Working part-time while you’re in school can mean the difference between living like a pauper or enjoying some of the creature comforts your parents provided for you while you were living at home. Whether you work summers only, part-time on or off campus during the school year, or you decide to be your own boss, these moneymaking tips will help you get started.
Good Ideas for Making Money
1.Start saving some of your earnings early,
preferably while you’re still in high school.
Once you’re in college and struggling to make ends
meet, you’ll wish you had some of that money you
spent on eating out, cell phone bills, gas, CDs, and
clothes. Put away a percentage of your earnings and
gift money in a special savings account earmarked
for college.
2.If you don’t want to detract from your study
time by working while you’re in college, beef
up your summer job savings by working at a job that
allows overtime. Because your employer is required
to pay you time-and-a-half for any hours you work
over forty in a week, your overtime dollars will add
up fast. Work as much overtime as you can, and save
the money to use during the school year.
Get the Best Jobs on Campus:
3.Check into work-study programs at your
school. You may be able to find paid work, like
an internship, that also counts toward academic
credit. The hours for on-campus work-study are
usually more flexible than for an off-campus job,
which will allow you time for classes and studying.
4.In addition to being flexible, work-study jobs
are a good idea for financial aid reasons.
Whereas off-campus earnings are included in your
income and reported on the Free Application for
Student Aid (FAFSA), work-study earnings are not,
so you won’t be expected to contribute those earnings
to the cost of tuition, room, and board.
5.The early bird gets the worm (or in this case,
the work) when it comes to applying for oncampus
work-study jobs. The best jobs get taken
quickly, so apply as soon as you arrive on campus.
6.Landing a part-time job in the student bookstore
can score you a hefty discount on your
textbooks. If your school offers a 25 percent discount,
and the average cost of books for the school
year is $1,200, you could save $300 per year on books
by taking advantage of the employee discount.
7.If the job listings at the student employment
office are scarce by the time you arrive on
campus, go directly to the places where you’d be
interested in working, like the library, computer
center, campus bookstore, or physical education
building, and apply directly. Job openings are not
always posted in the employment office. If you can’t
find a job you want right away, keep checking every
few weeks.
8.The campus library is a great place to work.
You may find time to study while you’re on
the job, especially if you work evenings or early
mornings when things are quiet.
9. Check into becoming a student assistant to
one of your professors. You can earn extra
cash while gaining valuable experience in your field.
Four Good Off-Campus Jobs
10. Find a job that pays tips, like waiting tables,
bartending, delivering pizza, detailing cars
at a car wash, or catering. You’ll make more per hour
than you would at many other jobs, sometimes as
much as twice the minimum wage—or better.
11. If you read up on how to make popular
mixed drinks, you can earn great tips bartending
for local restaurants or caterers.You also get
to meet a lot of interesting people, and bartending
is a skill you can always fall back on in a pinch.
12. Get a part-time job at a restaurant that
provides free staff meals while you’re on
duty. You’ll save a bundle on food. This will only
work well if you like the type of food the restaurant
serves. For health reasons (and your waistline), it’s
probably best if it’s not a fast-food joint.
13.Work as a caddy at the local golf course.
You get to spend time outside, work on
your tan, hit a few balls now and then, and earn
some money, including tips.
Tips for Being Your Own Boss in College
job while taking classes? Try earning
money with skills you already possess. Think of
something you’re good at that other students or residents
of the town need. Create flyers on your computer
and post them around campus and your
dorm, offering your services for a fee.
15. One of the easiest ways to make extra
cash is to tutor a fellow classmate in one
of your best subjects. Just because calculus or
French is easy for you doesn’t mean it is for everyone
else. Tutoring allows you to choose your own
work hours and earn a decent hourly rate.
16. Baby-sit for in-town families or for students
with kids. Baby-sitting can command
a higher hourly rate than you might imagine,
so check around and find out what the going rate is
in your area. The more kids you baby-sit at one
time, the higher the rate. After the little ones are in
bed, you’ll have quiet time for studying.
17. Get physical. Mow lawns, help with weeding,
gardening, or landscaping in summer,
and shovel walks and driveways in winter. Busy
adults are often willing to pay good money to have
someone else do these time-consuming chores.
18. If you have access to a lawnmower, contact
area real estate companies and offer your
services mowing and maintaining lawns for vacant
homes that are for sale. Somebody has to take care of
these yards so they look good to prospective buyers,
and it might as well be you. Find out the going rate in
your area and price your services accordingly.
19. If your family owns enough land to allow
you to do some planting, take advantage
of the growing season to start your own pumpkin
patch and sell pumpkins to the public in the fall.
You can offer pick-your-own pumpkins and let the
buyers do all the work, or you can harvest them
yourself and charge more.
20. If you can get permission from a tree lot
owner to trim approximately twelve
inches from the ends of balsam tree branches, you
can make your own fresh balsam wreaths and sell
them during the holiday season. Since trimming is
good for the trees, permission should be easy to
obtain. The only other supplies necessary (unless
you want to offer decorating services) are a metal
ring to attach the balsam to and wire to attach it with.
You can sell the finished wreaths for anywhere from
$10 to $30 each depending on the going price where
you live, at a cost to you of approximately $1.50 to
$2.00 per wreath.
21. During the holidays, offer gift-wrapping
services to local stores, fellow students,
or neighbors. Post notices around campus, at grocery
store bulletin boards, and other public places.
Some smaller stores may allow you to set up a table
in the store and wrap presents for customers after
they finish shopping.
22. Sign up to be a mystery shopper. Many
retailers and restaurants hire college
students to pose as customers and observe
employee behavior, then report back on the quality
of the service. Getting paid to eat or shop: can it get
any better?
23. Start your own pet-sitting service. Pet-sit
for neighbors on vacation or walk dogs
while people are at work. In many cities, vacationers
or traveling businesspeople pay $10 or more per
visit for someone to come into their home to feed
and walk their pet.
24.Detail cars. This is another chore that
busy adults are often more than willing to
pay someone else to do. All you need is a hose and a
water hook-up, a bucket, car cleaner and wax, a
sponge, and a few soft cloths. Take the car to a doit-
yourself car wash or clean it in the owners’ driveway
using their hose and water.
25. Type school papers for other students
who don’t have the time or whose keyboard
skills are not as good as yours. Read local
newspaper ads to see what the going rate is and
charge a little less than that, either by the page or by
the hour.
26. Offer shopping services for busy adults.
Learn how to find the best prices online by
using some of the price comparison search engines
like www.pricegrabber.com. For a flat fee or a percentage
of the savings, do the legwork for your customers.
27. If you love music, start a DJ service on
campus. You’ll need to make an investment in
equipment, but you may have some of it already. Expect
to earn between $200 and $300 per gig. Use word-ofmouth,
business cards you can print from your own
computer, flyers around campus, and a listing in the
campus phone directory to advertise your service.
28. Clean houses or other students’ dorm
rooms. Post notices on the bulletin
boards of local grocery stores and around campus
to find customers. Many businesses also hire college
students to clean offices at night.
29. Are you good at troubleshooting Windows
or Mac OS computer problems? Do
you have a knack for resolving hardware issues? Can
you help people get online or set up their modem or
wireless Internet connection? Use your expertise to
help other students or adults resolve their computer
problems and charge a fee that your fellow
students can afford.
30. Be a mother’s helper or part-time nanny
for a busy mom. Place a line ad in the
local newspaper or scout the classifieds for these
types of jobs near your school. Line ads are inexpensive
and even offered as a free service at some
newspapers.
31. If you live off campus and have your own
yard, plant a garden and sell your produce
to neighbors and other students. If you’re really ambitious,
form a student co-op to manage a joint garden
and sell your wares at a local farmers’ market. Take a
fee off the top for managing the co-op and split the
rest of the income with the other participants.
32. If you have access to a kitchen and you like
to cook, make baked goods and sell them
to neighbors or at a local farmers’ market. Homemade
breads, cookies, cupcakes, cakes, pies, and other treats
are nearly always bestsellers at these events.
33. Come up with creative ways to earn money
by assessing the needs you see on campus.
Is the nearest grocery store a fifteen-minute walk
away? Start an affordable delivery service so students
who live on campus don’t have to lug heavy groceries
back to the dorm. Use your imagination and your
powers of observation to come up with other ideas.
34. Buy small antiques or collectibles and
auction them on eBay. Leave the more
expensive items for someone else to buy and sell,
unless you’re knowledgeable about their worth. You
don’t want to be stuck paying more for something
than you can get for it.
35. If you’re Web savvy and capable of setting
up a website that can attract significant
traffic, you can make money with affiliate programs.
Sign up with sites like Amazon, All Posters, or businesses
related to your website topic. You’ll earn a
commission every time someone makes a purchase
after clicking on an affiliate’s link on your site.
Four Offbeat Ways to Make Money
36. Volunteer for experiments conducted by
your college’s psychology department.
You’ll be paid by the hour or earn a flat fee for each
experiment. It’s a good way to earn extra cash without
a long-term time commitment.
37. Donate plasma to your local blood bank
and make $15 to $30 a pop. You must be in
good health and drug-free. This isn’t a good way to
make steady income but it can help get you out of a
temporary cash bind.
38. Returning recyclable bottles and cans
may seem like a pain in the neck, but the
deposit fees can add up. It goes without saying that
you should turn in your own recyclables, but you can
also offer to dispose of your dormmates’ empties and
collect the empties after parties in exchange for the
bottle deposits. Stash the cash away for an emergency
or for an occasional splurge on something you
otherwise wouldn’t justify spending money on.
39. This moneymaking venture isn’t for
everyone, but these days, male college
students are frequently making donations to sperm
banks at around $40 per deposit. It’s not exactly a
steady job, but it provides a few extra dollars when
you really need it.
Other Cash-Generating Ideas
40. Instead of spending the money from
birthdays, Christmas and other holidays,
work bonuses, tax refunds, and other cash windfalls,
save it in your college bank account. It will
reduce the amount you need to borrow to get
through college and lower your interest expenses.
41. Sell something of value to raise money.
Before you leave for school in the fall, go
through your closets, garage, basement, and attic to
scout for items you or your family no longer use or
need. Collectibles like baseball cards, autographed
sports paraphernalia, coins, music CDs, or similar
items could score you some extra cash.
42. If your parents have any U.S. government
savings bonds in their names, now may be
a good time to cash them in. If they use the proceeds
to pay for qualified education expenses (tuition and
fees) for the year in which they cash in the bonds, the
income they’ve earned on them may be tax free. There
are a number of restrictions, though. For instance,
your parents will get the deduction only to the extent
that tuition and fees exceed your financial aid and
scholarships; their income must fall below the threshold;
and any other tax credits and deductions they
take, like the Hope Scholarship Credit and the Tuition
deduction, will reduce their income deduction on the
savings bonds. See IRS Publication 970 for details.
43. You may have unclaimed money waiting
for you to stake a claim. It could be
unused gift certificates, life insurance left to you, a
balance in a forgotten bank account, a refund owed
you, or other funds being held for you. Contact the
Unclaimed Property Administrator in your state
government or search online at www.uphlc.org (if
your state provides information online).
44. Do you have any stocks that you could
sell to help pay for college? Ask your parents
if they or any other relatives ever bought stocks
in your name. If so, consider selling them to help
pay tuition or room and board. If you’re lucky, a relative
may even be willing to sell stocks or mutual
funds they own themselves and gift the cash to you
for college expenses.
45. Are there any cash-value insurance policies
in your name that your parents or
grandparents might have taken out for you when you
were younger? People often forget they ever bought
these old policies. If such a policy exists, consider
cashing it in and using the money toward tuition or
other college expenses.
46. Sign up to critique ads online for
www.brandport.com. You’ll be paid for
each ad you watch and answer questions about.
Depending on how fast youcan do it and how many
you do, you could earn up to $30 in an hour.
47. Turn your trash into cash by getting rid of
stuff you no longer need at a yard sale.
Attract more customers by getting other students to
join in. You may be able to get permission to hold
your sale in a campus facility. Advertise your yard
sale on the online campus bulletin board system and
look for free classified listings in local newspapers.
48. If you have a big-ticket item to sell, like
computer or exercise equipment, try
selling it with a classified ad in a newspaper or
online. You’ll probably get more for it than you
would at a yard sale.
49. Used books, CDs, DVDs, and books on
tape are popular items for resale. Some
stores will pay you cash, while others will give you
credit toward new items.
50. Many college students shop at consignment
stores, so when you tire of your
clothes, don’t leave them hanging in your closet,
throw them out, or give them away. Place them in a
consignment shop and when they sell, the shop
owner will pay you a percentage of the sale.
51. Tell your parents about www.upromise.com,
where they can register
their credit and debit cards and earn money back
on purchases they make with their cards. The
amounts, which can be used for college expenses,
are small, but every little bit helps.