If you are a student and starting to manage your own finance, here is an email I received from a reader you might be interested in. She is hardworking and she manages to partly support her living expenses while still in school.
photo credit: Paul. B
Hi KC,
I’ve read most of the money tips and the links you sent me, but I can’t really get it cause I don’t have a proper income yet..
Let me take this opportunity to tell you about myself,
I’m a student who has been a ‘money lover’ since I was young. I hate losing money but will be thrill if I earn money, even if it’s only 20cents.I’m neither poor nor rich, I just want to achieve a goal of earning more money than anyone else in my same age, so that I get to reduce my father’s pressure, he’s been working very hard to earn money for my sisters overseas and my mom & me in the other hand. I like to earn money for myself too, when I earn money I feel like I didn’t loss anything but got something for free, silly huh ?
I’ve been trying to save as much money as I can and earn as much as I can — as a student.
To Save Money
- I quit tuition classes cause I think it’s wasting my time and money, I do revision myself and bought revision books which are much cheaper than tuition class.- I go to the barber shop only once or twice a year, and cut my own hair when I needed to (school rules:short hair) cause I think what they did to my hair is not worth the price ….
- I don’t have a cellphone (yet) cause I don’t think it’s necessary … I think I could save at least RM 10-20 per month because of this..
To Earn Money
- when I was in primary school I rent my comic books for RM0.50 per day to earn some vitagen money (haha..)- I made a deal with my friend that I will help him make a Kemahiran Hidup project (sewing cloth) for RM 30
- I sold 2 insects which were needed for the science experiment, RM 1 per insect, the original price is RM0.10 per insect.
- My classmates wanted to make a class T-shirt so I volunteered to do it, I T-shirt was originally RM 16 but I sold it for RM20 … I sold about 39 of them … It was my biggest ‘EARN’
I’m pretty proud of what I’ve done or achieved, I’m not trying to make myself poor or anything… I just love what I do ~
but I still think what I earned or saved was not enough, so I’ve been thinking a way to earn money … I just don’t know how.
I wanted to do a part-time job but because of the problem of the location , transportation and time, it’s really hard for me to earn more money in this kind of situation ..Is there any way I could earn money as a student ? and not affect my studies at the same time ??
Chin
My response to her:
I think yours is a great example of a student who are money savvy and independent. This will inspire other students who read your story.
My advice is that as a student, you can certainly earn and you learn. Some skills are very important such as communication skill and people skills. These skills including marketing skill that most rich people have.
So I would recommend that you take part time jobs that can give you exposure to brush up your people skill.
Good luck!
KCLau
Do you have any advice for this hardworking students? Please post it in the comment section below.
This article is posted at: KCLau's Money Tips
What can a student do to make more money?