Being a college student is hard, okay? It’s tough on your brain (so many tests…), your complexion (so much stress…), your physique (so much beer!), your emotions (existential crises abound!) and perhaps, most of all, your wallet. Oh, it’s a hard-knock life using baking soda as shampoo and paying for cat food in pennies, but if you’re trying to save your money, honey, sacrifice and ingenuity are key. Here are some advisory snacks for you to chew on and hopefully put into action in order to fatten your billfold or at least keep it from shrinking.
Set your priorities straight. Can you wait to buy the Calvin & Hobbes Anthology until after you pay your speeding ticket? Do you really need that Super Nintendo on eBay you’ve been pining for? Yeah, you do. I know. I know! But what you really have to do is pay your bills. I would fork over an embarrassing amount of money to own all of the discontinued Crayola crayons, but if I don’t pay my rent, I won’t have a house to color in. Be smart about your spending. If you can’t spare the expense, perhaps it’s the perfect time to quit smoking. Reduce your alcohol purchases and consumption. Even if you’re not buying your White Russians, when you’re wasted you’re probably more apt to, I don’t know, order a matching inflatable chair and couch on your credit card. If your budget cannot cover your superfluous desires, don’t spend your money like it does.
Sometimes it feels like it takes a considerable chunk of change just trying to keep myself fed, and if I go out to eat every day, it definitely will. Cutting back on your food expenses can save you so much money. Wait until happy hour to go to Sonic. Or take one for the team (“the team” being you and your wallet), and don’t go at all. Clip coupons. You don’t have to go nutso ‘‘Extreme Couponing” style (though if you do, I’d love a grand tour of your stockpile), but every little bit helps. If you have a meal plan, use that as much as possible. Going to eat at restaurants drains your bank account so quickly. Cook your meals at your house instead. Even fast food, though cheap compared to finer dining, really adds up. Although it seems like hitting up Hardee’s is the smarter choice compared to spending a bit more money at the grocery store, simple staples like bread, milk, eggs, peanut butter and the like (and, okay, the occasional jumbo variety pack of discount candy) will last you much longer, be a better value and, depending on what you buy, be a lot healthier than going to a drive-thru every day. So, stock up on eggs. Are you aware of just how many ways you can prepare an egg? Me neither, but it’s a lot. Google that and then get cracking.
Take a page from Students for a Sustainable Campus’s book and cut back on your energy usage in order to lower your bills. Open your blinds and bask in the warm glow of natural sunlight during the day. Instead of cranking up your heat, consider donning a nice sweater or some wooly socks. Use a power strip. Bike instead of drive. Change the setting of your washing machine to cold, and let your clothes air-dry. Febreze now comes scented with Gain. Spray that all over your thrice-worn outfits, and you’ll be right as rain, no washing required. If Proctor & Gamble’s animal testing weighs on your conscience, you can get the same odor-neutralizing effect by spritzing your clothes with a vodka and water mixture, assuming you have vodka laying around and assuming using it in this fashion instead of drinking it won’t make you cry. If you have no sense of smell or just don’t give a damn, don’t do anything to your clothes and wear them until they’re rank!
Saving money is easy if you have the willpower. Draw up a budget and then stick to it. Do without when you can. After a week of eating peanut butter sandwiches, you might be able to buy that pet lizard you’ve been eyeing. You should have a nice for-a-rainy-day reserve in no time as long as you make fewer purchases and wiser decisions.