- Movies
- Music and Books
- Bars and Clubs
If you can live without watching movies then that is the most efficient way of saving money in this category. However, if you are an extreme movie lover or an occasional movie watcher then here are some tips for you to save some money.
Share- Your friends may have movies that you want to watch and you may have movies that your friends want to watch. Exchange, share, and borrow, from each other! Expand your friendship to your entire network and you should have little to no problem finding the movie you want.
Membership- If the first option is not feasible to you because your network is too small, then your other option is subscribe to a membership! NETFLIX has a membership program for $7.99 that allows you to stream an unlimited amount of movies instantly from the convenience of your home! Split the cost with your roommates or housemates and it can be $2 per month for person for a household with 4 people.
Renting- Movie rental places such as Blockbuster or redbox can also help you save money on movies. Remember to split the cost with your buddies and you'll be saving a lot of money over time.
Movie theaters- Tickets for the movie theaters are very pricey, about $10 per person, compared to the previously mentioned methods. However, if you really want to go to the theater to watch your movie, you are not completely out of luck! Check out slickdeals.net for deals for discounted Fandango and AMC movie tickets. Here is a link to a slickdeals post where they have 2 Fandango tickets for $4! Here is a link to another slickdeals post to Groupon for $4 AMC movie tickets! However, both of those deals are expired or sold out. It's good to periodically check out slickdeals.net for the latest news on discounts for many goods!
Music and Books!
Free music is the way to go! You can go on Youtube to stream almost any song you want to listen to for free. You can also use the online radio program Pandora to stream your favorite genres and songs by entering your preferences in the play list. iTunes and Amazon have music you can pay to download but Youtube and Pandora more than satisfy my music needs.
Free books to read and use temporarily can be found in several places. The library has a lot of books for students to read. At UCSD most classes have the main course book on reserves at the front desk. You can go check out these books in increments of 3 hours for free! You can also go to the campus bookstore or any bookstore and you can sit down and read the books for free!
Share books with your friends. You may have taken a class that your friend may be planning to take in the future and the other way around.
Buy used and sell when you are done with the book. Amazon has a wide selection of used books for sale. You can also check your local postings such as the "Marketplace" application on Facebook. Often times you can buy a used book for 60% of the cost of a new textbook and resell it for close to the same price you bought it for as opposed to buying a new textbook at 100% retail value and then selling it at 60% of the retail price.
Bars and Clubs!
Specials are popular among bars and clubs. Happy hour days and times vary from bar to bar. Who doesn't like half off drinks and food? Do a little research ahead of time and you can find yourself getting twice the number of drinks and twice the amount of food for the same price! You can check out my colleague Jimmy's blog Bottoms Up! for his reviews on some of the bars in San Diego.
Get on the guestlist and avoid entrance fees to the clubs! If you are 21, then you do not really have to worry about this because most clubs will get you in for free anyways since they believe that you will most likely be spending a lot of money on their drinks. This is probably true for the majority of clubbers over 21, but you can...
PREPARTY! Save some money on drinks by prepartying! If you do not like to drink then you are already good. If you need to drink a lot to get tipsy in order to have a good time, then drink up at home or before you enter the club so you will not have to spend so much money for drinks inside the club!
This is a great post that every college student should read! Most of the time I'm claiming that I don't have money to spend, I’m broke, there’s nothing to do, all for the excuse of not doing anything or lounging around all day. This post was really helpful in breaking down what you can do to help with the ease on your wallet but having just as much fun. Also, I had never heard of www.slickdeals.net. I'm going to have to check it out, cause movies at the theaters can really ring in the dollar bills. Thanks for the tip!
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