If you’re old enough to be considered independent of your parents, look into government assistance. I have a friend in grad school who gets food stamps to help her along. She only earns about $700 a month GAing and majority of that goes to rent and bills.
If you do the Ramen thing, get a bag of frozen peas. Cook some in with it. It adds a little bit of nourishment to the meal. It’s also really easy to make.
Find a pizza buddy. Every once in a while you’re just going to want to order something as a treat. A pizza buddy helps bring down the cost and everything is more likely to get eaten. Most college areas also have specials that they run for students. Dominos had a student menu where I was at. A bunch of different combos for $8. Add in a tip if they deliver it and then divide that in half with your pizza buddy comes up to about $5 to treat yourself.
Bunny ears and a programable VCR are wonderful. Even if you’re not home you can record stuff to watch later on. You can also fast forward through all the commercials and avoid the temptation to buy whatever is being advertised.
As for furniture, think about what you really need. I didn’t bother getting a couch. I would have never used it. I was always sitting at my desk. My bed was a mattress and box springs on the floor. I was fine with it.
If you have to use a laundrymat look around to see which one’s the cheapest. Sometimes if you drive just a few miles further you can save $.50 a load. That really adds up. Also some places have cheaper times or days.
Don’t forget to treat yourself every once in a while. It’ll keep you from going crazy and hating life. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive. Renting a couple of movies with some friends can be cheap and provide a much needed break.
Somethings can be dried in front of a fan and it’ll take away some of that stiffness. Of course you just can’t get it to smell as nice as when it comes from a dryer.
Nifty. I’d like to thank all of you for your replies.
Yes, the university bookstore doesn’t mind me reading the books, as long as they’re not shrink-wrapped. I don’t think they anticipated someone sitting down in there for a few hours straight.
Utilities, cable, and internet access are all included in the townhouse.
The biking is a really good idea, especially if I can arrange my schedule so I have no early morning classes.
Two of my friends both do a great deal of cooking on a limited budget. I will be hitting them up for recipes.
Bake your own bread. You can buy flour and yeast for about the cost of two to four loaves of bread and already have salt and water (we hope). This will bake several months worth of bread. I have lived on fresh home-baked bread out of choice, it isn’t suffering.
Also, fresh fruits and veggies are nice, but in the US, are usually about the most expensive calories you can consume short of some meats. Unfortunately, canned and frozen are much cheaper, but are somewhat lacking. I vote for frozen veggies and canned fruit. Don’t worry about nutrients, though. Most preserved produce is actually higher in vitamins than the ‘fresh’ since the fresh produce has been in modified atmosphere storage since it was harvested. Canned and frozen is processed when it is at its freshest.
And…learn how to cook less desireable chunks of meat. They are cheaper and if done right, are better. Remember that tough meats benefit from long slow cooking (crockpot) and fatty meats need to be cooked in a way that allows excess fat to escape (broiling).
And…no cold breakfast cereal! It is enormously expensive compared to other foods. Learn to like toast (from homemade bread!) or oatmeal if you eat breakfast.
If you don’t use alot of milk, consider using nonfat dry milk (or ‘instant’ milk). It tastes a little strange at first, but is cheaper than buying fresh and doesn’t go bad in a week. It is a love/hate thing though.
When I was in college, there were lunch specials at some of the local restaraunts. If you can get and all-you-can-eat lunch for 5.99 and it suffices for two or three meals in a day, then it is a bargain financially and spiritually. Lunch and dinner at the Chinese restaraunts was the same meal with an eggroll at dinner, the price difference was about 2.50. How much do you like eggrolls, are they worth 2.50?
That depends on where you are and what season it is. Where I am, fresh produce is pretty darn cheap from mid-spring through mid-fall if you get it from the local farmers’ stands. Besides, there are lots of fresh fruits, veggies, and culinary herbs that grow wild or that you can grow in a garden. I have a small patch of land in front of my apartment that I use to grow veggies and herbs each year. Growing those things costs me time, but I enjoy it, so it doesn’t really feel like work.
I also get the most delicious raspberries, blackberries, and lamb’s quarters growing wild right near my apartment. From late June through early September, I can pick an enormous bowl of berries every morning. And, when I’m in town, I do.
Where you are might have some local wild produce areas, too. Exploring the area for a day or so might show you where they are.
Also–you say you’re working on getting a job, which is a good idea. But you almost never make as much money working for someone else as you do working for yourself. Can you tutor? Mow lawns? Is there something you know you’re good at that you could sell? Doing whatever that is will probably beat almost any summer job someone else could hire you at.
I just realized–that depends, of course, on what kinds of skills you’ve got to sell. And it also depends on what your schedule constraints. What I should have said was, “You almost never make as much moeny working for someone else as you do working for yourself, assuming you can’t work the usual 9-5, Monday-Friday..” Or, at least, that’s been my experience.
But, then again, you might want to take that with a grain of salt, since my income (I’m working as a TA, since I’m a grad student) is abysmally low. Which I’ve chosen, and continue to choose, for a few years now.
Look–now that I think about it–forget about any advice I give, ever, on earning money. Obviously I don’t know what I’m doing, myself. I wish I could just have my last post and this one deleted.
somebody already mentioned this, but I’m going to repeat it: carry a small notepad, and write down each and every thing you pay for.
It’s such an obvious, child-like thing to do–but give it a try!
After a month, add everything up,—you can be amazed at how much you wasted on very small items. Its way too easy to pick up a quickie coke or newspaper with a couple loose coins, without even being aware that spent “real” money–but it adds up much faster than you realize.
Write it ALL down-- every single time you hold a coin or dollar bill in your hand.
I dry nearly all our clothes (family of 6) in the garage now, on an assortment of wooden racks picked up at yard sales, and a big long piece of rope stretched wall to wall (in the summer I’ll use the outdoor line). The only things I don’t dry that way are the whites, because underwear and socks really are much nicer when tumbled (and I feel better about the heat killing any germs), and the baby’s diapers, for the same reason. But yes, they do come out stiff like shingles. So I get a couple of washcloths wet, not quite dripping wet, and toss them into the dryer with a big load of stiff dry cloths, and tumble on cool. I got this trick from a friend, and the clothes really do come out nearly as soft as if they’d tumbled dry. Of course, they’re wrinkled, but I suppose one could iron if one felt the need. It’s easier if you throw in white wet washcloths with your colored clothes to tumble, because you can easily pick the damp things out at the end of the cycle.
Assuming you’re of age, find out who has happy hour with free eats! Go in, spend a few bucks on a drink or two, and get yourself some free wings and veggies or whatever they serve.
I’ve never found dry milk that was cheaper, gallon-for-gallon, than the liquid stuff (on sale). It isn’t a high-volume product for stores, so they usually charge more. I keep it around in the freezer (as it will spoil eventually) but only for baking. However, I don’t drink milk, so it’s hard for me to keep the other stuff around and fresh.
Don’t spend quarters. Keep them separate for laundry. Some how that always worked with me. Plus you never know when you have to do an emergency load of clothes.
If you are the type of person who has to have that soda bottle with you at all times, go ahead and buy it at the grocery store. Yeah it might be $3 for six bottles, but that’s half the cost of buying them individually.
If you do decide to bike in, have a back up plan for bad weather. Sitting through class soaking wet is not fun.
If possible, get in the habit of doing the mental arithmetic of how many hours you have to work to buy any item. It works really well for me to prevent impulse buys. Getting into the habit of figuring out the competitive price (price per egg, price per serving, etc) on grocery items is also useful.
One of the biggest parts of the weekly “grocery bill” is non-food items like cleansers, make-up and paper products. If you have a dollar store nearby where you can get cleansers, consider using those. Bulk bleach is also cheap and kills germs.
Don’t skimp on toilet paper or your health.
Use the library. Trade books with friends.
That reminds me; take a PE class so you can have a locker with back-up clothes at school. Taking showers at the gym will also cut down on your power/water bills.
If your college offers such a thing, take a social dance class as PE. Learning to dance will give you cheap dates later. Cooking together is also a fun cheap date.
Give up soda, alcohol, and drugs as much as possible (except when taking advantage of the happy hour someone mentioned). They’re all expensive, bad for you, and completely unnecessary.
If you buy dry milk in bulk quantities (we’re talking five gallon drum–dry) then it is significantly cheaper. It’s also crap to drink.
As SusanStoHelit says, it’s good for baking, but it will go bad if not kept in a non-intert (i.e. nitrogen) atmosphere. Also, I think it’s all non-fat, too, so not only is it bitter and chalky, but it also has zero body, which means you have to add butter or cream for baking to get proper body. It’s fine for backpacking, or if you are running a mess tent, but I only keep small packs of it around for baking emergencies.
It hate to say this, but I’m finding this thread a little depressing. Remembering what it was like to be a pseudo-starving college student is really putting me off of those return-to-school notions.
Look at the top of the page.
Do you see the part that tells you what forum you are posting in?
I’m seeing “In My Humble Opinion”, NOT “The BBQ Pit”. If you are seeing something different, I suggest you see your friendly neighborhood eye doctor, ASAP.
Do not post in this manner outside of the Pit again.
Looking over that page, I (unsurprisingly) do not see my favorite concoction that I literally just discovered last night – satay ramen.
Cook the noodles like you normally would and in a seperate skillet, heat a tablespoon of chunky peanut butter, your packet of flavoring, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, either soy or worcestershire (I prefer the latter) sauce, and a bit of water until it all comes together. Let it reduce a bit and then pour over your noodles (sans water) and enjoy. Sounds weird but it’s really good. I hate peanut butter but have about five different jars of it (why do people assume you want peanut butter when they shop for you? Every. Single. Time.) and it’s a tasty way to dispose of it and to get some actual nutrition into an otherwise nutritionally deficient meal.
Now if I just had some onions, peppers, and other vegetables to put in it too.
Consider a bicycle. 6 miles would be less then a half hour at a leisurely pace. Factor in how much less time it will take to chain a bike up somewhere vs. park a car near a college campus, and it looks even better.
Doh! I should have previewed better, I see the bike suggestion has already been made. Here are some tips:
[ol]
[li]Get a leg band. It’s just a simple velcro strap that you put around your left calf to keep your pants off of the chain. Very useful.[/li][li]Don’t get an expensive bike–think old, weird, and ugly. Something that no one would want to steal. I used a 70’s era Schwinn Varsity as my beater when I was in school. No one in their right mind would want to steal it, much less commute on it. :)[/li][li]Even if you get a cheap bike, get an expensive lock. If your lock costs as much as your bike, you’re thinking along the right lines.[/li][li]At a bare minimum, get one of those flashing LED taillights for riding at dusk.[/li][li]Inclement weather: A “trick” I used when I road competively and trained in bad whether was to cut the top off an old water bottle, then stick a rolled-up vinyl cycling poncho-thingy in it, then stick the water bottle in the watter bottle holder. Worked well enough.[/li][li]Get a book that covers maintenance–if you’re pinching pennies, you’ll want to do this yourself, and it’s not hard. I’d suggest you check out Effective Cycling. The author is regarded by some as a bit of a cook, but I like him. He gives good advice for riding on roads, and also gives good maintenance advice. He covers (or covered, at least in the edition that I have) older, obsolete equipment as well, which is useful if your bike is old.[/li][/ol]
