As a college student, money can be tight. It can be easy to simply resort to eating noodles every night for dinner on a hot plate. However, even though you are on a college student budget, you can still find a way to procure some of life’s little luxuries, like condiments and a towel that isn’t threadbare. Indeed, you don’t need to suffer during your college years. In some cases, you may be able to actually save money. If your expenses are low and you secure a part time job, you may have enough money to stash away after you cover some of the most pressing expenses. Here are five tips for living on a college student budget.
- Get a part time job.
One of the best ways to survive on a college student budget is to increase your income and subsidize some of your living expenses. With a part time job, you can start injecting more money into your bank account. This can help with a wide range of costs, from tuition to textbooks and even car payments.
- Lower your expenses.
If you can’t get a part time job and you are going to school full time, you may want to think about lowering your expenses. If you are living in an apartment, you may want to think about moving to a dorm while you save up enough capital. If your cellphone bill is too high, you may want to reduce your minutes. If you think about it, there are a lot of little ways to cut and shave some of the expenses out of your life. Indeed, austerity can be difficult, but it may be worth it for the sake of getting by during college.
- Forget the luxuries.
Of course, you want to make sure that you cut out any of the extraneous luxuries in your life. For instance, if you are taking UAB’s online masters in information systems and it’s the summertime, you may want to turn off the air conditioner while you study. All that cool air could cost you a pretty penny. This is why you want to stick to fans and other sources of cool air. Saving money is all about being resourceful.
- Create a daily budget.
Another helpful tip for living on a college budget is to create an actual budget. Even if your daily spending allotment is ten dollars, you want to know exactly what you are spending those ten dollars on. If you really want to make that ten dollars spread throughout the day, you really want to get into the details.
- Don’t stress out.
On top of everything, you want to be sure that you don’t stress out about your financial situation. The more you stress out, the easier it will be to feel like you can’t survive on your budget. However, you want to look at your shoestring budget like an adventure. At the end of the day, college really is just a fun adventure.