7 Tips for Saving Money During Your First College Semester
During the next few weeks, approximately 2 million college freshmen will set foot as students on college campuses for the first time. Some will live in dorms, others will continue to live at home, and others may be living in an apartment setting. One thing most of them will have in common, though, is that they're making far more independent money choices than they have at any other point in their lives.
With independence, however, comes risk. College is a powerful time to explore new freedoms and opportunities, but it's also a time when it's very easy to put yourself into a financial hole that will take many years to escape.
Fortunately, most of the tactics needed to avoid falling into those financial traps are simple ones. Here are seven such tactics, perfect for making sure that your first steps into financial independence don't bury you for years.
[See: Basic Money Lessons You (Probably) Missed in High School.]
Avoid additional loans at all costs. Student loans are a necessary evil. Many people need to take them in order to pay the costs of tuition and other basic life expenses. However, student loans are not OK if they're being used to pay for living expenses beyond the bare minimum. If you're using your student loans to finance a larger apartment, to buy lots of clothes or pay for a new laptop every year, you're adding thousands of dollars to your debt. If you're doing it as a freshman, you're also sometimes adding the interest of having that loan in forbearance for a few years. Live as minimally as possible in college if your expenses are being financed by loans.
Look for on-campus work and go beyond the typical job boards. Having a job in college is a great way to cushion some of the expense. However, the best jobs are ones that also bolster your career in some fashion. Many students follow the usual path of getting internships during the summer, but during the year, they'll get off-campus jobs. A much better approach is to look for any kind of on-campus work within your department of study. Go beyond merely looking at on-campus job boards and work-study programs and instead build relationships with professors and department staff. This will give you the inside track to jobs that will put some money in your pocket (and ideally cut down on loans), bolster your resume and help you build strong connections in your field all at once.
[See: 12 Best Part-Time Jobs to Pay the Bills.]
Master simple low-cost foods for meals and snacks outside of your meal plan. One of the biggest financial drains in college is the cost of food. Meal plans are often pricey and often don't cover every meal. It can be tempting to fill in the gaps with takeout and food delivery, simply due to the convenience, but a better approach is to figure out how to make simple low-cost foods on your own. You can make hearty batches of soup in a small slow cooker right in your apartment or dorm room just by opening a couple of cans and adding water. Stock up on what you need to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which are extremely low cost. Eat lots of fresh fruit, which can also be affordable. Use grocery stores instead of restaurants and keep your eyes open for dishes that are simple to prepare.
[See: 20 Tips for Saving Money at the Grocery Store.]
Stick to being an authorized user on someone else's credit card. Credit card companies will target you with all kinds of offers during your freshman year. They'll have people on and near campus extolling the virtues of a credit card and enticing you with all kinds of silly bonuses to sign up. Avoid them all. It's not a terrible idea to have a credit card to help you establish a positive credit rating, but you can achieve that by being added as an authorized user on the credit card of a parent or another family member.
Utilize on-campus resources for entertainment and social connections. Most college campuses offer a ton of opportunities for entertainment, with on-campus events and groups meeting in large numbers virtually every day of the semester. Take advantage of those instead of retreating to your dorm room or apartment. Not only are such events typically free, they also provide a great chance to meet new people and build relationships that will last into your career, and they sometimes offer free meals to boot.
Buy used textbooks or use textbook rental. Textbooks can be incredibly expensive. It's not uncommon for the total cost of new textbooks for a semester to approach four figures. You can cut into that by not simply going to the campus bookstore to buy everything new. Instead, look for used textbooks or rented textbooks for your classes online at websites such as chegg.com and through on-campus tools and message boards. This will allow you to get some of your textbooks at a fraction of the cost.
When you do spend money, ask for student discounts. When you do go out into the community to spend money, never drop a dollar at a store -- online or brick-and-mortar -- without checking for some type of student discount. Many businesses offer discounts to students, and utilizing them often means spending less money.
Using these tips together can save you thousands of dollars over the course of your college career, and you can start using many of them from the first moment you set foot on a college campus.
Trent Hamm is the founder of The Simple Dollar, a website covering practical personal finance issues for everyone. He is the author of two books, "The Simple Dollar: How One Man Wiped Out His Debts and Achieved the Life of His Dreams" and "365 Ways to Live Cheap." He has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He currently lives in Iowa with his wife and three children.
