Casey Truong
Professor Amanda Smith
English 1A
November 13, 2014

“How to Survive on a College Budget”

Ever hear the term, “I’m on a college budget?” It goes without saying that there is a stereotype that college students do not have much money to spare after working, whether it is to pay for tuition, textbooks, food, or perhaps even all of the above. There is no doubt that the typical college student is financially hanging on the rim or flat out broke. Even with financial aid and scholarships, college will always be an expensive part of a developing adult’s life. However, there are always ways to save money as a student to avoid overspending and going broke.

The best was to save money for anyone is to make sure where your money is going and keeping track of how much is being spent monthly, weekly, or even daily. By creating a budget, not only will you develop better spending habits, you learn the difference between what you want and what you need. I personally happened to be an impulse shopper when I first received my debit card, especially after seeing a hard to pass deal. Before I learned various tactics on how to budget my money, I would receive dozens of promotion emails from places I don’t shop at often. I noticed that I would catch myself spending hours and hours browsing through websites that would have never sparked my interest without the emails, and sometimes, I would find myself making large purchases because of free shipping over fifty dollars or fifteen dollars off sixty dollar purchases. Over a period of time, I realized that I was only buying things because it was cheap, not because I actually wanted it. I found that unsubscribing from shops I held little no interest in helped control my unnecessary urges to shop online. What I do now to prevent impulsive purchases is wait it out for a couple of days to see if I still want to