I’m currently a college student working my way through school. Money’s tight and I’ve started getting creative. I steal plasticwear, ketchup packets, napkins, etc from the student union. The only time I “eat out” is when I get my free meal at the restaurant I work at. I know it’s not that bad, but I know it’ll get worse when as time goes on and I run out of the little bit of money I’ve managed to save up.
What sort of crazy things have you done to save money?
Wait till McDonald’s closes and go dumpster diving for what they throw out. (Can eat like a king if you beat the critters to the chow)
I once lived on Ramen noodles (one per day) for 6 weeks (not recommended).
Find out which local bars have a good happy hour setup and get dinner for the price of a beer (or a coke if you are underage aka designated driver).
Sell blood/plasma if you are in an area that pays for it. It also helps afterwards as an incredibly cheap drunk.
Shop at thrift stores. (Something I still do. Especially in the rich areas of town. It’s amazing what rich folk throw away).
Day old bread and donuts are wonderful friends.
No matter how nasty the food, a bottle of tabasco makes anything edible and in some cases, downright yummy.
Laundry can be done in the bathtub, and even in a shower (just takes longer).
Duct tape will fix anything for a day at a time.
While a university student, lived in a shell of a building. Got through university with a passle of degrees, though.
While attempting to make the national ski team, road tripped out of a ski box. Made it to the Worlds!
Weirdest or most pathetic?
…or most sinister?
…or most creative?
I have plenty of all of those 
but nothing weird…
My fiance’s mother (future Mother-In-Law, or fMIL) is wonderful with money. Here are some of her tips for making big savings.
Reuse teabags. She just happens to like weak tea, but that’s irrelevant, she uses each tea bag two or more times to get the most value out of it. I hate her tea 
Reuse bath water. When I was a kid, my mother would yell at me for leaving the water in the bath. My fMIL is the opposite. She always has a bath full of water - you don’t need to put so much in to fill it if someone else wants to bath, and you can bail it out to water the garden when it’s getting too thick. 
Hi, Opal <=== My first Hi Opal
Buy foods that your family dislikes. Mr Cazzle loves Cocoa Pops, but hates the cheap imitation Cocoa Puffs. His mother knew this, and bought nothing but Cocoa Puffs because not only were they cheaper, but they’d last forever. Do this with everything.
Return gifts to stores. fMIL works in a job that rewards her with gifts, like toaster ovens and microwaves, etc. fMIL accepts them all graciously, and then goes shopping for a store that sells them. Almost without exception, the stores will take “back” the goods she brings in, even though she has no receipt, because they are still in box.
Keep EVERYTHING. You never know when you’ll need it.
fMIL’s favourite saying is “Take care of the cents, and the dollars will take care of themselves”. This has obviously worked for her, because she is loaded. Her job is just a party sales job, and she doesn’t make that much from it, but she has so much money stashed away because she gives strict consideration to how she spends each cent of it.
She’s a wonderful person, but some of her ideas are funny… why always buy food you don’t like? I know you don’t eat so much, but surely you should be able to enjoy a snack once in a while… and the teabags… <shudder>
I wouldn’t recommend the returning things to stores-eventually you’ll be found out, banned from returning things and possibly from the store itself, and probably will end up another story at Customer’s Suck.
I’d recommend-lots of pasta and Italian dressing.
COUPONS COUPONS COUPONS!!! Just make sure they’re still good.
Make friends with the store staff-they’ll know you and let you know of good bargains.
Shop CLEARANCE sales. I got a dress that was originally 50 dollars for 7 bucks last Friday!
Half-price book stores are your friends, as are Borders bargain tables. A 60 dollar book for six bucks.
Well, a baked potato can be a very filling meal. You can buy a whole bag for cheap, and then fix them up with butter & sour cream, or salsa, etc. Sweet potatoes are just about as cheap, and even more nutritious and tasty.
And keep a change jar. Just when you’re desperate, you can empty it out and you’ll have a few unexpected and much-needed bucks.
One word: colloquia.
Almost every department on campus has a weekly colloquium, and the almost all of them offer free food. There’s a spectrum of generosity, from the magnanimous (Mechanics: bagels & cream cheese! Mmmm!) to the stingy (Physics: free coffee, but 25¢ per stinkin’ donut).
All you have to do is sit quietly for an hour, and even if you don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, it’s always fun when a fight breaks out during the Q&A session.
I ate nothing but store brand macaroni n cheese for a week!
I shot a man in Reno just to steal his bus pass.
Never sold plasma but have done: Psychology experiments for cash! (actually it was kind of fun). Most universities always have some of these going. Generally speaking the more unpleasant the task, the more they pay. I got $10/hr for sitting in a chair with electrodes while watching movies and playing response times games.
See? Here’s your problem. You should only ‘eat out’ for money
jarbaby
Not me, but a former roommate. One day I found a few sheets of folded newspaper under the bathroom sink. I asked her what they were for, and she said she wrapped her “sanitary items” in them. “Because toilet paper is so expensive.” 
She would also wash out sandwich baggies and reuse them. The cheap kind that fold over, not Zip-Loc bags! Mr. S and I have a little joke about what she would do with used condoms, if she ever had to deal with one, that is. Picture a little clothesline over the bathroom sink . . .
OMG Jarbaby. You never fail to make me laugh.
Remember that you can use half or less of the recomended amount on the package of most products you buy.
Buy two ply TP and split it.
Whip 1/3 cup of water into a stick of cheap margarine and it grows.
Never buy paper towels or napkins, use items made of material instead so you can rewash them.
If you think you need something try to make it yourself before you buy it.
Dumpster diving is a great way to get stuff free. You can resell the stuff you find if you don’t have a use for it.
Don’t flush when you pee.
Save the scraps of soap you end up with, melt them in the microwave, let harden again and you have another bar of soap.
The same goes for solid deodorant.
Reuse water as many times as you can.
When you make coffee reuse the grounds and add just a bit more fresh on top when you brew the next pot.
Look at anything that comes your way and think of ways it could be used to save money.
Save things you will need them sometime.
Line dry clothing whenever possible and never buy dryer sheets or softener.
Guess I better stop now because I could really go on and on. I love to be cheap. All these things do add up.
Actually, separating two ply toilet paper will often result in just using more.
Not flushing can lead to a clogged toilet-I found that out the hard way during a drought…
Library sales. See if you can find back issues of the Tightwad Gazette. It was a great little magazine with lots of great money saving ideas. Best of all, none of them were dangerous or unsanitary.
I grow my own herbs. It’s lots cheaper than buying from the store. Learn to cook, ingredients are cheap.
I guess the weirdest thing I do is I freeze things. Very nearly every food item in a sealed package can be frozen. You can freeze potatoe chips (crisps for our UK dopers) when they are on a really good sale and they keep forever.
Save money?
Hell, in college, I didn’t have any money to save!
To eat, I’d buy a big bag of dried beans and a big bag of rice and get a brick of USDA surplus cheese (“gub’ment cheese”) from the church food handout down the street. Total cost, about 5 bucks. That could feed me for a month, if I had to eat nothing else. (And I still enjoy beans and rice.)
And yes, I also did the baked potato thing (hint: ranch dressing), and the mac and cheese thing (with tuna if I could afford it). I eventually learned that potatoes tasted better if I sliced them real thin and fried them up like hash browns with a little margarine and black pepper.
I dislike ramen, personally, although I had a roommate who would drain the noodles before adding the seasoning, and then mix in three eggs and cook the mess scrambled. That did make them more palatable.
I rented a three bedroom apartment and then sublet the other two bedrooms to recover all but a small part of the total rent. (This sometimes backfired though, because Sprint was the long distance provider, and back then, they would take up to six stinking months to bill a phone call. I got stuck with some doozies. There was also one semester where I couldn’t rent either room. I’m still amazed I didn’t get kicked out.
I used an old copy of Yellow Pages for toilet paper. (Works ok if you dampen it in the sink first.) Sometimes I’d get access to the janitor’s closet at work and steal a few rolls, but it wasn’t much better.
I bought a bike I knew had been stolen, but it was a Nishiki racing bike, worth almost $1000. I paid $25 and painted it red. Less than the cost of a monthly bus pass, which I then no longer needed.
(Of course, then a year later I got a $100 ticket for riding the bike after dark without a headlamp.)
My TV, stereo, alarm clock, waterbed, lamps, kitchen appliances, curtains, posters, paintings, and various other cool shit were all acquired by dumpster diving. It’s amazing what you can find in a college town at the end of a semester, especially spring semester. (And most of it went back to the dumpster when I graduated.)
Please, only if you live alone. My dad does this, and it’s especially charming when he adds a cigarette butt for garnish. I don’t really find the thought of an open bowl of urine in one’s home particularly appealing.
Weekly or monthly bus pass?