read this if you are a college student.

on

COLLEGE STUDENTS.

College is rough for a lot of people. I've been meaning to make this post for a really long time because I think the number of people who call themselves 'broke college students' can really use some advice. I am currently a Freshman in college and while I've seen many posts on /r/beermoney in the past saying 'I'm a broke college student, help me make some money on the side!' but I've never really been able to relate to the actual concerns to respond to these questions coherently, or with the actual best options directly. Additionally, I've found that before I moved in to college, I remembered seeing a whole ton of 'student benefits/discounts' but now that I'm actually here it all feels really underwhelming, and I found it to be a struggle to find a full list of options.

So that's basically what this post is going to be. I'm going to address as many concerns as possible, and I'm going to direct specific information that might fit your personal scenario... because there's a LOT that /r/beermoney users can do while in college to make life just a little bit easier.

NOTE: Before I start anything, I really want to make it clear that I am NOT an expert and I'm only good at recommending beermoney sites to people, I'm probably not that great when it comes to financial advice. If you're in need of financial advice, there are subreddits for that. Most of the examples or scenarios in this post are all just things I have noticed personally and may not relate to you. As always, if you have any specific questions feel free to leave a comment or send me a PM. I'll pretty much always respond to you.

Table of Contents

Section Ctrl + F
Two Types Of College Students TTOCS
Freebies For College Students FFCS
Student Discounts SDSS
Beermoney Apps/Sites For Students BASFS
FAQ FAQS
Conclusion CONSE

There are two types of college students you'll find on /r/beermoney. (TTOCS)

Chances are, if you're reading this post you'll fit into one of these two categories...

1. You are a student who has lots of student loans and you're trying to cut back on spending in every way possible.

2. You are a student who has little/no student loans and you're trying to get yourself into a good situation for when you get out of college.

Depending on where you personally fit on that spectrum, you'll probably be looking for different advice, but regardless I think it is fair to say that everyone is looking for some additional money.

If you are person #1...

Don't buy things unless you absolutely need them. This advice probably is just general knowledge, but it will really save you money in the long run. I'm going to continue writing this section with the assumption that you own a laptop of some sort. If you don't have a laptop, I'll honestly say that I believe that the best thing in the entire world that someone can invest in is a computer. I'm fully convinced that a person who owns a proper computer can be significantly more productive that someone who does not.... and that's not just in beermoney terms, that's in just about all aspects of life.

If you are someone who opens up their wallet and literally sees nothing, beermoney possibly won't be the best option for you (as a standalone option), and you really should try to get a job while you're at college. If possible, I'd really recommend looking into any on-campus jobs that are offered by your college. My college in particular is really great at hiring people for jobs all over the place (even campus safety). It's also great to get a job on campus because the jobs offered by your college often will work with your class schedule much better than an off-campus job would. Remember that you're at school to get an education, and your school sees you as a student first while an off-campus job sees you as their employee, and they don't really care about your crazy schedule.

I have a buddy who often will tell me that they really want to go out and buy some shit they don't need or go out to dinner at some fancy place, and I'll be confused because they'd have gone all week complaining that they have no money... and all of a sudden they want to go out and buy a bunch of shit just because. When I ask they'll usually respond with 'Oh, I just got paid today so I have money now', and they'll blow all of the money over the weekend and feel like shit all week long.

DO NOT DO THIS.

If you're new to beermoney, I usually like to tell people that money you earn from a job is 'real money', and money that is earned from beermoney is 'fun money'.

Real money is money that you aren't allowed to fuck around with. Put that shit in a bank account and hold it for when you actually need it... or put that shit into investments or a savings account with interest. That money should be as untouchable as possible.

Fun money is money that you earned just for the sake of having fun. Use this money to treat yourself every once in a while. If you're worried that you won't make enough from beermoney and if you tried only using this money as 'fun money' you would never have any fun, I wouldn't worry too much. I'm really confident that any college student in the US would be able to make at least $100 a month in beermoney, even if you have a busy schedule. As a point of reference, since I have moved in to college I have almost entirely stopped doing most of what I used to do and my earnings have dropped by ~85%, but I'm still not finding it difficult to rake in at least $200 a month.

Again, assuming you have a computer, you could really benefit from using several web servicing sites such as Cambly, Usertesting, or other freelance sites. There's a lot of options for college students in the realm of 'testing sites', 'person to person communication/tutoring', and sites that allow you to sell your skills. A related sub might be /r/slavelabour. For example If you're a CS major you could put up an offer on slavelabour, or on the new /r/programminghelp and you could benefit yourself as you're getting better at coding, while also making a bit of cash.

If you have any classes where you absolutely do not need your computer, you should consider passive options for your computer. I actually made a really detailed post about passive sites that I'd highly recommend taking a look at. You could also run this at night while you're sleeping.

If you're someone who is dying for cash, one of the most popular money making methods for college students is to 'donate' plasma. This has always been pretty big. You'll probably want to google this one to see what options are available around you. I personally don't donate plasma and I don't recommend doing it frequently either. The place by me pays $20 for your first visit of the week and $50 for the second for a total of $70 a week donating plasma. Again, I don't recommend going frequently.

If you're looking for ideas of what to/not to do for beermoney as a broke college student, feel free to PM me or read through some of the FAQs below.

If you are person #2...

Don't float through college thinking you don't have to worry about a thing as long as you get good grades. If you don't have any student loans because maybe you're born into a wealthy family, or you have a lot of people supporting your education, or maybe you got a really nice scholarship, don't count that as a pass. I personally can relate to person number 2 a lot more, so I'll probably provide a lot of personal examples here.

My brother and I are extremely different. Throughout college he would rely almost entirely on our parents to provide. If he wanted pizza, you better bet your ass he'd be paying with our parent's CC. I actually know a lot of people who are very similar to my brother. There's one girl I know who would go shopping for some new clothes at the local mall and she would go just about every week and when it was time for her to check out she would call up daddy and ask if he could pay her back for her unnecessary purchases (and she'd always get told yes).

DON't FuCKING DO THIS !!!

College is the time of your life where you really need to become independent from your parents. If you're not paying for your tuition or room & board or your access to the dining hall, that should probably be the limit.

If you have never gotten a job before, now is probably the best time for you to get some experience. Currently I am a student host at my college and it's a pretty great job because it doesn't interfere with any of my classes. Basically all I do is host prospective students who may be interested in attending this college. It's a pretty easy job, and for $47 a night, I'm pretty satisfied. (And hey, if anyone reading this is a high school student and you're interested in checking out the 2018 #1 college in the midwest, feel free to request /u/Fishering and we can hang out all night! And yeah feel free to just google '2018 #1 college in the midwest' ;) not to brag or anything ;) ).

Having an actual job will help ground you more as a person, all money aside.

I personally invest all money I make from my job and make sure it all is kept safe. I'd suggest you try the same.

Since you probably have some money to play around with, you probably have a lot more options when it comes to beermoney. I'd really recommend you take a look at the FAQ for some things you could do during your free time. There are some things that I would really recommend you take advantage of...

A lot of people around here will throw around terms like 'computer farm' or 'phone farm', and I'll honestly say that you should avoid 'farming' at all costs, but if you are someone living in a dorm where you aren't paying for your own electricity, you could really take advantage of this in a few ways...

Here's a post from a couple years back about 'free electricity'. Most of the responses on that post are just 'grow marijuana', which is pretty much out of question here, but it could be very worthwhile for you to consider mining cryptos. A huge site around here is 'Nicehash', and if you can get your hands on an ASIC, you can check profitability with Nicehash on this page. Just know that you won't have to pay the electricity each month, so that's more money that you could be making.

Don't be afraid of 'spending money to make money'.

Freebies For College Students (FFCS)

These are all some things that are absolutely free for pretty much all college students.

There's a lot of freebies out there than simply cannot be listed because they don't apply to everyone like these do. You'll want to check local offers around you to see what might be available to you.

Student Discounts (SDSS)

There are a lot of student discounts you can find. I'm actually not even going to post any directly on here.

Beermoney Sites/Apps Specifically for College Students

Whew, here we go. This is probably one of my favorite parts of this post just because these are some beermoney methods that are really only meant for College students.

  • StudySoup - StudySoup is a site that allows you to take & upload notes for your classes. The banner on their site advertises "$300 per semester" for uploading notes. They have a referral system where both you and your referrer will receive $5 when you sign up and become an elite note taker. Worth checking out of you're a good note taker and if your school is accepted. Ref | Nonref

  • PocketPoints - Pocket Points is an app that was introduced as way to forge you to pay attention in classes. The goal is to run this app while you're in class and you will earn points for not getting distracted by your phone. I actually cannot use this app myself, but from what it seems it is just an app that offers light discounts for stores that you probably have never heard of.

  • OnceClass - OneClass is very similar to StudySoup, the concept is the same. You take notes and upload them. I'm not sure if you'd be able to use both of these sites since technically you give up the rights to your notes once you submit them. Both sites are very competitive for your notes, so it's worth checking out both. Here's my referral link. Here's not my referral link.

  • Discover It Student Card - I'm really not sure if this counts, but I'm adding it here anyways. The Discover It Student card is now offering free $20 cash back for each year you hold a 3.0+ GPA while at college up to 5 years. If you want this card or have this card, that is a nice add on benefit.

FAQ (FAQS)

Q: Is it worth phone farming while in college?

A: I was actually talking with Joe from the Tech Slugs about this and I think we both agreed that it is absolutely not worth it... unless you have remote access and you can just leave all your shit at home. Different schools might have different network policies that could prevent you from farming, getting banned is a concern, and honestly it's just fucking awkward getting asked what the fuck your phone farm is every day.

I'm too lazy to type any other FAQ's right now tbh. Will edit later.

Conclusion (CONSE)

I'm pretty sure this is the second longest /r/beermoney post I have ever written. There's just a lot of words here. I really don't know what else to add to this. Just feel free to comment any additional information you might like to see added, and please do ask me any questions you may have!

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Here are a few of my other posts you might enjoy reading...



Submitted November 15, 2017 at 05:57PM by Fishering http://ift.tt/2yJLt1u

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