Top 5 Ways to Save Money While in School
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This is my contribution to ProBlogger’s top 5 group writing project. Go by, read the submissions, and contribute a post as well.
Like most young students, I’m poor. My wife and I are always looking for ways to save money so we can mitigate our already high student debt load. Here’s a list of the 5 things that I have found that have helped us save the most money.
- Live with your parents. Right now, my wife and I are living with her parents. This has been our biggest money saver. It’s worked out rather well for us and my in-laws. We have rent free housing and they get in home service. My wife cleans the house and makes dinner for them every once in awhile and I take care of landscaping and the recyclables.
- Don’t own a car or if you’re married, just own one. My wife and I just own one car. I got rid of mine when we married. We save on insurance and maintenance. Besides the savings sharing a car has given us time to talk between our busy schedules.
- Bring your lunch to campus. I’m surprised by the number of law students who go out to eat every day. If the average meal is $5, that means that many students are dropping $100 a month just on lunch. My average home brought lunch costs probably a $1, some time less.
- Buy used textbooks. Buying new is for suckers. Buying used law school text books can be tricky though because publishers come out with new editions frequently. It’s OK to not buy the newest edition. The reality it that there’s not much difference between the older and new editions. If there is something new, just read it in a friend’s text book.
- Take advantage of free food at club meetings. There’s always a club meeting somewhere on campus on any day of the week. Often at these meetings there’s free food. Stop by, enjoy the speaker, and load up on grub. In addition to bring your own lunch, this is another great way to reduce your food budget.
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The Frugal Law Student is for anyone trying to mitigate their crippling debt. Me? I'm trying to mitigate the tens of thousands of dollars I've taken on in student loans. Join me on my quest to avoid taking on more debt, paying off some of the debt I have, and trying to survive law school while doing it. Read more about The Frugal Law Student, check out some of the best articles, or become a subscriber via RSS feed or via email
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Great post, Brett!
I definitely agree with bringing your own lunch. You can’t even eat for $5 at our law school’s cafe. A simple salad and a drink is $8. That’s price gouging, in my opinion. Heck, for that much money, I’d rather walk down to Panera and have some food that actually tastes good.
Take care,
Andrew
Just on the lunch thing… for three years I avoided the “student run, vegetarian and vegan collective” on campus that sold, I was told, affordable vegetarian and vegan food. Since biting the bullet and going at the start of this semester, I’ve been about 10 times since. Why? Because you can get a huge bowl of soup and a chunky piece of garlic/herb bread for AU$3.15 (US ~$2). Considering I’m at uni/work full time 6 days a week, the extra dollar or two it costs me to eat there is more than worth it. Moral of the story - if their’s a similar place on (or off) campus at your uni/college, it might be worth at least giving it a go. Saving money on lunch can just mean thinking more about where/what you eat.
Other cheap options can include slices of pizza, meat pies/sausage rolls, bringing a drink from home and just buying food, bringing snacks (snack bars, fruit etc.) from home and buying only the main part of the meal, buying a large serve of rice and chinese/indian food to go and taking half home for tomorrow, not eating lunch if you’re at uni at funny hours (eg. if you’re there 10-3 eat before you go and when you get home.
Andrew- The school’s cafeteria is a big time rip off. You’re right. You can get an even better meal off campus for the same price you pay on campus.
Josie- Thanks for stopping by and commenting! I think you make a good point that different circumstances might make buying your lunch a better option. I definitely like your idea about buying a big meal, eating half, and saving the rest for another meal. I’ve done that several times. Not only does it cut down on costs, it cuts down on calories.
Here’s another one that’s worked well for me: study hard and get good grades.
At both my undergrad and grad institutions, good grades meant money back. One of my friends found out she’d save more by getting good grades/getting partial scholarship than by taking a part-time job.
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Grad Girl-
Excellent point. My tuition grant has been the biggest money saver for me so far. I’m hoping that if I do well enough this year, the school will give me even more money.
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