Financial advice for college students

Hello! I’m Christine Price, and I shall hopefully be writing frequent personal finance articles filled with useful things that will help you save and acquire money.

This week’s useful thing is free stuff. I love free stuff. It’s lovely for so many reasons- there’s the joy of the hunt, the freeness, and the stuff can be nice too. Here’s a few hints on how to get stuff for free without stealing:

1) Stop by the school store. Sometimes there will be a basket on the counter with free samples. They can be gender specific, unfortunately. I remember there was Axe samples last year, and later they had lady’s shaving gel. The other day there was a box filled with free post-it sample kits in front of Health Services. Maybe it is still there. Maybe not. Go over to Health Services to find out!

2) Head over to Health Services any way! If you are ill or bleeding or whatever they can hook you with drugs or Band-Aids, and if you are in good health you can still pick up a free pamphlet for education or amusement.

3) Go to Rose things! There’s often a free t-shirt or free food involved. Don’t need another free shirt? Get creative. Cut it up for a stylish dish towel. Make a blanket for you doggie that is stuck back home. Wear it while cooking messy food. Sew a quilt or a handbag.

4) Look on the internet. www.freesamplesite.com can link you to some nifty offers. You might also get lucky with a site like Craigslist.

5) Dumpster dive. I’m not a huge fan of this, as I assume it can be time consuming, smelly, and generally odd. But it can be useful, and the recycling helps the environment. Right now our dorm room has some useful shelves that somebody had placed next to a dumpster, and some free carpet scavenged from outside a carpet store. That’s at least $75 savings right there!

6) Volunteer. You might get some sort of non-monetary payment. A great example of this is a friend back home that volunteered at the Butterfly House all summer, and was thus allowed to let in some friends for free. She didn’t actually benefit, but I’m sure her kindness will be remembered when it comes time to give her holiday gifts.

7) Go to the career fair. Unlike the career fairs in high school (where the game was to amass as much promotional material as possible) you want your main focus to actually be learning about the companies, but be sure to accept any interesting things they are handing out. Last year I got, amongst other things, a toolkit, a lunch box, and a cute water bottle, all of which have come in very useful. Even better, they seemed like interesting companies, and this way I won’t forget their names.