How to Survive on a Student Budget

Three girls are sitting on some steps in the middle of the University Union. One takes a brown bag bulging with goodies out of her backpack. The next girl pulls out her plastic bagful of lunch.

Survival Lessons

LESSON 1:
Meeting People

LESSON 2:
Free Samples

LESSON 3:
Farmers Market

LESSON 4:
Fruit Trees & Vegetable Gardens

LESSON 5:
Drink Water, Carbo-Load on Beer

LESSON 6:
Fraternity & Sorority BBQ's

LESSON 7:
Just Ask

LAST LESSON:
Guilt & Conscience

The third girl sitting a few feet away on the cold cement step leans over to ignore the hunger pain shooting through her stomach. She didn't have any money for lunch since her phone bill for the month was a little bigger then expected. Now, she has to deal with the consequence until payday. It's not that the two girls with a lunch have any more money then the other. In fact, if their incomes were all compared, they would come to about even. The thing that separates the three is that two of them know how to live on a "student budget."

Living efficiently on a student budget starts with knowing the town. I remember my freshman year when the number of times I went into the actual town part of San Luis Obispo, where I go to school, was only about once a month. By the end of the year this number increased as I got more and more familiar with my surroundings, but for a while, living in the dorms kept me pretty isolated.

I found that getting over the fear of living in a new place is the first and most important step in living efficiently on a student budget. After this fear is mastered, here are eight tips on how to eat cheaply.

Next LESSON 1: Meeting People