Frugal Shopaholic Tips & Tricks: Back to School Edition

This post is dedicated to our college student frugs. There is an art to stretching a dollar in college. When I was in school I would get $500 from my family scholarship fund each semester to buy books. That book money ended up being for books, food, gas and other miscellaneous things and I still had money leftover. I'm going to share a few tricks with you to help you stretch those dollars.

1. Shop online for books

• Consider buying the international edition. These books are usually wayyyy cheaper than textbooks published in the US. The content is the same as the U.S. version, but it may have differences such as the book cover, ISBN, page numbers, or region code.

• Books in the campus bookstore are always overpriced. SlugBooks.com compares prices between your college bookstore and online options like Amazon/eBay/Chegg/etc. so you can be sure you're getting the best deal on your textbooks. 

2. Use your student ID.

• ALWAYS ask for a student discount wherever you go. Most places do not publicly advertise their student discount but they have them. I graduated 2 years ago and I still use my college ID for discounts (thank you UNCG for not having expiration dates on our IDs). Here is a list of 81 Student Discounts 

3. Sign up for student reward programs.

• Amazon Student is a student loyalty program that gives college students exclusive discounts. You get Amazon Prime benefits for free the first six months after that its $39/year. The perks include FREE Two-Day Shipping, $10 credit for referring friends, unlimited instant streaming of movies & TV show, and you can borrow FREE Kindle books. 

If you know of any other Frugal Shopaholic Tips and Tricks leave them in the comment box below. 

- Christen