Best ways to save money?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Hi everyone. My son just finished his first year at school and, as I’m sure you all know, it wasnt cheap. We’ve been looking for ways to cut back on our costs. One of the biggest things my son has done is taking megabus to and from school rather than flying. It saves us a couple hundred dollars every time. Even better, we found a website that gives us 5% cash back on all of his megabus trips. [StudentRate</a> - Deal / Megabus Student Discounts](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/studentrate/gatech/get-gatech-student-deals/Megabus-Student-Discounts--/0]StudentRate”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/studentrate/gatech/get-gatech-student-deals/Megabus-Student-Discounts--/0)
That site has some other really great deals too.</p>

<p>Do you guys have any other deals like this that you use to save a lot of money?</p>

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<p>Southwest DING! for lower airfares. Hotwire and priceline. Half.com, ebay, amazon marketplace for used books. TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less, Home Goods and Target 75% off season sale for linens, towels, lamps, rugs, pillows, clothes, shoes, boots and all dorm stuff.</p>

<p>Lands End on the Counter and LL Bean Daily Markdown. Amazon Prime for Students, free prime for a year with an edu.com email, can share with 5 others. Mail 20x20x20 USPS for long distances, send standard takes 7 days+ so plan ahead.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>Thanks for the tips! We do use southwest when flying is the only option. I wasn’t really familiar with Amazon Prime before, I’m definitely gonna need to check it out.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>It may be better to take the minimum meal plan and provide the student with the difference in cash. Students on full meal plans often miss prepaid meals because they conflict with classes, ECs, jobs, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>If cell phone service on campus is good, there may be no need for a landline as well (if roommates agree).</p></li>
<li><p>Include costs in the decision about whether to pledge a fraternity or sorority.</p></li>
<li><p>For the right person (and it requires a certain personality type, as well as a major time commitment), being a Resident Advisor in a dorm can offer substantial financial savings as well as a very educational experience.</p></li>
<li><p>For some students, finishing college in six or seven semesters instead of eight offers the greatest savings of all, but this choice is not for everyone.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>If you think about buying something, check on E bay first. I was shocked at the price difference for cabinet hardware.</p>

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<p>yeah, I’m not too sure that my son is the “RA” type.</p>

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<p>Any text books the kids don’t want to keep, I sell them on Half website, part of Ebay.
You don’t need to take a photo of the book! You just need to be a registered Ebay user, search for the right edition, determine the condition & list yours with a price. There are guidelines for the condition & price to use! When I sell a book I just ship it out, the money is deposited directly to our checking, very easy! We seem to sell a lot of books in July & January! </p>

<p>If you go on vacation, you can just put yourself on vacation so your books can’t be viewed. When you get back, take yourself off vacation! </p>

<p>Re-examine what you are paying for now: Cable TV/Satellite TV, Cell phone plans, home insurance, life insurance, car insurance, internet service, home heating oil, etc. Are you getting the best deal? Could you do better price wise? It never hurts to look around! </p>

<p>If you own ancient cars (like we do) you could take collision coverage off those vehicles. </p>

<p>Have you replaced light bulbs with the CFL’s where possible?
Do you clip coupons & use them at the grocery store? </p>

<p>These are just a few things we have done over the years to put 4 children through college for 11 consecutive years. We have never been involved with belonging to health clubs or country clubs or things like that, so can’t cut those out! :)</p>

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<p>Yep, we are coupon fans.</p>

<p>2 best coupons EVER…1)some kiddos went to local community college while in high school (no tuition since high school students) transferred units to 4 year uni…oldest transferred in 56 units (younger brother used 78 AP units, and 180+ from first UG for 2nd UG degree in 2 semesters) AND 2) moved from Northern CA to NC. Biggest savings ever for undergrad tuition and now…in-state med school tuition and we live 20 minutes from said med school, vet school, law school and business school! </p>

<p>Multiply by 5 kiddos…BIGGEST coupon ever!</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>If your student is taking courses for which he/she does not need to keep the textbook for reference afterward, consider renting the text from Chegg.com. We have done this for our daughter for 3 years. It is a huge savings! Their customer service has been flawless.</p>

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<p>Kat- did your move to NC just present itself, or did you “plan” it? If you planned it, you are my hero!!! True hat trick.</p>

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<p>Not kat’s big win (NC), but small stuff we do that has not yet been mentioned:</p>

<p>We drive to move our kid into his school and we use priceline bidding for our hotel reservations for move in/parent’s weekend/move out.</p>

<p>We stock our kid up on things like detergents, OTC meds, cleaning supplies, school supplies (staplers, tape, notebooks etc) by buying all year long when it is on sale/clearance. We found that we have room to put it into our car when moving in. We buy enough of all of this for the entire year. </p>

<p>I buy clothes out of season so it is much reduced, and then store it until in season.</p>

<p>When applying we had our sons apply to a LOT of schools looking for best merit/financial aid packages. They applied to more schools than normally recommended. Best decision IMO. Encouraged apps to safeties and match schools.</p>

<p>Our kids did not have cars and we were allowed to remove them from our auto insurance once they started school (far enough away from home and did not have cars).</p>

<p>Eyeglasses purchased at Costco has a saved a lot.</p>

<p>We do not have to pay for health insurance through the schools, as our family plan covers them fully.</p>

<p>We find that for our younger son paying for the full meal plan is the least expensive option. He actually eats the breakfast meal and he can use his plan to purchase things like Starbuck’s coffee on his campus (ie: coffee and sandwich or salad in a cafe on campus is a meal).</p>

<p>Also, we made/make our sons work summer jobs. My younger son has also qualified for w/s and he did work a job (this took care of most spending money).</p>

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<p>Ooma for landline for about $5-6 a month.</p>

<p>Libraries for dvd and movies instead of cable/netflix.</p>

<p>Eyeglasses from internet, zennioptical is our favorite ($30-40 a pair).</p>

<p>Pageplus for cellphone, my kids do not make a lot of calls, but do a lot of text for less than $20 a month per phone. T-mobile prepaid if you have really low usage pattern, less than $5 per month.</p>

<p>Books used from half.com and Amazon, sell them back if they don’t need to keep.</p>

<p>Change car insurance deductable to the highest level, also move your child off them when they go to school.</p>

<p>Always use priceline/hotwire for hotel/car rental (check betterbidding.com to get what you want). First use Hotwire to get the idea of the price range and then priceline for another 10% less.</p>

<p>Always check Rakuten: Online & In-Store Cash Back | Shop 3,500 Stores! when buying anything that is a little more than ordinary everyday household items or to get online coupons. And get free amazon prime with your kids edu account.</p>

<p>Get a few good credit cards with great cashbacks, one for each type of expense like gas, groceries, etc…</p>

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<p>wow, thanks for the hotwire tip. I hadn’t heard of that site before but it looks great.</p>

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<p>If you do not want to take your kids off your auto insurance completely, there are two other ways to save money.</p>

<p>If your student goes to college more than a specified distance from home (not sure how far – may be something like 250 miles) and does not have a car at school, the insurance company may be willing to drastically decrease the amount you pay to insure that driver, and the student can still drive your cars while at home for breaks.</p>

<p>If your student goes to college closer to home, you can’t take advantage of the discount mentioned above, but there is usually a “good student discount” for those with good grades. It is not as big a discount, though.</p>

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<p>^^In NJ, with our insurance company our students are allowed to drive over college breaks including summers, without any additional charge. Their schools do have to be a certain distance from home and they can only drive our cars while on school breaks.</p>

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<p>From experience, it seems that hotwire and priceline have just about the same list of hotels. Maybe not always but a lot of times the same hotels that are trying to fill their rooms are on both sites. So if you want 3 1/2 star hotel in certain city, search hotwire first to find out the best price in the area you want, then bid about 10-15% less for 3 1/2 star on priceline in the same area. It works for me just about every time.</p>

<p>You can find out the exact hotel by looking at betterbidding.com and try to match the description with hotwire description. This is useful when you want to get hotel at very specific location instead of anywhere in a large area. It is a little more work but if getting the exact hotel you want is important for some reasons, this is one way to better your odd.</p>

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<p>yes we planned our move to NC…narrowed it down to 3 states, NC’s in state tuition was the cheapest of the 3 and the best public options, 16 campuses with UNC Chapel Hill and NC State (engineering) flagships, great private options (Duke, Davidson, Wake Forest, Elon) that give priority to NC state residents and offer special scholarships for NC residents, a few boutique programs and nice public LACs…UNC Asheville, UNC Wilmington (marine biology), UNC School of Fine and Performing Arts (great feeder for MT, and a FREE boarding school for 11th and 12th graders…matched to NC School of Math and Science, another free boarding high school for STEM).</p>

<p>Combine this with the LOWEST tuition for the 2 public med schools, Brody SOM at ECU and UNC Chapel Hill #2 for primary care, and the #2 program for MPH right behind Harvard, lowest vet school tuition for 3rd ranked program, great business and law schools with the low tuition…easy decision. </p>

<p>We too used Hotwire for all travel have for 9+ years. Saved a ton with middle son’s college graduation last year, $40 a night for rooms that everyone else at graduation paid $285+++ a night. Some paid more as rooms filled quickly. Used it all 4 years he was in NJ. </p>

<p>I think I am registered at betterbidding as member number UNDER 50…signed up first day web site opened! Please update your bids info for both hotwire and priceline…really makes a difference. More info= more accurate prediction of identifying which hotel.</p>

<p>Also not so much saving money but more of an added value concept. Kiddos took additional classes rather than minimum to gain some practical skills along with college education/degree…some took medical spanish, latin, greek, some took PEs (golf, tennis, flamenco dance, ballet) some intro music, CPR, finance (personal, stocks, real estate)…stuff I couldn’t teach them or didn’t have the resources…all really made the most of their undergrad…very aggressive learners. But did not add any additional costs…made use of their time and resources.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>taking additional classes is a great way to go. I took a fencing class as an elective last semester and it was really cool. I’m going to try scuba diving next semester. If your kids are there, they might as well take advantage of all the things the school has. Also most of the clubs I’m in have free food all the time, so if you can get your kid to join those then that could save you some money.</p>

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<p>Shop around for homeowner’s insurance - I did this two months ago and saved more than $1300 per year by switching from Farmers’ to Amica (plus Farmers’ is poorly rated by Cons. Reports and JD Powers, while Amica is top-rated)</p>

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<p>Don’t get a smartphone unless you really need it–the data plans are mandatory and expensive.</p>

<p>If your kid is on a meal plan, insist that he go to all meals, including breakfast. This will cut own on outside food costs.</p>