If you’re like me, you had a steady, well-paying job this summer, and you totally made bank. You worked hard five days a week, laid out at the pool on the weekends and woke up early Monday morning only to repeat the warm, summery cycle once more. You returned to Starkville with fistfuls of cold, hard cash, and thought, “Wow, I am such an adult. I am so responsible because I have my own money now.”
But alas, our funds have fallen with the leaves, and we have begun to hoard quarters for laundry like squirrels in hibernation mode. With every pumpkin spice latte and every pair of woolen socks we purchase – because our feet get so cold in Starkville – we practically force money into the cold, greedy claws of winter and out of the warm.
So, for your benefit and mine, here are a few helpful hints on how to make your fall frugal and make what’s left of your summer savings last until Christmastime.
1. Get water at restaurants – This tale is as old as time, yet we Mississippians still insist on our sweet tea at breakfast, lunch and dinner. As a result, we end up spending $5 or $6 a day on drinks. That’s practically enough money for an entire meal. Drink water, folks. Your body and your bank account will thank you. Speaking of water….
 
2. Drink tap water – I know, water fountains can sometimes be gross. But you know what’s grosser? The fact Americans spend over $15 billion on bottled water per year. That’s obscene. Tap water is cheap, easy and better for the environment. It’s 2012; it’s time to go green.
 
3. Bike it, walk it, carpool it – Starkville is a small town. If you can’t walk there, odds are you can bike there, and if you can’t bike there, odds are someone else is going the same direction. Hitch rides, split gas, save cash.
 
4. Brew your own coffee – Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I’m drinking a Starbucks latte as I type this, and guess how much it cost me? $3.50. If I do that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during my 10:00 break, I spend over $10. I know how cute that picture of your Einstein’s coffee looks through a well-placed tilt-shift and a complimentary filter, but there’s no way it’s as cute as the new shirt you could buy with all the cash you could save if you brewed your own beans.
 
5. Acquire friends with skills – Since coming to college, I have befriended a chef, a DIY enthusiast and a painter. In exchange for their food, fashion and friendship, I proofread their papers and embellished their resumes. It’s a beautiful, mutually beneficial relationship. With such a diverse campus, there’s no reason you can’t save a little cash in addition to gaining a great, different new friend.
 
6. Don’t grocery shop on an empty stomach – How many of us have skipped lunch to make a quick trip to Piggly Wiggly only to arrive at the cash register with a box of Zebra Cakes, a bag of Cheetos, a Diet Coke, and maybe an apple in addition to our usual grocery items (bread, peanut butter, orange juice, etc.)? Going to the grocery store while your stomach is empty is more tempting than Ryan Gosling offering you one of those fancy, over-priced lattes mentioned above.
 
7. Leave the credit card at home – Set aside a certain amount of cash for your next trip downtown. It’s entirely too easy to buy an entire outfit on credit without blinking an eye – until you go home and check your balance; then you must continually blink your eyes to keep from bursting into tears. Deliberately leave the house with only a few dollars. Despite what America would have us believe, we are not financially invincible, and the monetary rug gets pulled out from naïve college students every single day.
8. Get a bank app for your smartphone – To avoid the shock that comes with refraining from checking your bank account, get an app for your phone so you can check it anytime, anywhere. I know, ignorance is bliss, but since we are now responsible adults, we can no longer afford to be ignorant.
 
9. Pandora/Spotify/Jango it – iTunes is a great and terrible beast. It’s the best and worst invention of the 21st century. Who would have ever thought that we would be able to purchase music track by track 50 years ago? And who would have thought how easy it would be? How accessible? How expensive?? My advice to you is simple: think about the music you’re purchasing. If it’s a quality album that’s worth $10, then by all means, buy it. But if it’s the latest Maroon 5 single, odds are Starkville radio will overplay it anyway, and you’ll get so sick of it you will want to die when it randomly plays on your iPod, and you will be so angry that you spent that $1.25 on it instead of that load of laundry for which you are still hoarding quarters.