Emma Judy – Special to the Southern News
If you walk around any college campus you always students talking about how they are so broke. It’s almost impossible to juggle being a full time student, participating in extracurricular activities and work a decent job that pays decently and doesn’t give you too many hours.
The thing is most of us suck at saving our money so in the summer and over winter break when we have the time to rack in the cash we do. But we spend it almost as fast. The other day I heard a kid talking about how he was so broke now but during the summer he “lives like a king”.
So, what can we do during the hard stressful months of school? Short of illegal activity it’s hard to find ways to make some extra spending cash.
The old standby is babysitting. It’s also a fun way to make some extra cash. You hang out with some kids, normally watch some Disney movies, color some pictures and some kids even like to play videos games. How much better does it get? Plus most of the time you pay you over minimum wage at about $10 an hour to hang out and have fun.
For most of us when we pay in cash we don’t look to use exact change. I know for me my wallet is normally bursting at the seams filled with coins that I won’t use. But most grocery store have coinstar machine that help sort your money and give you cash back. If it’s from your own wallet it isn’t exactly new money but for some reason if you are anything like me and it feels like you have more money when it is in cash. But you can even gather money just by looking around on the ground you can find coins to add to your jar and make more money when you bring it to the coinstar machine.
Every time you buy something that comes in a can or bottle you are drinking out of ten cents that could easily be yours. All you have to do I bring all your cans and bottle back and recycle them, which is a win win. You get 10 cents added to your wallet for every can and bottle you put in and you help save the world.
Feeling really smart in a particular subject. Think you could teach some of your peer’s new things? Become a tutor and earn some extra cash. Tutoring isn’t a terribly time consuming job either. All you would have to do is meet in the library or student center and go over the material. You might even be able to get some work done while they work on a problem.
In my opinion though the best way to make money is doing something fun. For me that would be hanging out with dogs. Often people are looking for people to either walk their dog during the day so that they aren’t holding their business all day. Or even looking for people to stay over at their house for a couple of nights to take care of their dog. Life doesn’t get much better than getting paid to play with puppies.
Although life as a college student is busy, stressful and tiresome, it doesn’t mean you have to be broke all semester waiting for the days when you can work full time again. Although during the school year you probably aren’t living like a king, it doesn’t mean you have to live like peasant either.
