Your College Survival Guide

College can be a really stressful time for may people. For those just starting to go through it for the first time it can almost seem an impossible.

Money

Money is usually tight for anyone in school and it can be hard to find a job. The first thing you want to do is try budgeting before going to school to see if you have enough saved. You do it by making a list of your monthly expenses like this:

• $300 car insurance
• $500 rent
• $100 groceries
• $150 gas

Then you would add everything together and multiply your total by the number of months, usually four months, and see if you have enough to last. If not then try to cut down on your expenses. This can be done by shopping the flyers for groceries and walking where you can. If your tuition includes a yearly bus pass then use the bus to save on gas if you have the time.

Another little trick that worked well is to divide your pay cheque. Once you have a rough estimate of what your monthly expenses are, look at your monthly pay. If you have enough to cover your monthly expenses with some left over put that left over into a saving fund. It may also help to deal in cash and use envelopes to divide everything. Make an envelope for each bill or expense, write how much needs to go in per pay, create one for savings, and put the money straight in there. Things like eating out or alcohol comes out of your grocery money and anything you have left over from the cheque goes into the savings. The savings one is to be used in an emergency or as an actual savings.

It can be very stressful for a lot of people out on their own to stick to a budget especially with today's inflating prices. Thankfully, many colleges and universities will offer jobs on campus that fit around your schedule. Some of these jobs include residential advisor in the dorms, tutoring, class scribes (taking notes for the class and posting reminders), and a server/bar tender at the campus pubs. If none of these jobs are available or spark your interest there's plenty of online, on the side jobs such as transcribing or sales.

Appliances

No matter if it's student housing or dorm life for you most places come with a fridge, oven, and microwave. The best appliances for college students are coffee makers, toaster ovens, hot plates, and a crock pot. Many dorm rooms have an oven somewhere in the building but not in the individual dorms. Cooking simple things can get pretty hard if you constantly have to lug around stuff up or down floors just to be able to make a grilled cheese. A hot plate can help you with that. And for most things that you can't make with the hot plate you can make with the toaster oven, including cookies.

Relating back to money, a coffee maker can be a real life saver. Most people don't realize it but buying coffee is a lot of money. Now let's do some math here. The average regular coffee in Ontario is $3.28 and if you have one coffee every school day (which lets be real, doesn't happen often) for one month that's $65.60 per month. Multiply that by the 8 months of your normal September-April year that's $524.80. Now basing it off of myself I used to drink at least two cups daily which brings us to $1,049.60 for 8 months. That's one hell of a lot of money for coffee plus a usual 10 minute wait in line to even get the coffee. it's a lot cheaper to get a single cup coffee maker and bring your coffee with you.

Crock pots are a blessing as they allow you to put your food in the pot before you go in the morning and have a nice warm meal waiting for you when you get home. They can cook anything from breakfast to late night snacks. Many of the newer ones are electronic and can be programmed to only be on for a certain amount of time before switching to the "keep warm" setting. It's also great for making larger meals that will produce a lot of leftovers so you can have multiple meals. This can also cut down on the amount of dishes you have to do as everything is in one pot but if you really don't want to try washing your pot then you can purchase liners for it so all you need to do is pull out the liner, throw it out, and wipe out any condensation.

Food

Everyone needs food, even starving college students. We can all agree that the best part of going home is your ability to get a good, large, home-cooked meal. I personally keep a small cooler bag in my car just to transport food back to my college home. Take as many leftovers as you can home and store them in the freezer until you decide to eat them. This way you always have a nice meal on hand, you just have to warm it up.

As said above, shop the sales. I like to go to Food Basics for everything but fresh produce. For that, I find Walmart is best. Of course, there's the classic "college food" of ramen, KD, hot dogs, and other not so healthy quick meals. These work fine but for those looking for a bit more, there are a few tips to help. The first one is using a slow cooker. Seriously it is a life saver. You can buy a cheap cut of meat and throw it in the slow cooker for a nice and tender end result. If you are putting veggies in with the meat then put the root veggies on the bottom and then the meat as it will take longer for them to cook. Also, use dried herbs instead of fresh as they are cheaper and better for a long cooking period.

You can look for easy things to either bring to class with you or eat as you run out the door. These will help to cut back on the cost of buying food on campus. You can get a box of pancake mix for roughly $7. Make up the whole box and store the pancakes in the freezer so you only have to pop them in a toaster or microwave before enjoying. A box of frozen waffles is also a great alternative.

Other things like canned soup, dried pasta, or bread are all stuff that's either cheap or often comes on sale. The canned or dried goods can last a long time without expiring and make multiple meals while the bread is good for most things (including getting rid of leftovers) and can be easily frozen.

Leftovers themselves are great. If you decide that you're tired of having the same thing or you have multiple things that need to be eaten soon then use whatever in a stir fry or stew. You can also try to use every part of the food you're making. For example, when eating a chicken leave the bones and leftover meat you can't get off, put it in a pot with some water, and make chicken broth. This can be done with any bone from meat and is an amazing way to make a stew or soup to use up leftovers when you have nothing else. The broth can even be frozen for years before you need to use it.

Self Care

Stress kills folks. Self care is an important part of getting through college with as little break downs as possible. Take some time for yourself every night for at least an hour before bed. This can be anything you do for fun like dancing, listening to music, watching TV, baking/cooking, reading, writing, exorcising, absolutely anything you find fun and relaxing. Doing this a bit before bed is a simple way to get a better night sleep and take care of your mental health. And trust me, if you want to make it through the year you need to take care of your mental health.

Another important part of self care is your living space and personal hygiene. It's annoying but having a clean living space is actually really helpful in helping your mental care and helping you focus on your school work. When you're on a time limit or just don't feel up to it I always found three things the easiest and most helpful. The first, throw out all the garbage in your space. You don't have to take the trash out but just making sure all the empty bottles and stuff are gone is the important part. The second is to throw your bedding and PJs in for a quick wash. Just washed them? Throw the blankets in the dryer for about half an hour just before bed so they're toasty warm. The third is to just quickly spray an air freshener around the room.

Personal hygiene is also super important. A quick shower where you just wash your hair can do wonders for the mind. A quick brush of your hair or teeth also does a lot to freshen yourself up and make you feel better. You have no idea how much not having your teeth brushed can actually affect you.