As a college student, your situation may vary greatly. You could be a working student, trying to earn money while studying at the same time. You could also be a full-fledged student, focusing on his or her studies to the maximum. Whatever your situation may be, saving and having intelligent financial decisions should always be in your repertoire. You shouldn’t be complacent or ignorant when it comes to money, especially when you’re at the ripe age to work, earn money, and even live for yourself. You should be wary of many financial things, such as credit card bonus offers and how to take advantage of signup bonuses.
There are a lot of ways you could save, believe it or not. You might not be aware of just how much extra money you’re spending when you could have saved them and been completely fine. Below would be some saving tips for a college student.
Stick to a budget. When living off on your own for uni or in any other situation, a blueprint for spending would always be helpful. Creating a monthly budget, for example, is the way to go when trying to save. Not only does this map out all of your spending, but you’d also be able to see where you could save up when needed. You’d be more aware of where you’re bleeding money unnecessarily, so making a budget is a good thing for saving. The second part is to actually stick to that budget. There are a lot of temptations in this world, especially of just how convenient things have gotten. It’s in your best interests to stick to your budget, as this will discipline you better in the long run.
Where are some places that you could save?
When explored meticulously, you could actually save in a lot of areas. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you’re skimping out on things, but rather you’re being intelligent with your money. If you could find some ways to employ these saving techniques in specific situations, then you’d be in luck.
- School materials. School materials could be very expensive. This is especially true for textbooks, which are one of the main instructional materials that often become compulsory to be bought. You could save by buying used textbooks, especially if the one that’s required hasn’t changed editions. You could find said textbooks from your seniors or other online places that sell them for a large discount.
- Food. There are so many ways to save money from the food department alone, and we’ll try to list them here. For one, eating at home instead of eating out will almost always be significantly more inexpensive. This is because there are extra service charges when you eat from a restaurant and other costs such as fare or gas for going to such places. Cooking at home would give you control over your food as well, and it’s here that you’ll probably be thankful that you’ve learned how to cook. As with the first advice, you could also budget your food much better when you’re the one buying the ingredients.
- Student perks. A lot of software and online services have student discounts with them. Search around and try applying for them using your university email, and you might find yourself a discounted premium product. A very helpful grammar and plagiarism tool called Grammarly has a premium subscription service that is often free to access with student emails. Make sure to look around and see which ones in your existing subscriptions have a student discount as well! Music streaming platform Spotify is also often discounted with a university email.