Don't Overspend!-Save your money

In college, you'd be surprised at how much you spend. I don't just mean on tuition and books, but everyday expenses. It doesn't seem like much, but little purchases can add up big time. Let's take a look.

I interviewed my friend Mitch who lives in my dorm, he was very kind to open up about his spending habits. Mitch absolutely loves milkshakes from the Barista. He has a meal plan, but milkshakes are not covered. He gets one milkshake a day. Sunday-Thursday he pays $4.85. That's about $24.25 a week on Milkshakes! Adding up to $97.00 a month! To be fair, he takes advantage of the free  milkshakes on Fridays and Saturdays, but still he could save almost $100. Mitch works at the library and says he makes about $300 a month. Milkshakes take up 1/3 of his monthly budget.

Okay, so lets take a minute and stop hating on Mitch's milkshake problem and talk about my spending. Trust me when I say I'm not any better. My problem is clothes. I went through and looked up my income for October. I recieve 2 paychecks, equaling $187.00, also my mom has sent me $50.00, and from extended family another $100.00. My total was $337.00. Sounds pretty good right?

Yeah, I spent like $300.00 last month. It might sound ridiculous, but when I looked through my bank charges I realized I spent:
$75.00 on gas
$50.00 at Target on stuff for my room, clothes and snacks
$150.00 at Abercrombie for clothes
$25.00 on a fish and supplies for my room

Looking back the only thing I truly needed was gas. Some of the stuff at Target I needed, but a lot of it was just frivolous spending.

I know I didn't need the fish, but hes so cute! His name is Kyoto :)

Back to money management. It's important to spend only on things you absolutely need, its okay to spend a little for fun, but don't get out of control like Mitch and I did. Hold some of it back in savings. Also, maybe use PNC bank. That's what  I use and I have the VirtualWallet. The reason its cool is it lets you see your spending and helps you set limits to what you spend on. For example I set the clothing budget to $50.00. If I go into a store like American Eagle and attempt to buy $100.00 worth of clothing, it will only let me purchase $50.00. I think that will be something to get used to, but it will be well worth it.

The bottom line is, you are an adult now, the sooner you learn money management the better. You don't want to learn the hard way!