| Cooking helps a lot, as does strategic shopping. Buying a $3 wine at Trader Joe's downtown vs. a $17 one at International Liquors in Morningside, for example. The farmer's market outside Columbia on Thursdays and Sundays is a nice resource. Once West Side Market reopens, it will be a boon to cheap(er) grocery shopping in the neighborhood.
As a humanities student, I don't have to deal with textbooks, and most readings are on reserve. Borrowing or buying used books helps a lot too. I bought most of the Core books plus a few mainstays like Said and Foucault but I don't think I'll really be that nostalgic for an anthropology monograph of southeastern Malaysia very far down the road.
It is true that I've become a bit more of a flagrant spender the longer I've spent here...recalcitrance in this department doesn't help your social life (what was more or less a largely bar-oriented scene the first two years of college for me correlates to a lot more nightlife money being necessary than at a school like Dartmouth). |