Ways to pinch a penny
As a cheerful, rosy-cheeked optimist, I try to find the best
parts of any situation and focus blindly on them. So with CSU’s
pending budget cuts, I set to work like an eager beaver with an
endangered redwood. You know how politicians say children are the
future? Well great news! This budget massacre means they think
we’re officially adults!
Here’s the situation. The state won’t give CSU money. We’re
college students, and we have no money. Without money, our degrees
become worthless. This will lead to unemployment and the demise of
capitalism, the enslavement of mankind and a crippling chocolate
shortage. But I may just be seeing the world through my
rose-colored glass shards.
With money-tree technology not panning out, the only plausible
solution is to increase tuition. This could cause problems for many
students, whose parents aren’t made of money, or those whose
parents are only made of ones and fives. But did you know you could
scrounge up several thousands of dollars in just a few weeks with
the following simple money saving tips? It’s true! Kinda.
If you buy your own food or just wish you did, you’re probably
overspending. You’re trading something that does not grow on trees,
money, for something that does grow on trees, food. All kinds of
common plants are edible – the forward thinking pioneers actually
imported dandelions to America as a food source, and today the
sour, disgusting, pervasive weed is still just as technically not
poisonous.
There are other ways to get cheap food if grazing isn’t your
thing. Many wedding receptions have great big tables filled with
free food. With the clever application of Tupperware, the leftovers
could last longer than the marriage and be twice as delicious. In
fact, any public gathering is a potential free meal. Business
conventions, political rallies and even an unguarded pic-ah-nick
basket all mean free food.
There are other places where you can ‘trim the fat’ besides
watching what you spend on what you eat. What better way to save
money for education than by cutting the money you spend on
education? It’s not uncommon to spend hundreds of dollars on
textbooks, and it’s equally as not uncommon to never use those
textbooks. You can cheaply replace textbooks with the Internet,
which once you’ve filtered out the lies, porn, mistakes, fiction
and ads, is a veritable thimble of useful information.
By now you’ve probably saved at least $1,300. But if and when
the public funding dries up and the university needs to lean its
massive weight on the student body, your financial pelvis simply
can’t be strong enough to support the educational behemoth. CSU
needs to earn some money of its own.
Traditional methods to rake in the cash such as bake sales,
bootlegging, car washes or parking tickets simply won’t pull in the
kind of dough that’s needed. A lesson can be learned from history,
wherein lies one of the most successful examples of reverse
psychology, prohibition. All the university needs to do is ban
liquor, and students will feel compelled to buy it illegally. Then
just invest in a share of profit from the local liquor stores, and
all the university’s financial problems will melt away in a drunken
blur.
With these sensible suggestions, the student body could easily
afford a massive tuition hike. The taxpayers were right not to
assist higher education, as they need to save their money in case
one of our current stadiums gets dirty and we need to buy a clean
one. If only we had power equal to the awesome might wielded by
taxpayers and voters. If you are lucky enough to know someone with
the power of vote this November, try to convince said voter to
elect an official who will either fund higher education or further
money-tree technology.
Jonathan’s column runs every other Wednesday.
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