Throughout college, I’ve lived a pretty budget-friendly lifestyle as most college students do. For me, it was all about the fun experiences, so I made any money moves I could to ensure I could afford those experiences.
Even though I’ll be graduating to real adulthood with a real job, and thus much more disposable income, I intend to keep a few of my college money habits in order to save some coin where it won’t be missed and put it towards savings or investments!
1. Roommates
Having a roommate is one of the biggest things that can help you save money as a young adult. Besides the obvious of being able to split rent, being able to split utilities and internet is a huge money saver, as well.
It may be tempting to ditch the roommate after college but riding it out for a few more years will be well worth it and will hardly feel like a sacrifice since you’ll be used to it anyway.
2. Cooking
This is another huge money saving area that many young adults miss out on due to inexperience or misunderstanding. Cooking has saved me a ton of money in the year that I’ve been living in an apartment. My roommate and I split the grocery bill down the middle, made our lunches, and cooked dinners around five nights a week. Our weekly grocery bill came out to around $100 each week or $50 per person. Throw in the two nights of eating out at $20 per night and we were looking at a total food expense of $90 per week!
My top tips for getting started with cooking your own food is to go to the grocery store with your dinners already in mind and only buy the ingredients you need for those recipes. Stay away from processed foods like cookies, granola bars, and frozen meals. These are way too expensive and lead you to eat things you shouldn’t be eating anyway. Know what your “staples” are that you enjoy eating for breakfast and lunch. For example, I know I always need smoothie ingredients like fresh fruit and yogurt for breakfast. I also enjoy premade salad packs for lunch. You don’t need to buy much for lunch since you can always use leftovers from dinner. Lastly, stick to simple recipes that don’t require many superfluous ingredients. If you google “How to make stir fry” I can promise you will come up with a recipe that has 20 ingredients, but you will also come up with one that has 7. Make the one that has 7—it will be just as good.
My roommate and I got this process down to a science so much so that our grocery bill never fluctuated more than $20 each week!
I will definitely plan on writing a more comprehensive guide to cheap cooking and grocery shopping, since, as you can see, I have a lot to say on the topic!
3. Minimal Belongings
Moving every year has really made me reconsider what it is that I actually need. When you have to pack up your things frequently, you quickly get tired of stuffing 20 hair products, a foam roller, and 3 purses into your suitcase. Although I’ll be the first to say I’m not a minimalist by any means, I do think I’ve pared down my belongings to a manageable amount that I don’t plan on increasing significantly anytime soon.
Since moving to a new apartment generally means buying a lot more stuff, I want to be intentional that everything I buy is an absolute necessity and not something that will just take up space.
4. Pregaming
Pregaming or drinking before actually making it to the final destination for the night is one thing that I don’t intend to stop after graduation. Pregaming is not only fun because you’re hanging out with only your closest friends, but it’s actually a smart money move as well.
For example, my favorite drink is definitely a margarita which can range anywhere from $8-12 in the city. If I make one myself, the most expensive ingredient is the tequila at around $20 per 25 oz. This will yield around 16 margs. Just the tequila alone will only cost $1.25/drink. Increase that by about 50% for the rest of the ingredients and you get about $2/margarita. That’s not bad at all!
Of course, this doesn’t mean I’ll only drink at home. I always like to get one nice drink when I go out. However, without pregaming I’d probably find myself with two or three.
5. Budget Flights and Carry-on Only
One of the biggest ways that I’ve been able to take multiple trips over the past four years when I’ve been making very little income is being diligent about finding great flight deals. I generally am not afraid to fly budget airlines like Spirit and Frontier.
Another way I make these flights work for me is by only travelling with a carry-on and not picking a seat ahead of time. This prevents me from having to pay extra fees.
All This Means Living Below My Means
In the personal finance world, this adherence to a simpler lifestyle than you can afford is generally called “living below your means”. This is preached all over the internet, but I want to give you a micro example about how living below my means helped put me in a really great financial position despite the pandemic and the postponement of my full-time job start date.
Last summer, I had the privilege to do an internship at a company that paid a considerable amount. Although I was making a lot of money and could have been shelling it out at high-end restaurants and on new clothes, I spent my weekends doing mostly free activities like walking through the park and checking out the historical landmarks of Boston. Doing this allowed me to maintain a roughly 40% savings rate. My high savings rate last summer has given me multiple financial benefits over the past year.
First, I was able to go on an amazing spring break trip to Cancun without really being worried about how I was going to pay for it. Second, without the pandemic, I would have been able to spend a full month in Europe on mainly that money alone. However, now I will be using that money as an instant emergency fund when I move to start my new job in November.
This experience has shown me how a smart decision can pay dividends in the future. I am so happy that I decided to save my money because it has served me so much better than it would have had I squandered it back in the summer.
Do you have any money habits that you’d like to keep from college? Leave them in the comments below!
We got so good at cooking, Julia! I think one thing that saved me money too was buying quality winter clothes that kept with the weather for all four years of college, like my North Face parka and snow boots. The boots and jacket are not made of actual furs and feathers so they are very lightweight and easy to pack, and I even took them to South America for study abroad. So although a winter coat isn’t necessarily an investment that increases its value, spending money on a few good articles of quality clothing is a good way to save money in the long run I’ve found out. Another way to save money is setting up a rewards account at whichever grocery store you mostly shop at, that saved us some money sometimes too with discounts on groceries and gas.
Yes! All great things! Quality winter wear really is a game changer since it doesn’t become a recurring expense. We really were pretty thrifty!