How to save money - Brigham Young University-Idaho Video Transcripts
Video 1 Transcript
One way that I found to save money was to do on-campus activities. Yeah, you've got stuff off campus, you've got movies, you have a couple of movie theatres actually, there are tons of restaurants, there are other activities you can do in town, but there are so many activities that you can do on campus. Roller skating, line dancing, latin dancing, I've seen mini golf, I've seen laser tag, I've seen activity classes, aerobics, learning how to dance, the list goes on and on. There's even an outdoor rental store near the stadium where you can rent equipment to go out in nature to go, I don't know, I haven't used it myself, but I've heard that people have gotten canoes, gotten bicycles, there's a ton of stuff you can do for saving money on activities right on campus.
Video 2 Transcript
A great way to save money is to take advantage of all the things going on on campus. They're pretty affordable for those who are students.
Video 3 Transcript
Take advantage of the DI, Deseret Industries, in Rexburg. And I believe there's also one in Idaho Falls, but the one in Rexburg is great, because especially towards the end of the semester, there are going to be students moving out and donating things to DI, such as I got a toaster and a toaster oven and a couple of ninja bullets and some really great stuff, pretty cheap, because students that are leaving the Rexburg area and have a bunch of stuff that they don't want to take with them, but that they bought for college, will probably donate it to DI. So you can find a lot of really great stuff at the Deseret Industries, and I would highly recommend going there, especially towards the end of the semester or right after the end of the semester, you will find some really great stuff there. And it's a really great way to save money, especially on small kitchen appliances, and I also get a lot of clothes there too. At the end of the winter, there will be a lot of winter clothes there, which is really great. So go to the DI, take advantage of that, it's a really great resource.
Video 4 Transcript
My tip is if you have good roommates that you get along with and can trust, cooking and grocery shopping together with roommates, then you can buy in bulk, then you guys can cook together, kind of meal plan and things like that. That's a really big way that I was able to save money is when I was living with friends and we were able to grocery shop together.
Video 5 Transcript
I ate a lot of ramen and I found very creative ways to cook ramen. I considered making a recipe book but it's not like the most nutritional but you can always add eggs to ramen or vegetables or you can put spaghetti sauce on it or alfredo sauce and chicken which is what I did a lot. Basically it was like super super cheap noodles and I used them for everything but outside of that go on lots of dates that will save you some money as a lady unless you're paying and then it doesn't help. Yeah you can do that. Eat with roommates. If your roommates want to do like a sunday or whatever day of the week let's eat dinner together that's a good way to save money. Pool all your groceries together. Not many people do that but it's a great way to save money.
Video 6 Transcript
To save on money while you're in Ricksburg, I would say buy ingredients and make meals at home instead of going out to eat. A lot of times we're like we're just buying off the dollar menu but if you buy off the dollar menu like every day it starts to get pretty pricey. Also there are some things that you don't have to pay for that you can go out and do as like fun activities and things that don't require any money. But also coming with stuff and acknowledging that you're only going to be here for a short amount of time and that if you want to make purchases you can do that after you're here instead of while you're here. And then also know that there are a lot of scholarships and grants that are offered at BYU-Idaho.
Video 7 Transcript
To save money, I would really suggest at the beginning of every semester when I would go to the bookstore to get my textbooks, I would rent every textbook I possibly could instead of buying it. It's a great way to start the semester off by saving money, and then when you're at the end of the semester and you're done with the class, you don't have this textbook that you don't want and you've got to figure out what to do with it, you can just give it back to them. So that's what I would do, and that's what I did, is I rented every textbook I possibly could, and it saves a lot of money.
Video 8 Transcript
I was very frugal with my money. I would spend like 13 bucks a week on groceries. I always just got the basics, you know, I just got like cereal, milk, and stuff for PB&J. Sometimes if I needed dinner, like ramen or something, yeah, I would get that. But yeah, definitely get some of the cheapest stuff. Cheapest stuff you can find. If you're a STEM major, you might not have a lot of time to make food. So yeah, just get something simple, something easy. And yeah, spend as little money as possible. And there's free dates everywhere, so don't worry about spending money on dates.
Video 9 Transcript
I'm going to tell you something that me and my roommates did when I was in college. This might not work for you, especially if like maybe you don't get along with your roommates, which I hope you do. But what we would do is we would rotate making food for each other. So like on Mondays, I would make food for everybody. And then Tuesday, someone else would make food for everybody. And that was very nice because I tried different dishes and the other or you could go grocery shopping and split the check or I shouldn't say split the check, split the receipt. And so those are ways that you can save money. And it's okay to say no to not being able to eat out with other people. Like I know it's so nice to go out and eat like every day or maybe every Friday and Saturday, but it's okay to say no and to make your own meals. And so there are utilize Winko. That's always a good place to buy bulky foods.
Video 10 Transcript
The best way to save money is to understand the food you need for the lifestyle you have. If you are active and you're eating ramen, that's a terrible way to save money. You want the right amount of food. You need to learn how to cook and make excellent meals that are in bulk at such a low price. But then also learn how to have a side hustle. When you have a side hustle, you have extra income coming. Make sure it's something that does not take a lot of time and you have all the money you need.
Video 11 Transcript
There's some good food in Rexburg. It's easy to eat out a lot or to go to the MC, grab some food there, but, you know, that adds up pretty quickly. It can be really good to set a budget, to have a goal of how much you're going to spend on, say, fast food or other things. Try to limit that, do some cooking, learn some skills as you do that, and that'll help you to save money and, you know, maybe to have a little bit more success on a date.
Video 12 Transcript
Book Viking. If you haven't heard of Book Viking yet, it is an independent store where you can get basically any of the textbooks you ever need at a lot cheaper prices. Just search up Book Viking online. You can come there, rent it for the semester, come back, and it's just a lot cheaper. It depends on the textbook, of course. Some will just be a couple dollar difference. Some of them will be pretty monumental, and so I recommend to save money on textbooks to go to Book Viking.
Video 13 Transcript
Go on campus and get a Heber J. Grant mentor. A Heber J. Grant mentor helps you in all areas of life, whether it be for financial stuff, to spiritual, social, or academic. And you can talk with them and learn more about the financial side of things. And so when you meet with that person, they'll help you and walk you through it, and they'll make goals for you. And so that you can also have an accountability partner, which is really nice, because I won't get anything done unless I have one.
Video 14 Transcript
Best way to save money as a college student is to not spend it. There are so many free events at college, on campus, and off campus in a college town. Take advantage of those. There's lots of good giveaways and events and things that I would recommend going to.
Video 15 Transcript
Being married helps, but also having good grades. When you're married, actually, and you do FAFSA, they pay for almost everything. It's actually really nice. You don't really have to pay for tuition anymore. But for those people who aren't married, I would recommend the school has this independent, they've kind of connected with this really cool software where you can search up tons of different scholarships. They come up right up there. And you basically put in your credentials, and they'll spit out a bunch of cool scholarship opportunities you can apply for. It'll save you a lot of money, obviously. You won't get every one, but scholarships can be pretty small, anywhere from a couple hundred dollars, maybe $100, to up to the thousands. And again, as a college student, every penny counts.
Video 16 Transcript
When I was in college, I was dirt poor. It was 2010, so prices were different. But at the time, I could only afford 20 to 25 cents a meal. And so I had a budget really tight. And so to put everything in perspective, in my mind, instead of using dollars in my head, I calculated everything by mac and cheese and how much mac and cheese I could afford. And if you got it on sale, you could get mac and cheese for $6. And I'd eat half a box at a time. So someone was like, let's go watch a movie. And it was seven bucks at the cheap theater. In my head, I'd say, well, six times seven is 35 times two is 70. So that's already two months worth of food to go watch a movie. And that's how I saved money when I was desperately poor.
Video 17 Transcript
Save money on food by talking to your roommates. Not everybody needs to get a container of salt and a jar of mustard and, you know, all of those really basic things. Salt, sugar, flour, all that kind of stuff. Talk to your roommates and say, hey, do you want to buy flour and I'll buy sugar? Things like that, so that you don't have five bags of sugar and ten salt shakers. And, you know, like make sure that you talk with your roommates before you go grocery shopping, whether if it's at the beginning of the semester or just throughout the semester. And you can kind of work around that and just say, hey, do you want to buy these essentials this week and I'll buy them next week? And not only food, things like toilet paper and paper towels and stuff like that. My roommates would take turns getting those things. So just talk to your roommates and see if there's any way that you could potentially save money and share on those shared things that you will use as roommates, because that's a great way to save some money.
Video 18 Transcript
All right, me and my wife have saved, I think, the most amount of money while we've been in school and we're still in school, is to budget first and adjust those set amounts of what we won't spend and then to meal plan, especially for our food, to meal plan, crock pot meals, easy meals when you're in a time crunch. And then we, I don't recommend this for everyone unless you really want to, but we go to Winco down in Idaho Falls because it is cheaper than Walmart and then we just go every two weeks. That way we get groceries for that whole two weeks and we buy at a cheaper price and gas is cheaper also in Idaho Falls at Costco or even at the Walmart down there. So I definitely recommend looking at all your options when you're trying to save your money.
Video 19 Transcript
Unless you need extra credits in your schedule in order to be considered a full-time student for scholarships or something, rather than taking religion classes, you can take institute classes for free, which are offered anywhere in the world, some online, some in person, and they're only like one hour once a week. You have to attend 75% of the classes, do 75% of the assigned readings, and do either a project at the end of the course, or take notes throughout the course to get credit. And those credits will count exactly the same when you transfer them in from the seminars and institutes into BYU-Idaho, and it'll cover your religion courses that you're required to take.
Video 20 Transcript
So there's the EveryDollar app. That's a great app just to have on your phone to keep track of your expenses. But then there's also the like have a new spreadsheet and everything that helps pay your bills first then have fun. Budget wisely.
Video 21 Transcript
I would highly recommend, if you're looking for housing, look onto BYU-Idaho Facebook housing pages. Those pages, there are a lot of people who will have a contract and maybe they get married or they realize they want to move somewhere else, so they're trying to sell a contract midway and we'll often discount it so you can get cheaper contracts to your housing. It'll save a lot of money depending on the contract, for example, you can get a $1,200 contract and get it down to, I don't know, $1,000 or $900. Again, housing isn't really that bad in Rexburg, but every penny counts when you're a college student.
Video 22 Transcript
When you get to school, it's really easy to figure out how much your books are going to cost, how much tuition is going to cost. Something that's harder to keep track of is how much you're spending on food. Keep track of it. Don't be eating out, even though there are delicious places to eat on campus. Don't do it too often. Cook in advance. Bring things with you to school. It's going to save you a lot of money.
