26th
money saving tips for college
My friend asked me to email these to her, so I figure if I’m going to write them down, I might as well share with everyone.
So here’s some tips on saving money at school (bullets because I am kind of lazy right now lol)
- Using chegg.com, amazon.com resellers, barnesandnoble.com resellers, bookbyte.com and half.com to buy or rent (only chegg.com) textbooks so you spend almost half as much as you would at a school bookstore for them. And for most of websites like these, you can also sell the same book back on the same website you bought it off. It saved me over $200 last semester on books.
- I also have a work study job with very flexible hours, so what I try to do is go right before and after classes, or in between classes, and try to work as many hours a week (max 20) to earn money. That way, it’s still time I’d have been awake but I’m earning something for it.
- Finding discounts on clothes online! I love shopping so I always let myself get stuff when it’s on sale if I have extra money. My favorite place to find coupons is retailmenot.com and they usually have most online stores. Just googling the store’s name and the word “coupon” finds you a lot of discounts. Recently, I bought 4 pairs of really good jeans for $68 which would never happen in a store. And for that buy, I also got $25 to spend at the same store when I spent more than $50 on another purchase. So technically, it’s like I only spent $43 on jeans. Another way to get discounts is so sign up for newsletters from my favorite stores online. It’s annoying sometimes to get that spam, but I just get it sent to an email account I don’t mind. But that’s how you find out about secret sales and great discounts.
- I never go to parties that require me paying. (hahahaha)
- I only go out for dinners for my good friends’ birthdays. Otherwise, we’ll sometimes order in, but I just use my meal plan/dining halls to eat. It’s already paid, so money I don’t use will just go to waste (back to BC), so I try to use as much as possible. The last two years I’ve only left a few cents on my meal plans.
- If I’m going home, I’ll book it incredibly in advance. I hate taking the bus unless I have to, so I fly home. So, I plan on booking my Thanksgiving and Christmas tickets during this summer. That way, they’re pretty cheap, about $40-50 each way. Also, if I do take the bus, I use boltbus.com or megabus.com and book in advance too so that they are cheaper than the usual $20.
- This isn’t really a tip, but I happen not to have a bank account that is on my campus, which actually works in my favor because that way I’m not always taking out money, because it’ll cost me $2.00. So I don’t buy useless things or spend my money on things that I don’t really need.
Hope this helped!
