- Toilet roll. Nobody has time to be handing over their grocery funds for the week just to buy an agreeable pack of Andrex loo roll, so how about taking few extra napkins from the local McDonald’s next time you’re drunkenly bartering over the quality of the toy you got in your Happy Meal? A cheap and cheery way of making sure you’re never sat playing Russian Roulette with your backside and a wad of SPAR’s Own Brand paper again. Why not pinch some straws and ketchup sachets while you’re at it? This can only work in your bank account’s favour.
- With great loans comes great responsibility. It’s time to resurrect the fine art of haggling for a new age of university budgets. No harm was ever done by getting a little bit sassy with the debit/credit card machines in New Look. After the cashier has tallied your clothes and accessories and the card machine screen asks, “Is £45.00 okay?” don’t just press the “YES” button like a patsy, begin the negotiations! Start your counteroffer at £3.50 and test your money-saving mettle to the max. NB: Probably best to do this at the market and not chain-retailers.
- If you have been in Lancaster for even a day you will know that rainfall on an hourly basis is fairly unexceptional. To save money on an umbrella, try going to the lost and found department of the university or large public library and telling them you lost a black umbrella. They will have several, from which you can pick the best one and claim it as your own.
- Shop reductions are a student’s best friend. When you see a fatigued looking employee stumble out the staffroom with a yellow sticker price gun, wait for it… wait for it… GO! Tail them like you’re discretely trying to start a conga line at an awkward wedding reception. Follow wherever those little reduced stickers go like you’re being paid for it. Don’t be afraid to express your opinion to said employee. That bread roll could easily be a couple of pence cheaper. Will anybody really buy that out-of-date pasta salad while it’s still got a pound sign on the price label? You’re just a friendly neighbour trying to help the business after all.
- Hang onto the outside of the 2A to campus.
- If you ever find yourself in a stationery shop about to purchase a pen, drop the item and back away slowly. Breathe. There is no need for such extremities. Fresher’s Fairs, Department Opening Days, and pretty much any undergraduate exhibition will have ballpoints up to their knees hoping that a couple of easily-influenced first-years will, in a couple of years, find themselves thinking, “Well, this orange pen has served me well – maybe I will take that internship at B&Q.”
- Have a House Swear Jar. The charge is up to you. I was raised by a teacher and a vicar thus would end up having to pay a mortgage’s worth of pound coins whenever I so much as stubbed my toe. Maybe the smaller expense of 10p a cuss would be better suited to a house of loutish post-teens.
- Watch Nick Clegg’s speech pledging to eliminate tuition fees and get so worked up by it that your blood pressure goes up thereby increasing body temperature and reducing the need for heating.
- Student discounts. Always ask. ALWAYS. Ask at DFS.
- Shop at Primark.
