This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2157.
Save money abroad with these tips.
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Whether you're attending college in the US or living as a professional anywhere in the world, everyone needs tips to save money.
Today, get our top tips to live on a tight budget.
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Hi, Lindsay.
How are you?
Hey, Michelle.
I'm doing fantastic.
I'm excited to talk about college days today.
Yeah?
Me too.
Me too.
Did you have a job when you were in college?
Oh, did I have a job?
I had jobs in the summer.
But I didn't have a job during the school year because I played on the tennis team.
So we were always traveling.
But yeah, I worked at Dunkin Donuts one summer.
Oh, did you?
Oh, I think I knew that.
And then I taught tennis another summer.
So yeah.
What about you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Also, mostly during the summers, like I was a waitress.
I've talked about before I worked for the Census Bureau.
Interesting.
I went going door to door that I didn't.
Yeah, I can't remember.
That might have been directly after college.
I can't remember the year.
And also, you know, I was in a band and so we would go and we would get paid for our performances.
So that was a little bit of a job.
But yeah, so I did have some jobs.
It's always fun to look back at that stuff.
It is fun for sure.
Today we're going to get into something everyone can relate to, whether you are past college or whether you're still in college university, graduate school, phd.
Money can be tight at certain times in our lives and again, everyone is going to be able to relate to today's episode.
Michelle, we're going to give some tips.
I'm excited.
But first michelle, what should our listeners do?
What should they do guys?
You got to hit that follow button if you haven't already Yeah.
Hit the follow button, guys.
We publish four days a week here at All Ears English.
You do not want to miss a single episode this year.
We have some good stuff coming up, Michelle.
Yes.
Love it.
So I mean, did you feel like in college you were?
Did you feel like you were on like a college budget, eating the typical college food ramen noodles, things like that?
Oh, for sure.
No matter what, you're always thinking about money in college.
You're not going out for lavish dinners, right?
Cause you're not necessarily earning a ton of money unless you are, but most people aren't.
So yeah, I was thinking about money a fair amount in college.
Yeah.
Were you on a meal plan?
Yes.
Yes.
The typical college experience guys.
In the U S most people probably 95 live on campus, especially in undergraduate.
And people go to the dining hall.
You get like a card, right?
Like a swipe card.
And there's a certain number of meals on that that you can use at the dining hall.
Maybe some cash loaded onto it that you could use at a snack bar or a sandwich bar.
Was that your situation?
Yeah.
We also had it at the library.
They had a coffee place where they served Starbucks coffee.
That's nice.
Yeah.
So sometimes I would get coffee there and Um, yeah, I, I never get that much Starbucks now.
So actually, I think in some ways I was more extravagant if I had Starbucks at the meal plan.
But um, I remember.
So you know, I went to university of Maryland and it was always.
I don't know if you had this, but at the end of the semester if you had like a certain amount of money left, I think we had it by money, not by swipes, not by like needles.
So, um, I think that there are basically, if you had money left, like you have to use it.
So there was this great restaurant called Adele's um.
That was on campus and it was like the fancy restaurant.
Like you would go on a date to Adele's.
I think my brother went there on his first date with his wife.
Um, And yeah, so that was like the fancy place that you would go.
So it was always like if somebody had a lot of money left on their account, it would be like oh, I'm like just like going, and like you would go with all your friends.
It'd be hard to get a reservation and you would just like, you know, have a lot of fun in Adele.
So that was the best.
Yeah.
I bet our listeners internationally are having a kick out of today's episode just to see how this is typical college life in the US, right?
You have your money on a card.
For us, I think they call the money something different.
They called it like eagle dollars.
Something silly based on your mascot or something of your school.
So it's kind of funny how it works.
It's kind of its own little economy on college campuses.
Right.
It's like this own little world, this bubble.
So it is As it's fun to talk about, actually.
But today we're going to answer a listener question.
That's why we're talking about this today.
This is about budgeting as a student.
Lindsay, would you like to read the question?
Yeah, so our listener Ahmed asked, how can I minimize the cost of living as a student?
Or how can I make more income?
This is the question that we're all wondering about, right?
And again...
These tips can also apply in some cases if you're an adult out in the working world, guys.
So listen in today.
Even if you're not in college, you're going to take something away from today's episode.
Right, Michelle?
Yes.
And you'll learn a lot about American culture in college.
Yes.
It's going to be a good one.
Yes.
So I'm not sure if he was specifically asking about school in the U.S.
I'm going to assume that he's asking about university in the U.S.
So if I'm wrong, sorry about that.
But that's what we'll talk about today because that's what we know.
But guys, if you haven't already, go ahead and listen to episode 2114.
That was how to use a strong idiom to share your identity in English.
I love that.
So listen to that one.
So Lindsay, how did you?
We talked, we touched on it a little bit already, but were there specific other ways that you minimize the cost of living when you were a student?
I, let's see, I drove a car.
I did have a car and I did park my car, but I think it was free to park in the student parking.
And I had a low gas mileage or a high gas mileage car.
So it wasn't an SUV or anything like that.
It was a car that was very cheap that I bought used and that got incredible miles to the gallon.
Uh, incredible gas mileage.
Uh, so i did that and when i could, they had a little campus bus that would take you into, like the little shopping center.
Freshman year, i did that instead of.
I guess in those days when i was in college, lyft and uber didn't even exist, right to be honest.
So no, we didn't have that either.
Go anywhere without that little bus.
My freshman year i mostly just stayed on campus right, Um I?
You mentioned a key word that I want our listeners to kind of highlight.
And if you're in the app, let's highlight that bubble.
So I really felt like my college experience was a bubble and I resented that actually.
When I first visited my campus, it was gorgeous, like award winning campus.
But so many campuses are gorgeous.
And very quickly.
I felt like I was.
I was stuck in this bubble and I was ready to flourish and like see the world or see big cities.
And I wanted to be in a city and I wasn't.
And I was kind of tormented my first year a little bit, to be honest about that.
But then I just I settled in.
I got used to it, because it is four years of your life undergrad that go by and then it's gone and you can never get that again.
So, yeah.
Yeah, it's true.
I was.
I was torn when I was deciding where to go to school, between that typical college campus experience and like a city campus.
And, you know, eventually I did decide towards the typical college campus.
And I think I think I'm glad that I did because, yeah.
You know, it's something a lot of people go through.
And it's nice to have that experience.
And then I lived my city life.
But also, you know, I studied abroad.
I did a summer in New York.
So in some ways, I think we're similar in that way.
Yeah, I think we're very similar in that sense.
I think we have to For anything in our lives, even after college age university master's.
If it's a short stint, we're never going to be able to come back to whatever we're doing.
Whether we're an expat for five years, that's going to be over quickly.
And then... you won't be able to go back to it.
So just embrace the experience.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's true.
It's true.
So, I mean, I remember as far as the budget, I remember I didn't really buy a lot of clothes.
I stuck to the meal plan.
You know, when I remember when I studied abroad, I had, I was really trying to buy just a lot of stuff at the grocery store, just a lot of microwave meals.
And yeah, so definitely I was trying to save money as well.
But yeah, I mean, there's also lots of on-campus or off-campus jobs that are great for university.
I mean, this is...
You know, we've talked a little bit about this, how college is so expensive.
So I wonder what the stats are.
Maybe more people have jobs during college than they used to.
Yeah.
I mean, for example, some of the jobs that undergraduates will do like resident advisor in the dorms.
But even if you're like a phd student guys, you can always work in the library um, probably the campus, like dining hall or the snack bar or something.
There's a lot of things you could do campus security i know someone that did that like there's an awful lot you could do if it makes sense, if the pay rate is right right, right.
I think phd students get paid too, for i'm pretty sure, like there's a stipend that you get as a phd student, i believe so i think.
So yeah Okay Michelle, what else?
Do we have an article to send our listeners to?
Sure, guys.
So if you want to check this one out, it is from fastweb.com and it is...
31 money saving tricks for students okay so this is from october 25th 2022 and written by shauna newman it says think you know all the ways to save money as a student find untypical ways to save money on this big list um and this like we said it goes for college we're talking about college today but there are ways that this can overlap into regular life as well outside of the bubble um So just we'll rattle off some things from this.
So used textbooks, Lindsay, talk about that.
Did you get used textbooks?
Everyone did.
Everyone did.
Right.
So there was always like a side market of used textbooks.
I think even at the bookstore, you could get them.
If I remember correctly, there was a special set and maybe you had to order them in advance because it was more competitive.
But yeah, I think the equivalent for this if you're a professional living in New York or living in Paris or something, is you're Go to the library.
That's what I was going to say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Books are books are expensive.
And if you are a reader, you know, you might want to go to the library.
Actually, we have not too far from me.
There's a place that has where you can donate books and then they're very cheap to purchase them.
So you could do something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
100%.
Yeah, I go to library because it can add up going on Amazon all the time.
Or going to bookstores are nice, you know, hanging out in a bookstore.
But in the end, I think library is the way to go.
The next one is ride a bike or use the bus or walk if you can.
Obviously, we all need to walk more, at least in the US, for sure.
Was your was your campus big?
Like was there?
Did you have to walk a lot.
It was a small school, so my campus was mostly undergraduate as a college at the time.
That means that it's undergraduate only since then it has expanded to a master's program for teaching, so it's now a university, but it was a long campus, maybe like a mile long, but that's it.
Like it wasn't that big compared to yours, i'm sure it was tiny tiny, tiny.
Yeah yeah, mine was giant.
There's a north, a north campus and a south campus and you know, um when, like on the first, I think wait, is it South Campus or North Campus?
I'm forgetting so many things.
I'm so far past it.
But in the first two years, I lived right next to the building where most of my classes were.
But in the next two years, I was totally on the opposite end.
So it would be like half an hour walk, 20 minutes, half an hour walk.
Yeah.
That's pretty substantial.
Yeah.
And here is a good opportunity for a bonus phrase for our listeners, Michelle.
You had to huff it.
We actually taught this on another episode about New York with Aubrey, on another All Ears English episode.
Guys, if you heard that.
So you had to huff it across campus.
I love that expression.
Huff it.
Huff it.
Yes.
It also mentions, you know, we talked about this, not eating too much at restaurants.
And then another one is student discounts.
Always have your student ID, because a lot of times you will be able to get a discount with a student ID right.
Or if you're a teacher, by the way.
I mean, for example, I know that my Orange Theory gym, which has nothing to do with any university, is just a business owned by private equity.
I think.
They offer a discount if you're a teacher, and I'm sure they do if you're a student.
So anywhere off campus, on campus, in your life, ask if there's a certain kind of discount for sure.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then one of the best ones that I thought I saw was to actually go to class, because you are paying to go to school.
So this is not really about saving money, but it's about using the money in the best way possible.
Don't skip classes too often because that's a big waste of money.
Yeah, for sure, and we can do another episode, but we could have a debate someday maybe on this show is is college even worth it anymore?
Worth that price?
The price tag is just skyrocketing.
I think by the time my niece gets to college she's just turning 10 now in eight years.
I'm like what is my brother going to do?
I mean, how are they going to pay for that?
I just don't know.
I'm scared already.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And my kids are five and almost two.
So it's like, oh, and then we already mentioned this.
You could be an RA, a resident advisor.
And that's you're kind of like the responsible one in your hall, basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then we have a few.
Let's just do two of these, Michelle.
Real quick. what are some key vocabulary words?
And again, these work great whether you're in college or not.
Okay.
What's your favorite one here?
My favorite one.
Well, I'll say side job.
Okay.
Lindsay, what's a side job?
Just a, a part-time job on the side, right?
On the side, the side job, right?
I want to get a side job at the student bookstore.
So it means that it is like a sideshow, right?
It's not the main piece for you of your life.
Maybe it's like 10 hours a week or something on the side in addition to make extra money, right?
That's right.
And Lindsay, you want to choose your next favorite one?
I like tight budget.
I like this expression, guys.
I'm on a tight budget right now because we all go through moments in which we're on a tight budget.
Right.
Whether you're in school or not.
And so that was super useful for us.
I love that.
Yeah, definitely.
That's helpful for everyone.
So, wow.
Guys, we could do a follow up episode.
I was thinking on how to tell someone you're trying to save money because of that idea.
That's an important skill.
And I mean, I've certainly been there where I've like going out to a restaurant, and people are suggesting things and I'm, like you, feel uncomfortable.
So we can talk about that another day.
But Lindsay, I mean, this was a great student listener question.
What's the takeaway for today?
Yeah well, first takeaway guys hit follow so that you don't miss that, because I think Michelle is going to prep that episode, maybe for the next couple of months.
So you'll miss it if you're not following All Ears English.
So hit the follow button, then you know it's a re.
It's today.
We kind of frame this about college life and you've learned a little bit about college life in the us, but it's really not about college life.
It's about everyone's life, right?
We're, all you know, to some extent on a tight budget at some point, and this is how these are strategies and what we would say to communicate that yeah, absolutely all right.
Well, let's leave it at that.
And guys, I hope we all saved some money today.
And yeah, we'll talk more about this in the future.
All right.
Talk soon, Michelle.
Have a good one.
Thanks.
Bye.
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