Students = Cheapness

[Ndeliciousbass3]

haha i feel your problem

[Rockbandfailure]

Originally Posted by Swirl

its all about the prelash. suddenly a £8 bottle (70cl) of vodka doesn't sound so bad when you realise that at t' pub its like £2 for a double (0.5cl). save £20!
also if you're still choosing which uni and you want to limit costs go up north, stuff is well cheap here in Durham! £1.60 for a guinness, some pints are like £1.10. Bath was like £3 for a pint or something.

Finding deals on crates is good too, Sainsburys are currently doing 30 cans for £15 ;] (or were a couple of days ago anyway) That should get me a few weeks of cheap pre-drinking sessions.

[Alec1887]

Originally Posted by mr jones

Try and make a friend with a car... saves on Taxi's to the shops...

Buy online, no travel costs, and get a few mates together and that £4 delivery charge becomes pretty insignificant. You can also often get stuff from supermarkets that are too far away to get to easily.

Originally Posted by gembird

Supermarkets often have deals on their own-brand cheese. Buy lots.

Oh hell yes. Sainsbury's own brand mature cheddar, 1kg blocks for about £5. lasted my house of 6 about a week XD

Originally Posted by mat-tracteur561

Ok guy's what do I do for food if the only thing were allowed is a kettle?

hold down the switch and you can boil eggs, boil in the bag rice (be careful with that one as you need to keep the bag off the hot bit at the bottom).

[Smokey]

If there's a supermarket nearby then pop in late at night and raid the discount food. I got four mince pies for 19p last week and a large rump steak for £1.49 at the weekend. Instant noodles and jacket potatoes are also cheap meals. You can also give the cheaper supermarkets a try. Aldi in particular has some quite good stuff for a reasonable price.

Also, since you're waiting for the loan to clear you could make use of your interest free overdraft which comes with a student bank account. Just remember to pay it off since it isn't just free money.

[mr jones]

As I'm thrd year Im well through the overdraft... Still havent paid off the non interst one from before I started uni
but thanks to everyone for the tips x

[Felix Barry]

I'm heading in to my fifth year of being in college and there are quite a few things I've learned in that time:

1) Generic brands are great, they cost anything up to 70% less than the name brand product and are often as good the main brand. That being said, don't trust store brand alcohol, you're asking for trouble.

2) Keep an eye out for special offers. However don't just go and buy something that's on special offer. Properly shop around, sometimes what's on offer is still more expensive than what isn't on offer. So compare prices constantly!

3) Avoid public transport (or even driving your own car) unless it's absolutely necessary. That is, if you can easily get to where you need to go within 30 minutes walking, then walk!

4) One of the major expenses of the average student is post-pub food. Don't bother with take-aways or going to Mickey D's. Not only is fast-food a waste of money, it's also amazingly bad for you when it comes to hangovers. Fast food will give you the worst hangover tummy out there! Instead, either make food when you get home, or cook extra at dinner time and keep it in the fridge. That way you don't wind up paying €3 for a bag of chips.

5) DON'T GET A CREDIT CARD! No matter how broke you are, credit cards will plunge you further into debt than any student loan out there. Why? The money you spend using the credit card technically doesn't exist. So when that bill comes in, you're going to have to come up with the money and the interest too. Oh and you better hurry because that interest rate applies for the entire length of time it takes you to pay off the bill. STAY AWAY FROM THEM! They're nothing but trouble.

6) Team up with a friend when grocery shopping. It's cheaper to buy and cook food for 2 or more people than it is to buy and cook food for one. You'll find that less food gets wasted too.

7) If you smoke, consider rolling your own or better again would be quitting altogether. A packet of 25g of tobacco usually lasts me about a month, but then again, I don't smoke much. The average smoker can get about 70 cigarettes from just one 25g pack, which cost the same as a packet of 20 pre-rolled cigarettes.

8) Every student knows about the drink beforehand trick, but not everyone knows about the "Captain Standback Strategy!". You know when everyone goes up to the bar to order their drinks? Well you stand at the back and eventually one of your mates will look back and ask you what you want to drink. They'll usually get it for you and forget to look for the money off you. Don't do this too often because people will catch on after a while and hate you for it.

9) Buy a scanner. Why? When you go to the library, you can scan books and other materials and not have the source forever! Just remember to label everything carefully. You'll find that the price of books suddenly falls to nothing after just spending €100 on a scanner. It'll last your full time in college and everything!

10) Wash your clothes in your parent's house. You'll find that they'll have all the washing powder and fabric softener you need along with a tumble-dryer! This means, free laundry service! This option isn't available to everyone due to travel costs and all that jazz, so it's not a particularly good one.

And finally:

11) Start drinking red wine! It's the cheapest way to get absolutely scuttered and look good in the process! With 3 glasses of wine, the average drinker is drunk, 2 more and they're pissed! Compared to spending shit loads of money on several pints of beer, several shots etc. Not to mention the fact that when drinking wine, you won't be spending the majority of the night in transit between where you're sitting and the toilet.

Also on the note of becoming a wine drinker. Start partaking in various college events. Especially the one's run by the music department. You'll find that there are a lot of events with free wine afterwards! So go the event, get pissed afterwards on the free wine and head to the pub afterwards to continue the frivolity!

[Luna_1985]

Originally Posted by Felix Barry

Also on the note of becoming a wine drinker. Start partaking in various college events. Especially the one's run by the music department. You'll find that there are a lot of events with free wine afterwards! So go the event, get pissed afterwards on the free wine and head to the pub afterwards to continue the frivolity!

I don't know if this is true for all universities, but if yours has an art department, be on the lookout for gallery openings! They usually provide food and nibbles for the night just for you to attend. Plus looking at student art can't be that bad

[Felix Barry]

Originally Posted by Luna_1985

I don't know if this is true for all universities, but if yours has an art department, be on the lookout for gallery openings! They usually provide food and nibbles for the night just for you to attend. Plus looking at student art can't be that bad

I'm part of the music department, there's always lunchtime concerts with wine, evening concerts with wine. Someone always invites you to a gallery opening, which also has wine. In fact, an awful lot of my transactions with musical and arty folk involve alcohol of some description.

That's it, best advise, if you never want to pay for drink ever again become an artist of some description and spend your time "Supporting the arts!" :P

[Luna_1985]

Yeah that only works over there. Here there are WAY too many legal boundaries to give out wine or any alcohol at an event.
For us it's just food and fruit punch drinks.

[Mittwoch]

I second the walking everywhere - when the weather is agreeable and you have enough time, force yourself to walk if you have to. Then when it's horrible outside or you're in a rush, you can get the bus and you spend less money than if you did it all the time. Plus it's pretty good exercise if you're gonna walk a lot. You'll also be surprised at how quick and easy it is to walk to places, for instance when I went to gigs in camden I always used to get the tube from king's cross. I walked the distance last week - it took me ten minutes, which is actually quicker than the tube!

Either buy all your fruit and veg from markets (much, much cheaper than supermarkets (apart from if something's on clearance!) and you sometimes get free stuff too) or get bags of frozen onions/peppers/whatever. fresh stuff is nicer but frozen is easier and keeps longer. Stock up on tins of tesco value chopped tomatoes and bags of pasta and you can have a nice pasta sauce for about 30p a portion

I'm buying nearly all my clothes from charity shops right now as well, British Heart Foundation always has loads of stuff for about £3. You'd be amazed what people give away.

[.max]

Here's a big one to try next time you go shopping:

Don't look at the prices.

Instead, look at the price PER UNIT (usually in small print underneath the actual price).

I reckon I've saved many pounds this year alone just by looking at the ppu's of products rather than the actual price.

Turns out the cheapest loaf of bread you can buy at Tesco is actually Tesco Finest Wholegrain, which took me by surprise. Cheaper than Hovis, Warburtons, etc.

[Smartie]

I walk 20 mins to work and 20 mins back after parking the car to avoid carpark charges in the city centre now i'm temping. Even in the pissing rain.
Anyone who's too damn lazy and wastes money they can ill afford on taxis is clearly an idiot.

Also if you're skint then just stop drinking. You're not gonna die, student or not.

[tom93]

Originally Posted by Zhyl

I knew it!

The bargain line applies to other areas as well, especially games. Don't buy games that are fresh on the market unless they are games you know you will enjoy. Or unless they are Indie (which tend to be cheap anyway). Or are made by Ninja Theory.

seconding this stuff. i bought brutal legend as soon as it came out. mistake.
there is very little point in buying a game full price these days, what with steam deals and the like.
http://twitter.com/ukgamedeals is a good twitter to follow if you're into games and like them cheap. (it is a bad twitter to follow if you're like me and have no money and no willpower either (i follow it anyway))

[Cjw]

Poundlands and other discount stores should be your heaven. Loads of studenty type food for £1 or even less when buying certain things in bulk.