $300 extra on my car every month. The shuttles offer free rides to all sorts of locations on campus, along with the apartment complexes near campus and even to shopping plazas like Irvine Spectrum.
-Don’t buy your Supplies and Textbooks at The Hill: Textbooks are expensive. Do textbooks really have to cost as much as they do? I sure don’t think so, but that doesn’t stop the manufacturers to hike up the prices like crazy. Education is expensive but shelving out hundreds of dollars a quarter for books is not my cup of tea. Here’s a heads-up: You may think that you have absolutely no other choice but to buy the books your Professor assigned at the bookstore but there is a catch. Other than books that professors compile with excerpts from different authors as a special order, the chances of the textbook you need and the availability at a much cheaper price elsewhere is very high. UCI’s bookstore, much like every school’s bookstore, sells supplies and books at a higher price due to how convenient it is for students, and because students that don’t have cars are pretty much forced to buy from there. Instead of the school’s bookstore, search for your book on Amazon.com, Craigslist.com, or any of many Facebook Group Pages, such as Textbook Exchange that are open to anyone and usually have books at much much cheaper prices. For supplies like pens and notebooks, shop at Target or Walmart instead! Recently I found my textbook on Amazon for one penny. Yes, that’s right. One cent. I just had to pay $3.99 for shipping and I basically saved over sixty bucks.
Make sure to sell your books after you are done using them. Books lay around and run the risk of depreciation due to a new volume being released, so sell them quick! UCI runs a Course Book Buy Back at the beginning and end of each quarter so make sure to check on the bookstore website to see how much you will get selling your book back to the school. If it isn’t a good amount, I suggest selling it on any of the before mentioned sites or to other students directly.
-Eat at home: This is for the students living off campus. Just for clarification, I do not mean ordering take out and eating it at home. I mean buying groceries and cooking! If you don’t know how to cook, learn how! It is much cheaper to buy groceries and cook your own food in your own kitchen, not to mention it is usually a lot healthier than eating out. Stay away from American grocery stores like Albertsons and Ralphs. You might be thinking, “But wait, what? Didn’t you just tell me to go buy some groceries?” Yes I did tell you to buy groceries, but stores like Albertsons and Ralphs sell their produce at a very high price and rarely have very good sales, sometimes buying the ingredients for a meal at one of these stores comes out to be much more expensive than just going out to eat at a restaurant.
Check out the Asian Supermarkets in the area. In Irvine there is 99 Ranch Market, H Mart, and Zion Market. They all sell produce and meat at ridiculously cheap prices. These markets usually have sales on the weekends, more specifically Zion Market holds huge sales on their produce. This is the type of sale where old Asian ladies are fighting with each other over the better lettuce head, and you can’t resist joining in. Boxes of strawberry for $2, corn or green onions for $1 for 10! Insane sales such as that! I highly suggest you check it out!
Saving money may be hard, and some of us are lazy and would rather pay for convenience than get off our butts and do something. But trust me, you will be so glad you saved so much money at the end of each quarter! Practice money saving techniques now and you won’t be a poor and depressed graduate later on.