21 Effective Ways to Save Money as a Student in Philippines

Always begging money from your parents to buy your needs in school? Not again! With these ultimate money saving tips, you’ll learn ways how to effectively save money as a student in the Philippines, especially if you are in college. Elementary and highschool students are also welcome. Some of the pinoy money saving tips here may also apply for employees too!

You might previously heard these familiar lines from your parents. “Hindi kami nagtatae ng pera!”,  “May baon ka nang pagkain kaya babawasan ko muna pera mo”, “ang pera hindi yan pinupulot!” and etc.

For understanding sons and daughters, this can turn into motivation to study well and hopefully, someday, get our families away from poverty. Yeah, these lines may sound irritating sometimes but you never know, you might say these lines too if you become a parent someday.

There are bunch of talented Filipino students only hindered by their financial situations. I know you’re here to help yourself and and your parents from all the family’s expenses. In this post we’ll be talking about how to save money as college students and even employees in the Philippines. Just keep on reading and more power to you! Let’s start!

How to Save Money as a Student in Philippines:

1. Bring Your Own Baon. For a students here in the philippines, this can really keep your daily budget super low especially if you have siblings who are also schooling. Your mom can simply cook foods that is already good for 3 or 4 persons with less cost compared to buying food in your school cafeteria.

2. Water instead of soft drinks or juice. Water cannot be replaced by any other drinks. Though most of the people know this but not all people are willing to take action. It requires self control and discipline to do this. If you really want to help yourself and your parents, just bring a big coleman good for the whole day.

This may mean a bigger and heavier backpack but it’s fine. Just treat it like an exercise, you are in a win-win situation.

You might be interested in: Summer Jobs for Students in Philippines

3. Bring money only for commuting. If you do the two tips above, then there’s no need to bring extra money unless there’s something you need to pay in school. Another thing, if your school is just walking distance from your home, then you don’t need to bring money at all! Cut out your commuting expenses to save money as much as possible.

4. Cut out vices. Vices will do you NO GOOD. Stop playing computer games just for fun or maybe budget it to minimum. Playing computer games consumes your precious time and money. Instead of staying in the computer shop, just go back home and help your parents, or study at home.

Here are ways how to stay healthy while saving money.

5. Don’t make impulsive purchases. Always plan the things you are going to purchase or you might spend your money on things that you don’t really need. This is a skill, if you train yourself to not be an impulsive buyer, you will have advantages over your peers. This is not just for students but also a very important part of an adult’s life.

This is also a part of Filipino’s bad money habits.

6. Buy second hand books. There’s no use of buying brand new reference materials. You can always ask the higher students if you can buy their used books. This can reduce your expenses up to 1/4 of the brand new price and you can now save 3/4 of the cost.

7. Reminding your parents to pay bills on time. Philippines is known for the mañana habit and in terms of paying bills, extra fees can really hurt if you pay late. Simply reminding your parents to pay the bills before the deadline, your family can save more and can give you more for your needs.

8. Buy whole pad paper and bring only your daily needs. If you can buy a whole pad paper then go for it as it will be much cheaper if you’ll buy in pieces of 3 or 4 every time you need it.

Here’s a ninja tactic (LOL)

If you buy a whole pad, avoid bringing it all! Just bring what you think you need for the day and save the rest for the next days or else your classmates will take advantage of you. Some of your classmates won’t buy their own papers as they know you’re bringing a whole pad! There are students who graduated in college who only beg classmates for papers when they need it. They’re all ninjas.

9. Don’t get a pet until after college or until after you can. Pet’s maintenance can really be expensive and not having any can save you time and money. That’s it! It’s common sense.

10. Learn to say no, explain, period. It’s no new to school that after classes, your friends & classmates may push you to join and come with them to go here and there and everywhere. If you really can’t and have no budget for it, then DON’T. Just say no and explain them why you are not coming with them. They may get mad at you for that but think of this, real friends understand situations, period. 🙂

11. Apply for scholarships. If you really want to help your family to pull them from poverty, you will study hard to get good grades in school. If that is so, apply for scholarships. There are government scholarship  programs that gives around five thousand pesos every term. Some have monthly and some have other schemes. This is also a good motivation to push you to get good grades always.

You might be interested in: Effective study tips

12. Live below your means. If you can have a simple locally branded android phone, don’t force yourself to have the top brands smartphones or iPhones. After all, you’re still a student yet. Don’t engage yourself into social climbing type of lifestyle. Always learn how to live below your means by simply be contented that you satisfy your needs for now. All your wants should be cut off for the mean time.

13. Have a budget plan. If you have a strict budget plan, you’ll be able to monitor the flow of money going in and out of your pocket. This is where you can say that you are indeed saving money. If you happen to learn this skill, it will be definitely a life advantage for you as not so many people are doing this. They may know stuffs about budget planning but they lack taking actions. You need to make a plan and take actions.

Related: Why you need to set goals

14. Befriend rich classmates. They got the money, you got the brains, perfect combination! This one is a bit funny but practical. Your rich classmates can sometimes shoulder group expenses or at least share bigger contributions on projects, group activities, and etc. They have the capability to treat their friends more than anybody else in the classroom. What you need to do is to befriend your rich classmates and help them if they are having hard time understanding your subjects in class. In return, it will be easier for them to recall your name if they want to treat somebody.

15. Don’t engage yet into relationships. Well, for you to help your family first, you should be able to resist the temptation of getting into relationships. This is especially if you’re a boy. There’s not much added expenses if you’re a girl because, we all know it, boys are the ones who treat girls, right? So if you want to save money, just follow these tips.

16. Open a Savings Account.  While you’re still a student, you might want to open a savings account. This will ensure that your money is in safe hands while you are keeping some of your parent’s hard earned money. This is not just for saving purposes but for other transactions as well.

Your parents are able to send you money via your bank account or do some payments or what not. In general, you need a savings account, period. One good savings account for students is BPI’s Kaya Savings account. You can open an account for only P200 as initial balance.

You might want to read: Importance of Discipline for Students.

17. Share books with your classmates. If one or two of your classmates happen to be your neighbor or just walking distance from your house, this is one good way to save money on books. Both of you don’t need to buy the exact same books as it will be wasted. If you need 8 books for the semester or for the school year, why not have an agreement with your classmate-slash-neighbor: You’ll buy the first 4 books and your classmate will buy the other 4.  Since you’re near each other, you might just go to each other’s house to study and review.

18. Buy in bulk. Another good way to save money is to buy in bulk. Instead of buying per-piece of your consumables such as shampoo, coffee, toiletries, biscuits, snacks, and etc., you might want to consider buying packed items for it will cost less. List down all your daily consumables and try to compute if it’s worth to buy in packs. Also, try to ask your classmates if they will buy similar items so you can save more. This is good specially whenever you have individual projects and all of you in your classroom need to buy same items.

19. Monthly Load Package. If you’re loading your phone on a daily basis, you might want to just get a monthly load package. You can save a significant amount of money from this.  Say if you’re loading 10 pesos daily, that’s about 300 pesos monthly. But if you’ll load and register for a monthly package you can get it for around 200 pesos only.

20. Demand for student Discounts. If you’re traveling back and forth your house and school, you can save 60 pesos or more monthly. If the regular fare is 8 pesos, you can save 1 peso for going to school and another 1 peso going back home. This might seem small but with 60 pesos, you can already buy  new set of pad paper or notebook.

21. Reduce Television Hours. Or better yet, stop watching television. This is a win-win thing for you to do. Not watching television means less electricity bill and more time to do important things. There’s so much negativity in television shows nowadays and really there’s nothing good you can get from most of the television shows nowadays.

Hope you get something from this. I’ve graduated in Polytechnic University of the Philippines and I know how hard it is for a student to accumulate and save money specially during thesis. It’s always good to plan and budget your expenses so that your parents’ hard earned money will be spent on the most important things.

If you are a student who have the entrepreneurial itch, these resources might fit you:

• Ways to earn money online in the Philippines
• Low cost home business ideas in Philippines
• Business for students during summer
• Best Small Business Ideas in the Philippines

If you have tips other than the mentioned stuffs above, let’s discuss it in the comment section. Save money wisely kabayan! 🙂

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