Saving Money in College 1: You don't need to eat so much food!!!

I'm a big guy. I weigh around 350 pounds, but I used to weigh above 400 pounds; I have actually lost weight in college, which spits in the face of the "freshman 15". One of the reasons I lost this weight is that I chose to walk everywhere for classes, another is I realized I don't need to eat so much...at least I don't need to buy so much food. I had friends who purchased boatloads of food; mac 'n' cheese, popcorn, chips, pizza, etc. They were also broke all year. I did this too at first, but eventually I realized I could live life without all the food.

I stopped buying popcorn, chips, pizza, easy mac, burgers, I would buy a few snack foods, and then sneak food out of the cafeteria. I made a small investment in some disposable Tupperware and used them to sneak fries, chips, burgers, anything I thought would be good leftover out of the cafeteria. I kept track of my finances before that, and I was spending $150-$200 on food each month. By doing this, I saved around $100-$150 per month. I still spent some money, but I saved tons of money. Imagine making $100. That's basically what I did, was increase my spending power by $100.

I had friends who refused to do this, even after I told them about how effective this was. There's nothing wrong with that; they did have more flexibility in the food they ate, but they also spent much more money than I did.

At Michigan State they don't feed you on Sunday's for dinner (they will this upcoming year, but last year they did not) so we had to figure out dinners on our own. I either took some foods that would be good heated up in the microwave (burgers, hot dogs, etc.) and saved them for Sunday evening. Sandwiches were particularly good, as I could make them on Sunday at lunch, wrap them up, and eat it for dinner. I saved about $10-$15 each Sunday night by not buying dinner and having delivered.

Just remember, if there's something you really want to buy, then buy it, eat it, and enjoy it. If you don't truly want something, you don't need to buy it. Every time you don't buy something, you save money. Every time you save money, you increase your spending power by that amount. That is the exact same as earning money, it's that simple (or, in other words: A penny saved is a penny earned)