Most college students have problems making ends meet and are looking for ideas to lower their bills while maintaining their standard of living. Here are five ideas that you can try to help you survive college:

1) Save on food

Quite a few students survive on pizza. An alternative would be to buy groceries near the end of the day at reduced prices and cook for your housemates. With economies of scale working in your favor, the cost per student is reduced.

2) Cut your transport expenses

Why on earth would you need a car to travel around campus when you can zip around in a motorized scooter? Motorized scooters are getting increasingly popular among college students and are a really cool way to travel. One of the more popular models is the Razor E300 electric scooter. You don’t even have to pay for gas. If you are not ready to convert to electricity just yet, you might want to take a look at the wide variety of gas powered scooters instead.

3) Reduce your academic related expenses

Let’s face it, once you’re done with a course, you’ll never touch that textbook again. Why not sell them to incoming students and get some cash back? You don’t need new textbooks too, unless a new edition has just been released. Why not consider purchasing 2nd hand textbooks. Your college bulletin board may be a good place to start buying and selling. If there are no opportunities there, an online marketplace such as ebay might help.

4) Cut your phone expenses

If your room comes with an internet connection, why not invest in a good headset and make use of skype instead? In the long run, the savings will be enormous, especially if you have friends and family overseas.

5) Always check if student discounts are available

You may not be aware of the amount of money you can save if you make use of the student discounts available for a wide variety of goods and services. You can travel, dine in restaurants, and buy software, etc at greatly reduced prices if you know where the bargains are.

Hopefully these five tips are of use to you to have a great time at college without needing to scrimp and save. Have fun!

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