Money, money, money, money.

The words haunt me every time I go into a store these days. As college students, I think most of us can agree that money is the one thing that hangs over our heads while we pursue our education.

Money is not actually one of the five basic human needs, but as any college student can tell you, it is a real necessity. I, in particular, have a rather hard time holding on to my funds.

Amazingly, I’m not a shop o’ holic. I don’t get my nails or hair done on a regular basis. I don’t even eat out, OK well hardly ever. I do not have an extravagant lifestyle, yet every month I am completely flabbergasted at the lack of moola in my account.

We all come from a different lifestyle than the college life provides. Before Sacramento State I was living in a beautiful brand new 3600 square-foot house in Antioch with my boyfriend.

Upon arriving in Sacramento I swapped the luxury home for a 10-by-10 square-foot room in an OK house in a sketchy neighborhood. Whether it’s a place of your own, with a partner or with your parents, a lifestyle change needs to occur because for most of us the income has changed and now we must plan accordingly.

What happened to all the money I once had? My boyfriend and my father pointed to my phone bill. Fair enough, but my other expenses are never ending: books, tuition, supplies, ink cartridges, printer paper and parking fees. The important thing to me is to be able to survive during the school week, and still have enough left in my account to have a social life on Friday or Saturday night. I live for the Friday evening beer during the stressful semesters.

Eating out is not something I do anymore. My budget doesn’t allow it. I now take pride in making community meals with my friends. By sharing the grocery bill I am able to cut down on my food costs.

I overheard some people talking in one of my classes about the difficulty of cooking for one. What I didn’t realize after leaving my parent’s nest was how the immense savings a homemade meal can contribute to my weekend fund later on.

In high school, the mall was my best friend: Nordstrom’s, Express and Macy’s were my favorite weekend spots. I loved going over the hundreds of different designer and expensive racks not able to buy whatever I wanted then either, but at least I knew I could come back in a week or so for what I missed. Target, Old Navy and the Nordstrom’s Rack are not quite the same as the posh department stores, but are examples of places I now go to buy decent, functional, cute and, most importantly, inexpensive clothing.

The next drastic measure was cutting back in shopping. For women this is a major set back. Granted it’s still hard to admit that the vast majority of my clothes come from Target, but it’s cheap and most of the time no one even knows. If people do know, chances are they shop at the same discount store, or they got ripped off buying into the brand name game.

I have also become quite the coupon hunter. I know this seems like a very grandma thing to do, but let me tell you that old lady was saving a fortune. The grocery stores have pretty much handled the coupon thing for us with their individual club cards, but I still prefer to walk around with my roommate and a calculator.

My roommate keeps me from going over budget and the calculator keeps track of what we’ve spent while still shopping. We look somewhat nerdy in the store, but if we want to go out on the town over the weekend it’s best to stay within our grocery budget.

My other new best friend is the Penny Saver! Everything is in that puppy from pizza coupons, Orchard Supply Hardware coupons and used and new furniture. Buy everything in their generic brands. It’s surprising how attached you can get to even the knock-off brand of your favorite shampoo. I cried the first time I couldn’t afford the fake brand of my favorite hair products, and had to resort to the cheapest of cheap shampoos. I was convinced it would be better to use a bar of soap than the bottom of the barrel shampoo.

I may never have Donald Trump’s money, and I may shop at Target, but come Friday night, the Penny Saver has saved me enough so that my social life won’t suffer. My friends still think I look cute, and men don’t pay attention to name brands.

You can survive on Top Ramen. Remember when that used to taste good? But why settle for that when there are so many other ways to save money and make your meals interesting?