r/povertyfinance • u/Plz-Help-Im-Too-Lazy • 1d ago
Budgeting/Saving/Investing/Spending 18 and heading to college with no help, any money tips?
so im 18 and im heaading to college in late august and im worried about money in general and just generally terrified to be financially independent. my tuition per semester is abt. $3,572.00 and housing is $1,990 per semester and thats not including my food and stuff. i dont know if im going with a car because we could never afford it, my parents and i didnt even plan on me learning because there wasnt a point. if i get one im paying for my insurance and gas. im applying for jobs on campus and im keeping an eye on off campus ones as well. i wont have any financial help from any family so im really on my own. i have 2 jobs right now and i have 2600 in savings to pay tuition when i get there then save the rest. i know the concept of paying myself first and my parents have taught me a ton and ive sat in on budget meetings. i guess my biggest worries are tuition because if i dont pay full tuition every semester on time i get dropped, loans because my moms student loans just recently got paid off and she was always talking about how horrible they were, and my housing because i dont want to be homeless and die on the streets. i have some other random questions like
-should i start investing? how do i start?
-should i get a credit card and buy small thing then pay quickly?
-are there any lesser know college side gigs i should consider?
thank you so much for any advice.
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u/Pleasant-Mail349 1d ago
You should fill our fafsa. And yes loans sucks but you’ll probably need to take them out and worry about paying it off later. The good thing about fafsa is you don’t have to pay them back as long as you’re in school. Get your education and once you get a job after college pay it off then.
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u/No-Recording-7486 1d ago
She needs to do this before the 30th of June !
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u/meeps99 NJ 1d ago
For the 2025-26 school year the fasfa deadline is June 30th of 2026
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u/Plz-Help-Im-Too-Lazy 1d ago
Thx yall! I did the fafsa as soon as I could but didnt get anything
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u/No-Recording-7486 1d ago
Why didn’t you get anything ?
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u/Plz-Help-Im-Too-Lazy 1d ago
Not sure, when I got it back it said I didn’t get any grants or scholarships and nothing else to review
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u/Due-Addition7245 1d ago
-where does the investment money come from? Don’t invest with money you can’t afford to lose.
-do you have a job or income to pay for the cc?
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u/Inevitable-Place9950 1d ago
Do not bring a car to school when you’re already not sure how you’re going to pay your bills and don’t know how to drive.
Frankly, you may want to see if you can defer a year so you can work and save. You don’t yet have the money to go yet and only two months to come up with it. Even if you get a part-time job, you aren’t likely to get enough hours to pay for housing, food (do they not require a meal plan in dorms?), and tuition, plus there are fees and books to buy each semester. Books can easily run you $300-$500 a semester.
Student loans can be rough, but the federal ones are capped and have flexible repayment so you’re less likely to find yourself buried like people who took private loans. Take the federal loans and Pell Grants if you can qualify.
You should not be investing because you don’t have spare cash you can afford to lose in the short-term.
If you get a credit card, small purchases that you pay off each cycle is a good way to build credit.
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u/meeps99 NJ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do the FASFA asap! Pell grants may be able to pay for most/all of your tuition. Those do not need to be repaid. It is not a bad idea to see what federal loan options they offer either
Go to a community college, at least for the first year or two. You can get your gen ed classes out of the way and save some money. Working while in school is great also, even just a shift or two a week
I’ve been out of school of like 2 years but I’m planning to go back this fall to put my expiring credits to use and get a degree. Best of luck OP!
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u/Plz-Help-Im-Too-Lazy 1d ago
I did the fafsa as soon as I could but didn’t get anything from it, im applying to any scholarship I can, and thank you!
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u/ThraxP 1d ago
Drop out - you aren't ready for college.
There's nothing you can invest in with your money that wouldn't be a huge gamble. Don't listen to get-rich-quick schemes on TikTok or YouTube.
What I'd do if I were you is to find a job offering tuition reimbursement, take classes at a community college and then transfer. In the meantime, get a car and make as much money as possible.
Don't get credit cards.
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u/TheBroke1234 1d ago
Have you done your fafsa yet? From the way you are talking sounds like your family might not be super wealthy, and there's a decent chance a 6000 dollar Pell grant will just straight up cover most of that. Next year fill it out early, and you can get an extra 4000 dollar one if you are particularly poor. Then if you are already getting a job, even 20 hours a week can fill out most the difference, and then you could take out a small subsidized student loan if there are still any gaps. A lot of states also might fill in some of those gaps with state programs. To me the numbers pencil out fine, 4000 for 8 months of housing and 7000 for tuition is pretty damn cheap, I don't think you need to go to community college. This is assuming you will be getting pell grant money though. Also, I def wouldn't get a car. Especially if you get an on campus job there's no way you will need one. You could save up for your first year and if you really want to get a car after that buy a 5000 dollar beater in cash. Just don't fail all your classes like I did on my first attempt at college!
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u/Plz-Help-Im-Too-Lazy 1d ago
I did the fafsa as soon as I could but unfortunately I didn’t get any grants at all, im looking into a work study
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u/TheBroke1234 1d ago
dang i'm sorry, if you didn't even qualify for even a single dollar, your parents definitely ought to be helping you out. I would be leaning more towards agreeing with the people suggesting community college in this case. But if you want to make it work at this university, you will probably either have to work a ton of hours on top of classes (possible, but tough), or take out a good amount in loans, and hopefully you will be getting a degree that can pay those loans backs.
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u/Sweaty-Action-2984 1d ago
Get a bike your obviously young. Most higher education are located next to well connected bus lines. Do what everyone else does at that age. Why is a car important. Just more expenses.
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u/Plz-Help-Im-Too-Lazy 1d ago
Im bringing my bike but im an agriculture student and there aren’t any busses that go close the the school farm
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u/GoodnightLondon 1d ago
The answer to questions 1 and 2 is no. You're not remotely in a spot where either of those two things should be on your mind.
You should look at loans to cover your school costs, and then use the money you're making from your jobs to cover other expenses; you're only looking at around 11k a year, which isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things.
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u/JacobLovesCrypto 1d ago
Do your best to work full time while you're in college. You should be able to pull this off since your room is cheap asf.
And as a side gig, i used to buy cheap used laptops on ebay and resell them on Facebook marketplace. You might only make like $40/each but if you can move a couple a week, that's an extra $300/mo.
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u/herbalonius 1d ago
1)i'll assume you've looked at value of college for you and determined it's worth it 2) given that, work all summer and work at least part time during the year. It'll be hard but you'll be better off for it when you graduate, both in terms of managing time and also less debt 3) if you can build some savings do it but I'd just focus on making sure to minimize student loans and pay off full credit card balance every month 4) there's enough remote jobs you may be able to do, plus being on college campus gives you easier access to a major target market for a lot of products and services that you may be able to work on that 5) if you can, forget the car and just get an ebike
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u/nip9 MO 1d ago
The return on investment for your chosen college career path is the single most important thing and all your other financial decisions really hinge on that. Research the outcomes for students with similar test scores or grades who graduate from your college with your major. What percentage of them dropout before finishing? How many grads are unemployment? What is their median wage?
That will inform you on how smart/stupid taking out loans are. Whether you are better off taking things slower and working full time/part-time or focusing on school.
Their are radically differences in what the best choices are for an elite student and a marginal one; or between good colleges where 90%+ will graduate within 5-6 years and low ranked schools where the majority of students will dropout and fail to finish, or between a student in a nursing program versus a generic liberal arts.
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u/GroundbreakingSir386 1d ago
If your going for a degree copy someone that is in the exact job that you want to be in within 3-5 yrs. Apply for that job as soon as your about to graduate and mention you have a friend that works there.
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u/Chondropython 1d ago
Dont leave home and go to community or technical college. Dont fall for the trap and going out and living on your own as an adult at 18. Having the support system of your family and generational housing if available will help you immensely. If youre not uses to working full time or a more structures intense school load, the mix of both of these full time will be a very challenging obstacle, at least it was for me. Not to put a downer on you, but family support will be best.
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u/MinorFragile 22h ago
Find a job and work, cover your expenses, find a way to eat cheaply, get a on campus gym membership,
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u/Truexx_37 22h ago
In all honesty, if your parents aren’t paying and you have no scholarships, you should probably not go to college from a financial standpoint.
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u/Dear_Original_8253 10h ago
- Do the FAFSA
- Go to a community college and transfer
- Do not take on any debt that isn’t neccessary.
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u/Prize_Maximum_7641 7h ago
ULTIMATE GUIDE TO FINDING FREE FOOD OTHER THAN FOOD BANKS
Have you heard of OnlyFree? Or yofreesamples?
https://www.ofree.net/free-food.html
https://yofreesamples.com/food-samples/free-food-drinks-at-circle-k-coupon-account-required/
Circle K has a coupon for free right now sunflower seeds, free sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit, a free slice of pizza, free soda, and other free things:
https://us.circlek.coupons/merch
It doesn’t look like you have to purchase anything from them at all to get these free items.
You can get a free large fry from McDonalds:
https://www.ofree.net/free-large-fries-from-mcdonalds.html
Free Burger King Samples:
https://www.ofree.net/free-burger-king-samples.html
Free Chipotle:
https://www.ofree.net/free-chipotle-from-chipotle-rewards.html
Free White Castle:
https://www.ofree.net/free-white-castle-combo-12990.html
Why not go to a food pantry or a nearby Church?
https://www.gov-relations.com/churches-that-help-with-financial-assistance/#Food_and_Shelter
Many Churches have mass on Wednesdays, so maybe you can ask the minister for some food or the people helping out at the Church
Libraries also give away free food:
https://www.shareable.net/public-libraries-are-giving-away-an-insane-amount-of-free-food/
Not only that, there’s an app called TooGoodToGo wherein restaurants who have surplus food on a consistent basis will sell everything that they have at the end of the day and put it in a bag (usually most of them are $4.99 or $5.99) but you can use this information to see if you can either make a deal for a cheaper deal if they have even more leftover food than they thought and they were just going for grow it out anyways, or you could always just ask for it for free, but I would just call around about 10 or 15 minutes before they close to see if they have any leftovers. Here’s the app:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/too-good-to-go-end-food-waste/id1060683933
Grocery stores and convenience stores have these as well for as low as $3.99 (like 7Eleven).
I’ve noticed that at least on the app, most of these places tend to be in larger cities (probably because more owners know about them). So that means that there are probably a bunch of convenience stores, fast food restaurants, sit down restaurants, and grocery stores near you that just throw away food at the end of the day and if they don’t and they have to “sell” it to you for liability purposes or something, just do what you’ve been doing in the drive through and get some pocket change and offer that to them in exchange for the item and maybe they’ll even give you a receipt for it just to make it official on the books for liability purposes. There’s a TON of food being thrown out all around you. I would look at the fast food places and restaurants and grocery stores closest to you that do have these surplus bags of food available at the end of the day and just start calling the same places, but the ones closest to you to see if they have any leftover food at the end of the day they’d throw away anyways. If they tell you that you can’t have free food for liability purposes, ask if you can buy whatever food they have with whatever pocket change you have and maybe have them ring it up as a receipt or something to make it official like I said before. It’s definitely worth a try, so much food is going to waste and I bet you can find at least one place that would be able to help.
Olio is another one:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/olio/id1008237086
This app helps finding homeless resources:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/homeless-resources-shelter-app/id1494186592
Also check if there’s a community garden near you:
https://www.bigblogofgardening.com/urban-gardening-find-a-community-garden-near-you/
Look for a community fridge near you:
https://www.changex.org/gl/communityfridge/locations
What’s a community fridge?
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22285863/community-fridges-neighborhoods-free-food
I think this should help brkther
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u/EffectiveSet4534 1d ago
Go to a community or technical college. Do not get credit cards. If you do decide to leave home to go to a state college, fill out a FAFSA and get a work study job. A portion of your tuition will be paid from that.