My family and I have to live on an extremely tight budget. With my husband and I both going to school part-time and we now have a pre-schooler on our hands, money needs to stretch in our house more than it would in a few other homes. We have to be constantly thinking about bills, tuition, supplies, books, car maintenance, Pre-school fees, baby sitting, grocery bill and household needs. It is enough to send most people to a padded room, but not this tough tightwad! I am a self proclaimed stingy student. I have found a few ways to wade through all the money issues we have and come out semi-unharmed on the other side.
I even started teaching a few power couponing classes and started a blog to share some of the things that worked with others. (www.the-stingy-student.blogspot.com)
Some tips I love to share with other college students is:
1. Shop around for your books. Our campus bookstore is great! and the staff is always wonderful and helpful when I go in there but, I shop around because I need to. Don't be afraid to use a used book they don't bite! Check a few website to see who will give you the best deal, sometimes you can get free shipping for finding most of your books from the same seller. Renting books works too. How many books are you really going to keep from your GEC courses. Check out e-readers too. One quarter it was cheaper for us to get a nook and get our books then it was to buy all used!
2. You DO NOT have to eat Ramen and Spam to get your grocery bill lower. Couponing and shopping the sales helps out tons. Stores have their sales in cycles and it always helps to stock up when thing are their cheapest.
3. Generics are ok, it is not poor quality. Nine times out of ten it is the same food just packaged differently.
Bobbi--
ReplyDeleteI was just leafing through my neighborhood paper and stumbled across a story featuring a pair of bloggers who share your interest. For everyone interested: http://4our2cents.blogspot.com/.