4 Ways Students Can Save Thousands a Year
Share This
Photo:uniinnsbruck
Whether you are heading to school for the first time or going back for another year, you’ll quickly have to face a sad paradox. College is expensive and students are perpetually broke. Forget tuition and room and board, the cost of textbooks, software, transportation, and just about everything else is enough to put any aspiring student into debt. It’s almost like there is a target on your back (or your wallet). Rather than sit back and let the debt pile up, try these four simple cost savings strategies to save thousands annually.
Photo:psychobabble
1. Stop Buying, and Start Renting your Textbooks.
Remember those $150 textbooks that you skim through once out of guilt or fear? Every time I went through the checkout line I held deep-seeded resentment about paying outrageous sums for textbooks that I would barely use and then end up selling back to the bookstore at the end of the semester at a fraction of the price I paid for them. You would think that having three different bookstores on campus would result in competitive pricing, only to find that they were all charging the same obscene price right down to the penny.
Studies show that the average student spends over $900 per year on textbooks. But you may not have to anymore. There are now a number of textbook rental sites that claim to offer up to 70% or more off of retail price to rent textbooks for a semester. For starters, you may want to check out Bookrenter, Chegg, and Campus Book Rentals. Additionally, you may be able to find used versions of your books on Amazon, Abebooks, or Ebay. A little competition in the marketplace is a beautiful thing.
Average Savings: At 50% off – $450 per year
2. Ditch the Office!
At some point, we’ve all had to write a paper, present to a class, or use a spreadsheet for a math project. Yes, we’ve all needed to use an office software suite and if you go the Microsoft route when purchasing software, you’ll end up paying approximately $120 for Office 2007.
That’s one option. Fortunately, there are a few other options these days:
Open Office: Powered by Sun Microsystems, Open Office is an open source office software suite that is nearly identical to Microsoft Office. The best part is that the full suite is available for a free download at Openoffice.org. You are even able to share your files in Microsoft office program formats if you need to share them with others.
GoogleDocs: GoogleDocs is a suite of “cloud-based” word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Although the features aren’t quite up to par with MS Office or Open Office, the programs let you collaborate with others and can import and export into other formats. This makes it a great option when working on projects with other students in real (or delayed) time.
Best of all, they’re free.
Together, these two free options should be more than sufficient in meeting all of your document needs.
Average Savings: $120 per Office version
Photo:Ihoon
3. Rolling Down the Street – In a Bus.
Before the macho types lynch me for suggesting that they give up an opportunity to impress their sorority dream woman, here is a difficult to hear truism: the right date will not only care less that you take the bus versus riding around campus in an SUV, but they may actually respect and like you more for it.
Even if you’re able to find a modest used vehicle at $200/month, you will probably need to add at least another $100 or more per month for insurance and fuel. Additionally, you will be able to avoid all of those extremely frustrating parking tickets (how do they always find you??). In contrast, a search for my alma mater’s bus system yielded a semester-long bus pass for a mere $50.
Average Savings: $2,600 (for a $200/month vehicle with $100/month in insurance and fuel expenses)
Photo:Editor B
4. Open a Local Bank or Credit Union Checking Account.
Even as we trend more towards a plastic society, ATM fees for college students can add up quickly. If you’re attending a school out-of-state or even just out-of-region, your bank or credit union may not have authorized ATM’s. Starting up a free checking account for these petty cash transactions can be a huge money saver.
In 2008, the average cost of using another bank’s ATM was $3.43 per transaction, up 13% from 2007. Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for students to make at least one or two ATM withdrawals per week. Avoid this unnecessary expense!
Average Savings: $110 annually (1 withdrawal per week)
What tips do you have for savings money while attending school?
For more of GE Miller’s writing, visit personal finance blog 20somethingfinance.com.
Related Articles
Organize your financial life.
Use Mint.com to see where your money goes, get bill reminders and alerts, track your investment performance, and find extra savings. It’s FREE!
Find Out MoreHow Mint Can Help
Save More Money
Mint.com’s Ways to Save finds the typical user hundreds of dollars in savings in the first few minutes. Find out more »
Popular Articles
16 Comments so far
leave a commentOn #3, you forgot the cost of a parking permit. Back when I was at UT Austin, a one-year permit for those living in dorms costs over $ 750 for the academic year. By not having a car on campus, you could be saving even more. Also, don’t forget about the option of cycling to school, although I recommend reading up on the rules of the road before doing so.
First two suggestions are wrong.
1. Generally Professors tell the name of text book in the first class and do not email that information few days ahead of the class. They expect you to read from the book or do some problem, the very next day. At that time you generally cannot afford to wait for the book to be shipped to you. The semester runs so fast that you cannot afford to miss that. Yeah, Professors are part of this scam.
2. Schools give you very cheap MS Office system. Also, it doesn’t matter how great OO is, when you have to send your document to somebody who is not using OO, the formatting can get screwed.
As per fourth suggestion, I would say an internet bank is better. They give at least some interest on checking and savings account. That might inspire students to save some money as well.
1) Can’t speak for all universities, but every class I’ve taken at 3 different schools had the isbn of the book posted months before on the school’s registration system. Every professor I’ve had also responded to emails asking if old editions of the book are acceptable.
2) Open Office creates, reads, and saves MS Word documents fine.
awesome and creative list of ways to save. as a recent graduate, i totally agree, and wish i would have done more of this when i was in school! to help everybody out, you can create and share your own list of ideas and reviews on http://lunch.com. thanks mint, for inspiring the thought. =)
Students can get free, top quality textbooks from Flat World Knowledge (http://www.flatworldknowledge.com).
This might work for some, but I doubt anyone can take advantage of all four. Taking the bus is out of question for me, as I don’t live super close to campus and I’m not near a bus line. The opportunity cost of taking the bus wouldn’t be worth it.
Second, I think most students already have office, so that wouldn’t help.
And finally, renting books is not always an option. You can try to buy them on amazon or some other site, but usually the savings aren’t that much.
You can save huge on books if you get international versions. Campus bookstore wanted $130 for a new book. I paid $35, including shipping, by ordering a new, international version. Just started doing this a year and a half ago and this is the 5th time I’ve saved $70-100 on a brand new textbook.
At least when I was in college, my nice land-grant Big Ten school had a complete Microsoft license for everyone in the University (students, staff, etc.) to receive free Windows and Office.
This is a great blog thank you! I just want to add two things
1. students should always look for international editions of textbooks, they are always cheaper, and 2. to finf the best cheap textbooks I recommend using a price comparison site like We Compare Books.
Thanks. For me, I use http://www.DealOz.com to buy and sell textbooks. I’ve saved lots of money with their great prices and store coupons. Also you can use
http://www.dealoz.com to sell your books
too!
Thanks for the excellent advice, but I wanted to add a little to your first point about renting books. Renting books has not always been the cheapest alternative that I have found to acquire my books. Rented books can’t be sold, so what you pay is the actual price of the book. On the other hand, when you buy books you can sell them and the difference between the purchase price and selling price would be your actual book price.
Though I do agree that buying books from the Univ bookstore then selling it back at fractions of the cost is a ripoff; I have to say that buying my books from sites like amazon or half.com then selling them back at the end of the semester for 10 – 15 dollars less works very well. When you factor in shipping and handling, you end up with a book that only cost around $20.00.
There are some cons to this strategy, including:
1. It might take some time to sell your books
2. If new editions come out, then you are stuck selling the older edition for less money.
Another alternative that sometimes works is trying to find my books at the local library or University library. This doesn’t always work, but once in a while I am surprised to find out that I can find a book at the library and save my self around $120.00.
Good article! One more tip: look out for internet deals instead of getting on the bus. I bought my car online for much less than in the dealership. Research your local dealerships, and get some free cash for down payment. I got $1000 from this site. http://www.mediancs.com/rd_p?p=192462&t=9534&a=25081-scash&gift=25081
http://BookLookr.com is a great place to save money on textbooks too, compares across several shopping sites to get the lowest price on the books you need
I don’t buy food for my friends. Most students used to buy food for their friends, they should stop doing that.
Great tips! I love creative money saving ideas especially for young people!
I have found lots of money saving advice at http://financilasecrets101.com, http://ingdirect.com, and of course http://mint.com.
Let’s keep up the good work- saving money is easier than people think.
For my first two years of undergraduate, I purchased one book and still managed to do very well in school. What it took was a lot of proactivity on my part. 1) Email the professors several weeks before the start of the semester: by that point, they know what the required texts are. 2) Look for the books at the library first. 3) Scour Amazon and Half.com. You can often find earlier editions sold cheaply (although you may want to ask the professor if an earlier edition is okay). 4) Find a book buddy: Someone who is either willing to share a book with you or purchase one book for a class while you purchase the other. I eventually purchase many books during my academic career, but those books are still on my shelf and still in use.