From finding housing to learning where you can apply those student discounts, you’ll want to stay in the know. On Deal News, it was reported that student discounts typically take around 10%-15% off of qualifying purchases, but you'll find some places that offer 50% off or even higher. In this episode, Randy Pawlowski, Director of Student Development at Seminole State College, shares helpful money tips for students.
Randy asks Question 1: “So, Randy, can you go ahead and share how students can begin creating a budget for their college years? What would you suggest?”
Randy P. responds: “A couple things. One of the most important things any student or any person would have to do is earn as much money as you possibly can every month. Some people have a primary job, other people have a second job to raise a little more income. We have students that do internships and get paid for their time, and a lot of people have a side hustle. Students have told me that they babysit, they might sell personal items on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. They cut lawns, they clean cars, they might power wash, or they might have a specialized service. You can design websites, you can do accounting for folks, any kind of special skill that you have. It could be marketing, it could be public relations, or whatever you're great at. You could even help people with their blog. It's just a way to raise money. Some people even use social media and monetize all of the posts that they make on their favorite social media accounts.”
Randy P. follows up: “You always have that financial aid package. There will be students who will be able to use the FAFSA. You'll be eligible for grants or scholarships and you have the opportunity to take loans. You can even turn that into a college work study position rather than take loans. You can use college work study to help you pay your bills. As you get older and you can invest money, that's just a great way to try to save or build equity.”
Randy P. follows up: “But a couple of tips - you should probably not loan money to friends or family. And if you do, it's with the expectation that you're never going to get it back again. It’s going to be a gift. Then don't let other people hold your savings, whether it be your mom or your dad or a friend. Don’t give people access to your PIN numbers because you want to make sure that the money that you make is all your own. You are trying to make the most amount of money that you possibly can every single week, every single month.”
Randy P. follows up: “One of the key points is you always have to make sure that you buy only what you need and not what you want. If you don't control that, you're going to have a place full of all this stuff that you've accumulated over the time, and it's just going to encroach on all the things that you really need. You just have to be careful because ultimately you want to save money. I know the young people listening don't really think about retirement often, but one of the things you need to do is save your money so that at some point down the road you can have a really healthy and a happy retirement. So you've got to think, keep the end in mind.”
Cristina asks Question 2: “What is some advice that you have to give students or incoming college students about housing and how to find a roommate?”
Randy P. responds: “You can do it one of several ways. Many colleges and universities have residence halls, and there is probably a strict application date that you have to put an application in for housing. Then you have to pay your initial bill to hold that space. What they will do is make a roommate placement for you. Then when you get to campus, you always have an opportunity at some point that first semester or for the second semester, if you get along with your roommate or roommates, fine, you can stay with them. Otherwise, you can look around and try to find another roommate. When I went to college, I always lived on campus because it was part of my tuition and fees and my housing bill. I was fortunate enough that my dad was able to pay my college expenses, and I worked in the summertime. All the money that I made in the summertime went from my weekly expenses on my own. Other people decide they want to live off campus, and so in every community, there are all sorts of places that you can live in the Orlando area. But the issue that you have to keep in mind, I know in our area here, it's about $1,800 a month for a one bedroom and bathroom apartment. Which is a huge amount of money.”
Randy P. follows up: “You could have at least one roommate in that kind of space, but you're going to have to earn as much as you can, either through your FAFSA dollars or your loans or your free scholarships, because you've got bills that you have to pay. I work for Seminole State College, and we don't have residence halls, but we have a lot of people who still live with their parents. That's an option for people too. It could be completely free. They may not charge you, which is great. The neat thing is you live very close to one of the campuses that you're going to school at. Those are three ways that you can do it.”
Randy P. follows up: “Another way you can make money – I decided to apply to be a resident assistant my junior year. So, they provided free housing and a free meal plan. In my senior year, I was a head resident supervisor. Again, I got free housing and a free meal plan. So you could always work on campus as part of the Student Life program or the Residence Life program. Or you can be a college work study and work for one of the academic or the office departments. So there are just a lot of ways that you can make income, you know, so that you have enough money to pay your bills. On the flip side of that, you really have to create a weekly and a monthly budget so that you can make it through the whole year.”
Randy P. follows up: “You really have to be aware of what your monthly expenses are. It’s very easy to make an Excel file. What is your rent? What do you have to pay for housing and for meals? Do you have an electricity bill you're responsible for if you live in an apartment? If it's a residence hall, the water and the power and the trash, all that's going to be included.”
Randy asks Question 3: “What about some special student discounts for things like local events? Are there any places or are there any special things that students could do to find out about these?”
Randy P. responds: “Yeah, absolutely. So at Seminole State, we have the Raider Discount Program. There are local businesses where you can show your student ID. For example, in our area we have a relationship with Orlando City Soccer, you can get discounts on tickets. Icon Park, you can go to the wheel. The restaurants there have arcade games. In terms of food, we have a relationship with Burgerfi, you get 15% off, Jimmy John's, a Greek restaurant called Fat Lamb. There are a number of different health and fitness organizations. You can go do yoga or kickboxing or to a Cyclebar."
Randy P. follows up: "Another cool thing if you're traveling, especially in the Orlando area, a lot of airport parking locations will give a discount. It’s very expensive to park for one day, even up to a week. And then there's a lot of retail organizations. So for example, AT&T, Ubreakifix, Life Storage and KinderCare, all of those will give discounts to our students at Seminole State because we have this Raider discount program.”
Randy P. follows up: “Then really anywhere else you look, there are electronic and software discounts. There are entertainment discounts, transportation discounts, food and drinking ones. Almost every cell phone provider has a discount. There are subscription and membership discounts, retail student discounts. Carry your ID with you, make sure you have that photo ID and no matter what restaurant, bar or retail establishment you go into, I would ask every single time, ‘do you take a student discount?’ Even if you save 10% or 15%, folks, every little bit helps.”
Cristina asks Question 4: “What about any recommendations for apps or any software tools that you think would really help students with their budget?”
Randy P. responds: “Most recently, I just got a new phone and I went and found every restaurant that's around where I work and where I live, and I loaded them in. And there are discounts because I'm using the app, there are rewards for how many times that you use it. I'm glad you brought that up because that is an excellent way for students to save money. Plus, it's easy. If you don't have a lot of time either before work or after work, you’re going out for lunch, you can order the food in advance and walk in and pick it up. You can get discounts and then rewards for all the things that you go to. So I highly recommend that students do that.”
Randy P. follows up: “You can manage your budget based on using one of those apps to track. Here's the income I have, minus all the expenses and then you know what you have left. Especially if you have a credit card, you never want to spend more on that credit card each month than what you can pay off at the end of that month. You don't want to pay the interest rates. For a student, you're not going to have a very high FICO score. You’re going to tend to get higher percentages on the credit cards. You don't want to get, say, a credit card for $1,000 and then max it out and just pay the minimum. You're going to pay so much more than $1,000. It could take you six, seven, eight years to pay it off and by then it may have doubled or tripled because of the interest rate.”
Randy asks Question 5: “Randy, what about some common financial mistakes that college students should be avoiding? I know you just mentioned credit cards and not racking up interest. What are some other things?"
Randy P. responds: “Do not give away the code for your debit card. I wouldn't recommend giving your PIN number out to anybody. Spending more than you're bringing in as a big issue and credit cards. One of the things we talk about is sometimes it's best, if you have trouble spending, then work on a cash basis. For example, if you get paid every two weeks, you can put a certain amount of money in envelope number one and a certain amount of money in envelope number two. Let's just suppose you have $150 to get you through the first week. So, as you're buying breakfast or lunch or dinner or you're paying for gas or tolls or expenses, you could only spend what's in envelope number one to help get you through the first week. If by Saturday you still have money left in your pocket, then you can pull out week number two, and then just spend the second segment until you get paid again. Then you can do the same thing for week number three or four. So you're working on a cash basis.”
Randy P. follows up: “One of the things that could help and I've done this with one of my sons, and I've heard from other people, I've shared this in my classes - when they get in financial trouble, they cash their paycheck and they maybe keep $100 and they give all the rest of the money to their parents, and their parents pay off all their bills for them. Until they get back to zero.”
Randy P. follows up: “Then when it comes at the end of the month to pay the bills you have to pay every month, a car loan and car insurance, a cell phone bill, a credit card bill, and you might have a rent bill, you have to have enough money to pay those bills. You can't spend too much money on fun. Then you have to be really careful not to call out on shifts. That gets people in trouble, too. They're not feeling well or they have homework they have to do, so they're calling out. Or, if you're not getting enough shifts at work, you have a part time job, then you may need to get a second part time job or find a job that could be more consistent with the money that you're making.”
Cristina asks Quick Question 1: “What is the biggest expense that students should prepare for that’s outside of tuition and housing?”
Randy P. responds: “Textbooks can be very expensive. So ways around that...you could rent a textbook. It could be half of the cost. Then, you have to make sure you turn it back in at the end of the semester. That’s very popular. You can decide you're going to purchase an e-book. So you're just getting the electronic rights to view that book or to use it for say, a semester that’s cheaper and goes away. You have an opportunity to buy a PDF copy of the book, so you're just getting the paper pages. So that's an option."
Randy P. responds: “Car loans can be an issue. You need transportation. My recommendation is to again buy what you need, not what you want. And so try to maybe keep your car loan in the $250- $300 a month range. Be careful not to drive on the toll roads if you can avoid that. Be careful about how much gas. Don’t go for a long drive because you kind of need to get out and about.”
Randy P. follows up: “Then food these days can be a huge expense. Rather than eating out three times a day, seven days a week, go to the supermarket and buy items. Then, you can meal prep on Saturdays and Sundays for the week or you can eat at home. Those would really be the most expensive items that students face.”
Randy P. follows up: “For the last 20 years, I've taught a course called SLS 1101, which is called College Success. For the first time, we're going to an OpenStax free textbook. That’s becoming much more popular, especially with arts and sciences courses. Another way to save money, because our textbooks, I think, were $108 a book. Now that will be completely free for students.”
Randy asks Quick Question 2: “I've heard colleges have meal plans that you can purchase in advance to eat on campus. Does your college have that?”
Randy P. responds: “We do not because we don't have residence halls. Colleges that have residence halls, almost every meal organization will have either a 19 meal a week plan or a 14 meal a week. Sometimes they have five meals where you can just get lunch. You can definitely save money. You're usually paying everything up front, but you can have as much as you want during the hours that are open for those meals. And so I did that during my bachelor's degree and my master's degree. I was on the meal plan, and it was just a great way to save money.”
Cristina asks Quick Question 3: “Let's talk about vacations and holidays. College kids are going to have spring break. They're probably going to want to travel home and visit their families. So what are some ways that students can save while traveling?”
Randy P. responds: “There are organizations that will arrange tours. It's easy for us because we can just go to the beach. I lived up north and I never did one, but I had friends that would travel on these student travel packages to go away for spring break. You got an airline ticket, you got a hotel package, you got some meal and drink opportunities. There may be opportunities to save if you wanted to take your friends on a cruise or if you wanted to travel abroad. You just have to do the research in advance and save as much money as you can on the airline tickets. You have to book early. The same thing with the cruise lines. If you want to take a cruise, you might have to have an indoor cabin as opposed to one that has a balcony. It’s just a way to save money. If you're going to travel abroad on a trip over the summertime or over a break, there are organizations that do the travel packages, and that's just a great way to save money.”
In this episode, Randy and Cristina shared a previous Making It Count episode that could also be helpful to students: Season 1, Episode 9, titled A Crash Course on College Finances.