With the holiday season comes lots of expenses- travel to and from home, nights out with old high school friends, gifts for family and friends, plus New Years’ celebrations! All of this spending can leave finances in a bind if we aren’t careful. But taking some time to budget for the semester can not only set your mind at ease, it can also save you some serious cash! If you “Google” the phrase “budgeting for college students” it comes up with approximately 1,1500,000 results. This can be an overwhelming amount of information! Here are a few tips to make managing your finances just a little bit easier than sifting through all those million-plus websites!

Make a spending journal. You’ll be absolutely amazed at where your money goes! If you have online banking it helps, but it’s also a good idea to write stuff down as soon as you spend the money. Make a list of your expenses and your income. If your income is more than your expenses, you are spending wisely and within your budget! If your expenses are more than your income (or if you want to save up for that new toy you’ve been wanting!), follow these budgeting tips.

Go grocery shopping! It sounds silly, but think about how many times you’ve bought fast food or had lunch out just because you didn’t have food at home to bring to campus. When you go, make sure you get food you can use. If you like to sleep until the last minute, it would be a good idea to buy meal bars, nuts, fruit and small lunch-sized containers of things such as yogurt and applesauce that you can just grab on your way out the door instead of buying bulk- items you have to re-package into lunch sized containers or buying stuff to make sandwiches. It may sound good at the time, but chances are if you can’t grab it and go you’ll probably end up running out of time before you get it made and buying your lunch anyway.

Instead of going out to the movies in the evenings, find something to do on campus. Chances are, no matter what day of the week it is, at least one student organization will be showing a movie, or having a game night, or something fun! If you’re worried about going alone, take a friend with you. And who knows, maybe you’ll make some new friends too! If that still doesn’t seem like your thing, grab a couple of friends and head over to the Student Union. Check out a pool table or play around with the Wii! These are both free options that could give you a night just as fun as the movies.

Last of all, when you do go out- choose wisely. Find places that are reasonably priced. If possible, find places that have specials- most restaurants have half-priced appetizers and/ or small meal specials at various times throughout the day. Most places also have bigger portions than people can eat in one sitting. If you find you have trouble finishing a meal on your own, split it with a friend! This saves you money, and you don’t end up having a ton of leftovers to worry about getting home to the refrigerator!