Living on the Cheap — Made Easy and Effecive

By Mike Sizemore



College is awesome, and when you’re old and gray it’ll be one of your fondest memories. But right now it can be kinda rough. Nevermind the student loans you’ll still be paying when your kids are picking their own majors; it’s the day-to-day stuff that keeps adding up. Below are some tips for cutting basic costs and keeping up.





FOOD


A key benefit of living in a dorm is always the meal plan (unfortunately, the food is always the worst part of the meal plan). If you prefer winging it yourself off-campus, keeping yourself fed becomes top priority, a never-ending struggle to reduce ramen to less than 50 percent of your diet.


Every art major knows: Pay attention to art show openings. The art’s cool and you can mingle with lots of interesting people of questionable judgment. Swell, but most importantly there’s food — and they want you to eat it! Grab a handful of cheese cubes, tilt your head and squint at a painting and dinner’s taken care of.


In a more long-term manner, consider putting together a buyer’s club with a couple of friends or roommates. Basically, figure out what you all eat most often and either buy it in bulk from a box store or negotiate a fair price at a farmers’ market or from an independent grocer. Think simple, though; rice, pasta, raw veggies and fruit, milk and so on. Processed food is more expensive per unit and can be monotonous in bulk.


If work or class keeps you away from home all day, think ahead and take lunch with you. You’ve already paid for it and it’ll be much, much cheaper than anything else you could pick up on the run anyway. That goes doubly for coffee — you’ll pay mere pennies per ounce if you make it at home.





ENTERTAINMENT


Many, many services exist to help you gobble up movies, TV and music for practically no cost. And if file sharing doesn’t make you feel like a dirty thief, even better!


DVD rental Web sites now allow users to log in and stream movies online. Netflix (www.netflix.com), for example, currently offers over 10,000 titles that can be viewed on any computer with a high-speed connection. So for the cost of their second-cheapest plan (currently $8.99 monthly, or the cost of a single movie theater ticket, which includes one-at-a-time DVD rentals) you have a mobile library of movies and TV at your disposal. Split the account and share the cost with a friend to save even more bucks.


The opportunities for downloading music — old stuff, new stuff and stuff that’s not even supposed to exist yet — are boundless. Getting it all for free is entirely possible, too. Acquaint yourself with these terms: torrent, p2p, blogosphere, bootleg and leak. Knowing where and how to work the basics of file sharing will ensure your music budget can be devoted solely to Bonnaroo or at least a cover charge downtown.


Oh, and honestly, if you can make yourself sit still, the library’s the best entertainment resource for tight budgets. A little book goes a long way. And at the very least, most libraries lend movies and music these days too.





STUFF


From clothes to furniture to kitchenware, rarely a day goes by when we don’t need to procure or replace something. Fortunately for us, we live in a society where people are always getting rid of their old stuff to replace the slightly newer things they just bought.


It should go without saying that Goodwill and the Salvation Army are the go-to places for people looking for affordable wares (and grandma’s old summer wear). But a greater variety of goods —food, clothing and more — can be found in your local Freecycle group (www.freecycle.org). The Freecycle Network is a loose association of individuals giving away for free whatever they no longer need. You’re often expected to give away some stuff yourself, but once you get in the habit you can most often locate just about anything.


Essentially, it’s this: If you don’t have a lot of money, it doesn’t mean you have to go broke maintaining the lifestyle you want. It means figuring out your priorities, paying attention to your spending habits and taking advantage of the resources at your disposal. Mind the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves.


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Contact Mike at msizemore@graffitiwv.com