Not So Extreme Couponing

We all know a few years ago how much couponing in the United States blew up. And if you didn't congrats I'm kind of jealous you didn't have to hear about it. There were women out there who managed to pay about $6 for a $200 grocery bill or something ridiculous like that...only in the US.

Now for the less crazy people out there who don't want to be carrying around a folder full of coupons or basically fill their basement like a personal grocery store...there are less drastic savings options.

What I'm here to tell you is that you can't find a few coupons here and there and save a few bucks. We don't  need to develop our own store room of food, but by following a few tips and checking out the following websites you can save some money...without being crazy.

• First off check out my coupon page which has some of the better websites out there for coupons that can be printed or directly mailed to you.
• These are some of the best websites out there in terms of coupons
• Also check out a previous post I put together on how Facebook can save you money.
• Make sure to like these pages on Facebook. Basically you will get a variety of contests, offers as well as coupons for sometimes free product right to your newsfeed.
• Keep coupons in your wallet-the amount of times I've forgotten coupons is annoying and then I end up not saving as much
• Double up coupons on top of sale prices, it helps you save even more
• If you are printing coupons make sure your grocery store accepts printable one's. Some store's are coming around to the idea of printable coupons (fraud was one of the main concerns previously).

Also here's a little gift from me..for all those ice cream lovers.

Chapman's $5 Coupon Offer

All you have to do is click on the link above and write in the comment area that you would like to request the $5 coupon from Chapman's and then they mail it to you. Simple as that.

Oh and then double up the coupon with sale prices and you've got yourself a pretty sweet deal. 

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Subletting a Rental

Some students may never have to worry about subletting their rental, while others especially those that go on exchanges, are in co-op or only take a final part year may have to do so. Here are some tips and tricks on how to sublet your room  in order to save some money when you aren't living in your home. Make sure to also speak with your landlord before you start thinking about posting an ad, your landlord may not want subletters at all which could prevent you from doing so.

Posting your ad
Make sure to choose a classified site that a large proportion of your student body frequents. This could be a school affiliated classified site, or by using kijiji and craigslist. It's also a great option to consider posting a listing within the Facebook group you joined with all the other members of your graduating class.

When posting your ad its really important to include the following information;

• General location
• Distance to the school and the closest bus stop
• Which buses/subways take you to the school
• Amenities available ie. kitchen, laundry, parking etc.
• Efficiency of heating etc.
• Rental price per month
• Specify if utilities are included
• How many other rooms are in the house
• If you have a preference include student, male or female etc.
• Dates the sublet is available
• And Contact Information!

Screening potential candidates
An important thing that may slip your mind at first is the compatibility that the candidate has with your current roommates. It's important to ask a few questions like, why are you subletting? Are you a university student?
The more easy going an individual is, the more likely they will fit in with a group of strangers. It's important to choose subletters at your own discretion  and you may even want to request a reference from their previous landlord if you're really unsure. It's also a bad sign when you get an extremely sketchy response to the initial posting, it may be a sign that that individual should just be off the list immediately.

Setting up viewings
Communicate with possible subletters through whatever means necessary and set up viewings of your room. I know I'm a messy person, everyone tells me that, but you need to pretend like your a real estate agent selling a house. Make sure your room looks amazing, it's going to be a much easier sell. Make sure to have information on hand about the type of heating system, the average monthly utility costs etc. These are questions that subletters will ask.

Finalizing the deal
Always make sure you form a contract with a sublet.

You can use a template like the link below
http://studentlife.uoguelph.ca/sites/uoguelph.ca.ocl/files/SubletAgreement08.pdf

Also it's important to determine a payment plan in terms of both utilities and monthly rent, which should be included within your contract. The safer the better, and in most cases it's a great idea to request post dated cheques as well as the last months rent in order to confirm that the subletter will actually pay you. Make sure to contact your landlord and let them know that an individual has been confirmed as a sublet.
Provide the subletter with e-mails or some other contact information so they can get in touch with their future roommates if need be (this is optional).

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Cheap Eats: Part 2

This is the second post of 2 covering the topic of how to find cheap places to eat through non-mobile means, but instead through tips from this blog post or printable coupons. This post will focus on the following options that includes;

• Coupons
• Daily Deals
• Places you never thought of

Coupons
I know most people associate coupons with crazy ladies that are addicted to cutting coupons and show up on reality tv shows. But it's important to note that it's not a bad thing to whip out a coupon here and there especially when its going to save you some money. A great website to check out is BeFrugal.com where you can sign up and then print off coupons for restaurants. Another great tip is to sign up for the newsletters of your favourite chain restaurants where they often send you emails with deals and promotions that you can use at their restaurants.

Daily Deals
Websites like Groupon.com are great websites where you can get coupons and savings for chain restaurants as well as local restaurants. Check out these sites often and you can even sign up for their newsletters to make sure you get the most up to date deals.

Places you never thought of

This section was one of the main reasons why I wanted write a post covering this topic. Going to the University of Guelph myself I realized that there was a great restaurant on campus as part of our Hotel and Tourism program. This restaurant is run by students and is part of their curriculum which leads to fairly good meals and really inexpensive prices. 

A list of a few great university/college campus restaurants

Niagara College-Benchmark

University of Guelph-P.J's

Humber College- The Humber Room

Algonquin College-Restaurant International

Fanshawe College- Saffron's Restaurant

How do you save while eating out?

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Moving Into Your Rental Home: Cable/Internet

One of the fun parts of moving into a new student house, or moving back into your student house after the summers over, is sorting out cable & internet among other things. It's a chore, no one likes to do it, and then on top of it you have to pay money every month for the services. So the goal here is to make it simple, show you have to save some money and make it a little bit less of a chore. This post strictly deals with internet and cable, as well as cable alternatives. Notice how the title of this blog post doesn't include home phone, it's never something that I even considered because who needs a home phone while at university, save yourself some cash, please! 


Internet and Cable Providers & Deals

• Check out Rogers. They offer a Student deal (Usually 8 months, great Bandwidth and pretty affordable. It will pop up on the Rogers site in late July, August)
• In the case of Rogers there is an entire discussion on Red Flag Deals about Retentions & New Customer  where you can find out how to get an even better deal, it just takes a lot more negotiating
• Check with Bell, I haven't used Bell since the days when you plugged your internet into your phone line so I'm not much help when it comes to their services. 
• Leverage previous agreements with Rogers or Bell, use them against each other. You can often get  fairly large discounts on cable & internet if your contract is set to expire.
• Tekksavvy-Internet and Cable plans are cheaper, but make sure to check, they often charge you for a modem
• Shaw- This provider is only of great use to those who live outside of Ontario I believe
• Telus-Another provider for those non-Ontarian's 

Often providers will offer deals where you only get the cheaper rate for 3 to 6 months and then you get charged a really high amount for the remainder. Try to avoid this, because most of these deals also require you to lock in for at least a year (which doesnt really work for most students) These fun deals are courtesy of Shaw and Bell. 

Some definitions for you
Bandwidth - Generally referred to as the volume of information per unit of time that an internet connection can handle aka. how much you can download in a given month, if you go over this amount your internet provider will charge you a stupidly high amount of money per GB
Retention - When referring to retention in this post, it means that you currently have a contract with a cable/internet/phone provider and its coming to an end. In order to keep your business your provider will call you (multiple times) and try and keep your business. This is when you have room to bargain.
Internet Speed - Mbps?!?! - internet speeds often range from about 3 Mbps to anywhere as high as 75 Mbps for Rogers services anyway. Here's the download speeds provided by Rogers based on internet speed you have. 18 Mbps is the internet speed provided for their Express plan which is often decent enough speed wise for university students that just use the internet for downloading, checking out websites, going on Facebook etc. Those who need more, know they do and don't need my advice.

Download speed- The time it takes for the data to leave your computer and get to someone else's server, which takes places when we do anything from opening a website to downloading music or movies/tv.
Upload Speed- Upload speeds become important when you have a bunch of pictures that you have taken and they are now on your computer, and you want to send them to a relative


Bandwidth Saving Tips

• If all of your room mates love a show but can't watch it at the same time, download it instead of streaming it online. Use a USB and give each other the episodes/seasons it will save bandwidth by preventing all of your roommates from streaming the same episode multiple times
• If your the only one that watches a show just stream it, streaming a single episode uses less bandwidth than downloading it

Cable Alternatives (just sticking with Internet)

• Apple TV-For about $100 you can purchase Apple TV, which allows you to sync all Apple devices in your home with the box and watch video content, play music etc all through your tv (requires an HDMI connection with your tv)
• For those who are more knowledgeable about technology can also unlock Apple TV in order to stream tv shows, movies etc right from your box. Apple TV will require that you have a decent amount of bandwidth with your internet plan so make sure to take note of that. 
• Just stream tv shows and movies on your computer, how often are you actually home to watch your favourite show when its on tv?
• If your tv has an HDMI hookup, you can buy a HDMI cable, attach it your laptop (some laptops don't have HDMI output) and watch streamed tv from your laptop on your television.

Some more tips

• When talking on the phone with a customer service agent, ALWAYS get their name, and their employee number. That way if you ever call back and quote them on something you have proof that they exist and that you spoke to them
• Do your research. Check out what other providers are offering, their prices and the specs (internet speed, bandwidth etc.)
• Have a set target in mind price wise before you get on the phone to talk to a representative

Wrap Up
For most students you don't need more than basic cable (if you even want to buy it) and a decent internet package with enough bandwidth and decent enough download speeds. Don't get weaselled into multi-year contracts if possible because a lot of students end up switching houses, room mates go their separate ways and you don't want to get stuck with a contract in your name at a house you don't live at anymore.. Take advantage of student offers and make use of your parents previous relationships with these cable companies. Saying "my parents have been with your for x number of years, can you get me a better price" may actually work. Make it known that you are a student and you aren't rolling in cash, can they offer you a better deal? Most prices are negotiable, so never settle for the first offer they provide. 

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How to Save More of Your Paycheck: Saving & Budgeting

Aside from cutting down on food purchases at work it's important to save a decent percentage of each pay in order to save up enough money for rent, utilities, food and of course entertainment during the school year. Often on payday I take a percentage of my paycheck (usually over 50%) and put it directly in my high interest savings account.

I often don't leave myself a ton of money other than to cover rent and utility expenses as well as a little money for emergency purchases and unexpected costs. By doing so you still live on your "student budget" but are saving a large percentage of your pay instead of spending most of your paycheck since "you know you have the money now".

Another important step is to develop a budget for both the summer and during the school year to determine how much money you will need for tuition, groceries, bus passes, utilities (on average) etc. By doing so you can figure out how much you will actually be able to spend when you go out, if you will have any leftover money to make clothing purchases etc.  The sooner you start saving, planning and budgeting this summer the more money you will have saved and the less you will have to rely on student loans, credit cards and even your parents.

There are a variety of websites that provide excel spreadsheets to allow you to develop a budget.  Check these 

out

Yearly Budget Worksheet

Get Smarter About Money - Student Survival Kit

Set up a budget for the school year AND the summer

• Make sure to breakdown costs for tuition, groceries, utilities (you can base this on your previous years costs, they should be similar)
• This will give you an idea on what you will need, how much you will need to save and if you need a part-time job etc.

Note this post is just an overview, later posts will go more in depth into these topics. 

Does anyone have any saving tips and tricks that they use?

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No Gym...No Problem

Christmas holidays are basically eating and drinking. Most people also don't have a membership to a gym since they went away for school. Check out this awesome, and FREE way to work out at home without any equipment other than your body.

Full Body Workout with Nothing But Your Body

Now I just need to take my own advice...

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Saving money on...Beer

Nothing says Christmas break like hanging out with the family, sitting in front of the TV or sharing a (few?) drinks with friends.
So check this site out, and see what's on sale this week at your local beer store. Since we get ripped off in Ontario no matter what, might as well save a bit when you buy your beer.

Beer Deals Canada

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