Cheap and Free Activities that Improve your Mental Health.

Taking care of your mental health, your emotional self, can be difficult, especially in your first year away from home.  You miss home and your parents (even if it’s hard to admit). The lifestyle is different away from home.  The studying is much harder than you expected or have ever experienced.  The level of stress is high, and your parents aren’t in the kitchen, ready to listen to your concerns.  What do you do?

Luckily, most colleges and universities have free help for young people: counselling, health care providers, nurses and physicians ready to listen to you.  But what if simply need a few outlets or escapes from all the noise and the stress?  A Caribbean vacation during Reading Week would be great, but unlikely to ease the financial stress.  Ditto for the posh yoga studios or the personal trainer.  Here are a few budget-friendly ideas to find mental peace and feeling zen.

Seek Nature

Studies have shown that spending time surrounded by nature boosts both mood and self-esteem; exercise surrounded by nature has even more effects and the effects are even more powerful if there is water (a stream, a pond, a lake) in the environment.  Most campus have a few green spots, even downtown.  If you feel that you need to study 24/7, try studying outside when the weather permits it, or make your walk to your building via a wooded area.

Hold a Baby or a Pet

Not that a baby or a pet are equivalent (I do not want to insult any parent here), but the effect of holding a young or vulnerable life in our hands puts us as peace and reminds us of what is important in the grand picture.  Offer to babysit late at night – the baby will most likely sleep a lot, but you’ll get to hold him or her a little too.  Offer to pet sit or just take a dog out for a walk.  You don’t know anyone with a pet? go to a dog park and ask owners if it’s ok to play with their dog. 

Play Music

If you play a musical instrument, make time every week (or every day) to play.  It can be a favorite piece, or a new one you want to work on.  Seeing progress on a new project may lift your spirits when everything else seems to be stalled.

Exercise

You physician will tell you, Public Health Centers will tell you, exercise keeps you healthy physically and mentally.  And it doesn’t have to cost a penny!  If you don’t enjoy the free access to sports facilities where you are, go for a walk, a run outside, work on push-ups or sit-ups, start cycling to school instead of taking the bus, or do yoga with a YouTube video. 

Renew with your Church, Synagogue, Mosque or Temple

You don’t need to be very religious to enjoy a service.  Maybe you grew up going to a weekly religious event ; maybe you’d like to explore your cultural beliefs.  Try it a few times.  If anything, you may feel the peace and the serenity you are looking for.  However, you may find a home away from home, and the strength to rely on a higher power in tough times.

Meditate

Learning to meditate isn’t hard.  What is difficult is to keep the practice going on a regular basis and the discipline to meditate even when we feel to hurried to find the time to meditate, even though it’s when we are rushed that we need meditation the most.

Garden

I never liked gardening; as a child, I did not even play in the sand!  However, buying a few plants and taking care of them has brought me a few bits of inner peace.  Repotting a plant from a small to a larger pot, cleaning up the dead leaves, observing the new leaves and maybe a few flowers open is magical.  In the Spring, I buy a few potted herbs to grow and use over the summer.  I use to have a ‘black’ thumb and now, it’s just dark green… I guess anyone can learn!

As you see, there are many ways to improve your mental health for little or no money.  As students, we often do not see mental health (or decreasing our stress level) as a priority; however, I have seen many students ‘crash’ as they are too stressed, too tired, too bothered by little things.  It IS important to take a few moments once a while to decompress.  You CAN do it without it impacting your budget.  And on a purely financial aspect, feeling blue all the time is not efficient will demotivate you to study, and make you more at risk for failing a class or two.  Therefore, mental distress CAN hurt you financially.

Using Leftover Food

Left-over foods that you would normally throw out are like free food if you can re-purpose them.  Here are two examples from my own kitchen.

Broccoli Stem Soup

I don’t really like eating the stems of the broccoli; when I cook broccoli, I just like to eat the smaller ‘twigs’ and the florets of the broccoli. The large ‘trunks’ of the broccoli can be tough.  However, I found a way to use them that is delicious: broccoli stem soup. 

First, ‘peel’ the broccoli stems to remove the tough outer skin.  Chop the peeled stems in small pieces.  Heat up approximately 3-4 cups of water in a pot.  Before it starts boiling, add a pouch or cube of chicken or vegetable broth concentrate. Add the broccoli pieces and let simmer until the broccoli is soft.  Take the pot off the heat and, using a stick blender, puree the broccoli and broth together.  Put back on the heat and add roughly 1-1.5 cup grated cheddar cheese (any kind you like; you could probably use Cheez Whiz if you wanted).  Let the cheese melt, stir well, taste and adjust seasoning (salt and pepper to taste).  Et voilà, great homemade soup!!

Crumb Muffins

This is a great recipe that uses cereal, cracker and cookie crumbs, or any combination of these.  Whenever you have a few bits of cereal at the bottom of the box or bag (you know when the cereal becomes like a ‘powder’ at the end) or cookie or cracker crumbs, pour them inside a plastic jar or container and seal it.  When all the crumbs together reach 1 cup, you are ready to make muffins.  Do NOT use bread crumbs, cake crumbs, or anything soft or moist crumbs (I tried, it doesn’t work).

First, soak the 1 cup of crumbs in 1 cup of milk, until the crumbs are soft and have absorbed the greater part of the milk (15 + min; you can do this in the fridge and leave for the day).  Add 1 cup of flour, ¼- ½ cup of sugar ( ¼ if using cereal or cookies; ½ if mostly crackers), 1 egg, ¼ cup vegetable oil, and 2 tsp baking powder.  Now, add some ‘bits’: ½ cup chocolate chips, ½ cup raisins, or ½ cup of nuts.  Also add a flavour: 1 tsp vanilla or ½ tsp cinnamon, or 1 tbsp coffee syrup.  Grease a 12-cup muffin mold (or use paper cups in the muffin pan) and fill to 2/3 each muffin holder.  Bake at 375⁰F for 20-25 min.  Remove from the oven and let cool 10 min before removing from the muffin pan.  Enjoy!  These can be very healthy if you use healthy cereal crumbs for your base and they freeze well.

Healthy and Hearty Breakfasts the Frugal Way

It’s very tempting to eat out for breakfast when you are in a rush because of an early class (or a late night studying) and you are famished.  However, breakfast food is cheap and it breaks my heart to spend $7+ for breakfast when you should be able to make it at home – fast – for a few pennies (or nickels now that we are doing away with pennies).  Here are a few ideas.

Oatmeal: I’m all for instant oatmeal because it’s fast; however, it’s high in sugar and not so healthy.  If you use only half a package of instant oatmeal (the flavoured type), add the same amount of plain quick cook oatmeal, milk (not water) and you microwave it, it’s much healthier.

Eggs: eggs a fantastic source of cheap protein.  However, cooking them in the morning is tough since it makes a mess in the pan and it takes time.  Another option is to cook ahead of time your eggs when you do have time.  My favorite recipe is ‘egg in a hole’; you make a hole in a slice of bread (eat the small piece of bread); prepare a pan like you would for cooking eggs (melt butter, etc.); place the piece of bread in the pan and add the eggs (with intact yolk, or scrambled) by pouring it over the hole (yes, part of the egg will leak under the bread, but a large amount will cook in the hole, in the bread and around the bread).  You can batch cook these, especially if you scramble the eggs.  The advantage of this dish is that your bread is cooked with the egg – easily reheated in the microwave on a rush morning.

Pancakes: I love pancakes, and I’m often too lazy to make them from scratch.  I buy the complete mix (to which you only add water – no eggs, no milk) which is cheaper by portion since you only add water.  To make my pancakes healthier, I add a bit of plain oatmeal (regular or instant – whatever I have) and some wheat bran (which I use in other recipes so it’s on hand as well).  If I want more crepes than pancakes, I add more water to make the batter thinner.  Easily cooked in batches, I save the leftovers in a container in the fridge and microwave in the morning.  Real maple syrup is expensive on a student budget; if you can’t handle the fake stuff, go with jam, PB or chocolate sauce instead.  If you are having crepes, savory topping are great too: grated cheese, ham, etc.

If you have more time and love to cook: of course, if you have time to spare once a while, you can prepare breakfast burritos, egg XXmuffins, etc. to freeze and reheat later.  Frittatas and quiches are also great breakfast food.  If you enjoy baking, even if it’s only the cake mixes, you can whip a batch of oatmeal or bran muffins (from a mix) and either offer some to your friends or freeze in groups of what you would eat in a day (for me it’s two: one for breakfast, one as a snack).

Leftovers: we often think of breakfast foods as toasts or other starches, eggs, and perhaps cheese and ham.  However, any food you enjoy in the morning is breakfast!  Cold pizza, left-over pasta, anything goes!

Continental breakfast: if you are typically in a real rush and can’t be bothered to cook ahead of time, there is always continental breakfast: stock the fridge with small yogurts and partition dry cereal in small bags.  In the morning, grab a banana, a yogurt and cereal – a complete breakfast!!

Bon appetit!

Cheap and Healthy Snacks

Most people spend wayyyyyy too much money on snacking, including coffee and a pastry from the coffee shop, the snack from the machine around 4pm when you are heading home or to another class, the mid-morning snack you purchase because you skipped breakfast (wanted to make an early class).  These add up quickly.  Here is a list of instant snacks that are healthy and, if purchased at the grocery store, are pretty reasonable in cost.  Make sure to leave one or two in your school bag to make sure you have an emergency snack at school at all time.

- an apple, an orange, a banana: easy to eat, fat-free, and always healthy

- raw carrots (buy ready to eat bags and divide in small bags, ready to grab from the fridge); English cucumber slices (no peeling necessary, just wash and slice); raw sweet peppers; celery (for a crunchy and low-calorie snack if you eat because of nerves)

- canned fruit in juice: open and partitioned in smaller containers

- high fiber, low-sugar granola bars – buy in boxes at the grocery store (much cheaper than by the unit)

- hard-boiled eggs: cook 2-3 at once and store in their shell, in the fridge (don’t forget to label them)

- nuts – full of protein! be considerate and ask your class neighbours before opening your snack – they could be allergic.

- raisins and other dried fruit.  Even in small, individual serving size boxes (instead of buying them in bulk), they are cheap.  Large bags of trail mix at the grocery stores are affordable – just remember that a portion is actually quite small since they are full of protein (and some fat) and fruit (and sugar).

- dry cereal: granola cereal, or larger piece cereal (such as square piece cereal) are easy to put in a small bag or a container; they are typically low(ish) in fat, low in sugar (don’t buy the multi-colored ones!), and full of added vitamins and mineral.  Much healthier than chips or chocolate.

- store bought muffins and cookies: if you have a sweet tooth, these are as healthy and much cheaper than the ones purchased at café and restaurants.  They are also often in much smaller servings (but the financial savings are per gram), keeping your waistline trim as well.

Even buying single-serve bags of snacks from the grocery store, although not completely frugal, is cheaper than buying from a café, a cafeteria or a machine.  A cheaper option would be to buy a large box of the snack and partition it at home.

Businesses prey on the busy student; don’t be a fool – bring your own food, and stash a couple of emergency snacks in your backpack.

Motivation: my Health and that of Others

When I lose motivation to stay frugal, I often remind myself that often, being frugal is also better for my health and the health of others.  Don’t believe me? Read on!

Whenever I reach for a piece of fresh fruit or I cook from scratch, I avoid extra fat and salt in my food, as well as a bunch of preservatives in my body.  Whenever I decline a night on the town, I ingest fewer calories and alcohol and often I avoid damage to my eardrums.

When I choose to walk or cycle over calling a cab, I exercise.  When I walk, I meditate on my life, my choices in life, my life goals, and plan in my head my next few steps.  Sometimes I listen to music; sometimes I listen to birds around me.

A simple life also has positive mental health effects: less shopping means less clutter which means a quieter mind.

When I go running outside instead of going to the gym, I get fresh air; I also get a better mental break (studies have shown that time outside helps mental health) and my eyes get the rest from near focus, which all eyes of readers and computer users need.

When I choose volunteering instead of shopping as a hobby, I serve others which makes me feel worthwhile, and prevents depression that so often is triggered by the extra pressures and stresses of undergrad life.  Helping others gives me social contact, not a superficial one, but a deep, caring one.  It also makes me appreciate what I have and keeps me motivated to enjoy my frugal life.

Overall, being frugal lets me stress less because I’m not stretching my budget as much, and I get overall health benefit

The Cost of Being Sick

I recently needed some emergency surgery and the recovery gave me some time to ponder about the cost of being ill.  Thanks to the wonderful no-cost-per-use health care system that we enjoy in Canada, I did not have to pay for my stay in hospital, the surgery, and the pain medication I received while there (or the meals for that matter).  However, there were a few financial and personal costs to this unanticipated event.

First, I had to be transported from home to the hospital by ambulance.  If you have never taken an ambulance trip, beware: there is often a cost that is billed to the patient afterwards.  Mine is $45 (obviously that is not the entire cost of an ambulance trip; it’s just the portion charged to the patient).

Second, there were some costs to my family: once admitted for an overnight, I needed some basic supplies: toiletries, reading material for something to do during my recovery, some clean clothing (underwear, shoes) etc.  While these were found easily at my home, it required someone to come to the hospital to visit me (the visit was lovely).  Financial costs included transportation and parking (many hospitals are downtown and parking can be very expensive).  Even without the need for some personal effects, my family (and yours possibly) wanted to visit and make sure I was all right.

Third, once I got back home, I had some prescription medication to take for a few days (your medical insurance from college/university/your parents should cover most of the cost); I could not do anything physically taxing for a while, including cooking (yes, you need to stand to cook and I needed to sit or lie down mostly) which increased our food expenses.  I also had a special diet for a few days (increased food expenses).

Forth, I had to miss a few days of work because of the surgery (even though it was minor surgery, I was ‘lucky’ my time in the hospital was mostly over the weekend – it minimized my missed work time); now as an adult with a job and good work benefits, I did not lose any pay for my sick days.  However, with a job paid by the hour, an hour that you do not work is an hour you are not paid.  If you have to miss some hours at your part-time job, this will hurt you financially.

A close friend broke her leg in university.  Even though all her medical costs were covered (except for the ambulance cost), the cost of the crutches was $25, the plastic cover for the cast had to be purchased in order to bathe (another $25), and she needed a cab to get to classes every day because it was winter (the slippery sidewalks were too dangerous on crutches).

Finally, the time missed from classes will have to be made up in terms of time studying; this can eat up into your work time or your social time.  However, if you are homebound but not feeling too bad, you can study from home.  I was once sick with the flu over a long weekend and while getting better, I decided to avoid my long commute (it was winter too) and avoid other people’s germs.  I stayed home and called the prof of each of my lecture 20 min before the start of the lecture to ask what he was going to cover during class; the professor would tell me, and I would study the same content at the same time in order to stay current.  If I had a break between classes, I would nap.  I did this for an entire week and it really helped me with sleep AND not falling too much behind.

Illness and injuries may be treated for free in Canada, but there is a time and financial cost to having health problems.  Of course many health problems occur with no fault of our own; however, some can be prevented: eat healthy; exercise; get enough sleep – these habits will give your body the immunity it needs to fight viruses and bacteria.  Exercise well, not carelessly, and wear your protective gear, to avoid preventable injuries.  Of course, these precautions will not guarantee perfect health, but at least it will promote it.

I wish you a semester of healthy studying!

The 'Dollar' Store

Dollar stores are popping up everywhere in Canada – there are even chains of them: Dollarama, the Dollar Tree, etc.  They offer very inexpensive stuff and can be very tempting, or off-putting for some.

I have found some very good deal on some things at dollar stores, and yet there are some things I refuse to buy there.  Dollar stores operate, it seems, on getting the cheapest stuff from China and offering it to you at a low price.  Sounds too good to be true? For many items, it’s great.  For others, I tend to be a cynic and would rather pay a bit more in order to ensure I’m getting a higher quality, and perhaps safer, item.

For one thing, I don’t ‘trust’ food containers at dollar stores.  They all come from China, I don’t know the content of the glassware or the plastic that is used and in a word, I’d rather not use it every day.  For containers from which I drink every day, put my lips around, I’d like to ensure, as much as I can, that it does not contain lead and other potentially dangerous chemicals.  So I do not buy lunch containers, glasses, cutlery or other food-container items at the dollar store.  But that’s just me.   For the same reason, I also stay away from most skin care products (soaps, lotions, lipsticks, even nail polish) from the dollar store unless I recognize the brand name (and I usually don’t).  I will also avoid food from the dollar store if I do not recognize the brand name.  After the scare in China with baby formula being contaminated, I don’t trust the Chinese government to have safety checks for my food if it’s not a brand name I recognize (and yes, maybe I should not trust these either – but I’m assuming the large food companies, based in Canada and the USA, have good oversight of what happens in their factories – time will tell if I should or not).

I am, however, very fond of the dollar store for inexpensive paper products like notebooks and index cards, decorations like Halloween décor, craft materials like scrapbooking supplies and embroidery threads, and plastic items that do not touch food directly: plastic baskets to organize ‘stuff’, shower curtains, toilet brushes, etc.  I also find them great for buying hair accessories: metal hair clips are much cheaper than anywhere else and seem to be the same quality as the more expensive ones and hair elastics are great too (and they will be lost before they break in our house!).  I was at one today and found fun stickers that would look great on a laptop computer cover for $1.25, artist’s canvases for less than $4 (probably not the quality required for a fine art major, but fine for a hobbyist), funky patterned Duck Tape (brand name) for $3 (instead of the usual $7) and a shower curtain for $2 (the choice there ranged from $1 to $3 for shower curtains).

My last dislike for dollar stores is that they make me spend more!  What happens is that I typically find all kinds of neat little things at such low price that I pick up a few things that I didn’t really NEED.  Oh, oh, I better stick to my list!

Batch Cooking

Batch cooking means just this: cooking in batches so you don’t have to cook as often because you have large quantities of food prepared.  This is typically a method used by larger families of at least a couple of kids – a parent makes 2 lasagnas at once and freezes one so there is one ready for next week.

However, batch cooking can cook for the single student too.  Say you would like to eat spaghetti; making an elaborate sauce for one serving does not make sense; you cook for 30 min and ‘inhale’ the result in 12 minutes! So you eat the sauce right out of the jar, letting the hot pasta heat up the sauce – yuk!  However, what if you spent 30 minutes making the sauce and had some for 5 extra meals? Now, that’s an interesting idea.

Depending how much you eat, a recipe for 4 or 6 may give you food for only 2-3 meals or for 5-7 meals.  It also depends if you like lots of sides to your meal: do you eat spaghetti with a salad and bread, or just a plate of spaghetti?

Pick something you eat often and you enjoy making: my example is spaghetti (sauce), but it could be something else, as long as it freezes well: Sheppard’s pie; chicken pot pie; quiche; chili; etc.  Instead of making only enough for 1 or 2 meals (or 1 meal with a bit of left over), double your recipe.  Yes, it may take and extra 10% time to cut more vegetables, but compared to making the entire recipe on a different night, it’s a very small amount of time.

Now you have two choices: either you cook the recipe as one (like chili) and save a few portions to freeze for later meals, or you divide the recipe in separate containers and cook separately (like for Sheppard’s pie). Either way, you end up with extra servings ready to freeze and eat on another day.

Now for the freezing part: you will need containers to freeze and a labeling system.  If you are sharing a freezer with others and they like to freeze food too (or keep some vodka in the freezer), you will need to minimize the space you use: square containers take up less space for the same amount of volume.  I like the disposable Ziploc ones (except I don’t dispose of them – I reuse them over and over).  Some people like to spray a light coat of Pam (an oil spray) to create a thin barrier between the food and the container so that the food does not stain the container (tomato sauce of any kind will do that); I don’t care about the stain myself.  Another space-saving method is to buy good quality freezer bag and to freeze the food in these – they can be packed almost flat in the freezer (do NOT try this with cheap sandwich bag – you can imagine the mess when they break).  If you have lots of space, empty 1 liter yogurt containers work very well!

A very important part of this system is labelling: if you don’t label your food, A. someone else may eat it if you share your freezer; B. you will not know what is in the container (chili looks a lot like spaghetti sauce once frozen); C. you may eat someone else’s weird concoction!  What I find works for me is masking tape (not the one from the dollar store though – the good quality stuff from a hardware store), about ¾ inch wide.  If you stick masking tape on a warm and dry plastic lid, it will stay on, even after you freeze the container.  However, do not try to label an already frozen container like this: the humidity on the container and the cold will prevent the glue of the masking tape from working properly.  On the piece of masking tape, I would write my name (if sharing the freezer), the name of the dish, the number of servings (in case I freeze in different quantities), and the date (so I don’t forget about a dish made 6 months ago).

In my kitchen batch cooking, I have found a huge number of dishes that freeze well, and a few that don’t.  For example, soups are great if frozen with the pasta a bit undercooked (you can remove the soup to be frozen from the pot before the soup is ready, and then continue cooking the portion you plan on eating now), but cream soups tend to have the milk separate during the freeze-thaw process (it doesn’t alter the taste, just the texture).  My favorite scone recipe does not freeze well baked, but the raw dough freezes will so I will make twice the recipe (I only thaw a half recipe at the time), form into four dough shapes and bake one and freeze three.  Most of my muffin recipes freeze very well so I will make a double batch (24 muffins), freeze 18 (I can eat 6 muffins in a week), and put a frozen muffin in my lunch bag every day after the first 6 are eaten for breakfast; the muffin thaws between breakfast and lunch and keeps the rest of my lunch cool.

You may wonder why I love batch cooking so much. It’s not the cooking as much as the lack of need to cook on other nights – it’s great to take out spaghetti sauce from the freezer, cook some pasta and TA-DA! Dinner is ready!

Top Four Reasons Why You Should Hang Dry Your Clothes Outside

I like drying my clothes outside after washing them.  There is an old-fashion pleasure in hanging clothes outside.  Of course for the less romantic students who are short on time, I’d better make my choice better-justified.  So here are three reasons you should hang your clothes to dry outside:

1. It’s economical; the clothes dryer is one of the most power-hungry appliances in your house.  Drying outside is free.  In winter, I hang-dry inside (it’s dry in most houses in winter; air-drying your clothes balances that a bit, and the clothes take less time than you’d think to dry indoors).
2. It’s more efficacious way to dry:  clothing drying outside airs out more than in the machine and therefore it will smell better – less smoke, less perspiration, etc.
3. It’s better for your clothes: clothes get damaged with high heat (from the washer and the dryer), from movement and friction (think of the washer and dryer) and from chemicals; if you can reduce the heat and the movement (from the dryer), your clothes will last longer.  Elastic and spandex are especially sensitive and should never be in the dryer – the elastic gets dried out and starts breaking.
4. It’s better for your health; spending a few minutes outside hanging your clothes is almost a meditation exercise; you cannot go too fast (or you’ll drop everything), the action does not make much noise, and it is outside.

Now that you are totally convinced that you want to hang your clothes to dry, you may be concerned about the lack of space you have; here are a few tips on HOW to do it:

• If you live in a house, ask your landlord for a clothes dryer tree – they run about $200 but last for years – and it will make his/her house easier to rent later.  The trees are sturdy and can easily take two loads of clothing to dry.
• If you cannot get the house owner to pay for it, consider sharing the cost between housemates
• Another, much cheaper alternative is a small metal dryer – these also fit on a balcony if you do not have a yard; as well, they can be taken indoors in bad weather.
• Hang a rope – make sure it’s high enough that you won’t decapitate anyone walking by, or make it removable at one end – you only have it strung when you are using it.
• If you only have a balcony, go with the small metal dryer – for indoor and outdoor.
• The most obvious place for a hanging dryer is in your laundry room if you have one and it is large enough.  Remember though, that the top of the dryer is a great space to put a drying rack.
• Inside your home, in winter (unless you are in sunny Victoria or Vancouver!), you need to find space to set up your dryer.  If you do a load of wash late at night, you can hang your clothes inside your bedroom early in the morning, before leaving for classes.  By the time you get back home, they will most likely be dry. 
• After everyone’s had their shower, announce that you need to use the tub to hang your clothes – unless you have roommates who shower continuously, this should not inconvenience anyone – set the dryer in the tub.
• Hang some towel bars on the ceiling for an easy way to dry shirts: hang the shirts on plastic hangers (in case you get rust from the metal ones) and hang the hangers from the towel bars for maximum air flow.  You can do this in your bedroom or in the bathroom (or the laundry room). 
• Towels can often be dried directly on the towel bar they usually hang from – we dry our tea towels (that we use to dry our dishes) in the kitchen on towel bars.
• Most horizontal banisters are great hanging spots for damp clothes.  In summer, you can use the one on the balcony.
• Sheets are hard to dry because they are so large; if you have a spare set of sheets (so you can change your bedding without washing your sheets right away), wash EITHER the top sheet or the fitted one in a load (not both) so you only have to dry one at the time.  With a large banister you can hang-dry your sheet indoors; otherwise, a few hooks high on your walls/ceiling should let you hang the drying sheet ‘from the ceiling’ for a day – that should be all it takes to dry (you can do it at night when you sleep as long as it’s high enough – and you’ll sleep better in a slightly less dry room in winter).
• If you find your undies a bit stiff after slow air drying, put them (once dry) in the electric dryer for a few minutes – they just need the agitation to regain their softness.  Stiff towels dry your skin better, and exfoliate at the same time, so enjoy!

Yes, hanging clothes is a bit more work, BUT… it’s SO MUCH better!

Desperation

How do you know when you are desperate for money? When do you consider yourself poor enough to ask for help?

My first answer is: it depends.  If you are the type of person who finds it a need to download a new song from iTune, I’d answer, ‘later than you think’.  If you are willing to go hungry in order not to burden anyone, I’d say ‘earlier than you think’.

So what does real desperation look like? As a student, it looks like the following:

- You do not have enough money to buy food so you are not eating (and I’m not talking eating out, but you are too poor to buy noodles from the grocery store).

- You do not have enough money to access the material you need to study (you can’t get the textbooks you need or the drafting tools you are required to use).

- You do not have secure shelter, warmth, clothing to keep you healthy in the weather you face every day (could be rain boots, could be a winter coat).

We are therefore describing basic student needs, not anything extravagant.  Notice that I have not mentioned tuition – more about tuition in a later post.

If you are in any of these situation, please speak up – and get help.  Here is where to get help.

- The Financial Aid Office – every university and college has one.  They will work on strategies with you so you can get money that you need (it could be in the form of a loan).

- Your parents – they may be broke, or unwilling to help, but they may have $25 that will help with groceries for 1-2 weeks.  Beware: they may not be keen on helping you if you spent all your money on clothes, partying, and electronics and now have no money left.

- The Food bank: some universities have them just for students.  Most cities have them.  At city food banks, you can usually get one week’s worth of non-perishable groceries per month and they help a large number of people.  Do not feel that you should not use food banks: they are for people who have fallen on hard time, just like others in your situation.  Once you have a job and are making money, you can donate to the food banks that have helped you.  Use the food bank if you need to.

- ‘Soup kitchens’ are organisations that prepare and serve meals to people in need of a hot meal.  Check your phone book.

- Some organisation will GIVE you clothes if you are in need (of course the Salvation Army has some for sell at very low prices as well); St-Vincent of Paul is one.  At our local one here, you can get a loaf of bread and clothing for free.

- Use your university; stay at the library for studying (free internet and warmth and quiet); plug in your computer and phone to charge them; use the textbooks on reserve at the library or another textbook on the same topic to study.  If you need to, ask the secretary for left-over food after a seminar – tell her you are short on money and could use a bite (administrative assistants have lots of experience with students struggling – they may even save you a piece of pizza after a meeting!); check out events with free food.

- Use your social circle to let people know that you are looking for a few items: a winter coat and boots, for example.  It’s unlikely that nobody you know will have an extra item.  Many colleges and universities have clothing drives to help students with warm clothes when winter is near – check out if there is something like this around you so you can get warm clothes for free.

- If you have lost your shelter altogether, go immediately to the Office of Financial Aid; this is a crisis and you need help right away.  Ask a friend for shelter (in exchange for chores around the house and/or tutoring).  Go home (if you can afford it) for a week or until you can figure out what to do.  Do not live homeless; it is dangerous.  You may need to forfeit your semester in order to stay safe.  However, most likely there is an emergency solution to your problem.

Of course, the best idea to avoid a financial crisis is to budget well and to be conservative in your spending, but sometimes there are unexpected problems that come up: your parents suddenly withdraw their financial support; your apartment burns down and you need a new place to stay; you suddenly get ill, withdraw for a semester and need to do an extra semester that you had not budgeted for, etc.  As an adult with a job, you are expected to have some emergency savings; as a student, it is very difficult to do that because your budget is tight with no extra money to put aside (unless you have more money than most – in that case, save!).  However, if you are spending on unnecessary items, keep in mind that whatever reason you have a larger-than-most cash flow may not last and be smart about having a contingency fund or plan.

Also, be aware of precursor clues that you are getting in financial trouble: you money is running out faster than you had expected; you are dipping in your ‘emergency food supply’, etc. 

 

The bottom line: if you are in a desperate situation, ASK FOR HELP; there is help for these situations and the help is designed to help YOU.  Do not feel bad as there will be opportunities for you to ‘make up’ for the help later in your life.  Right now, you need to stay afloat and stay healthy.  Help is there; use it.

Choosing a College or University Well.

Many of you will be either returning to post-secondary education, or starting in it this September.  Not only is education after high school very different from high school, but the social scene is different, especially if you will not be living at home.  For international students (anyone changing country to study, even if the change is ‘only’ Canada-USA), the change is even more important: a new culture, new weather, often a new language, new foods, new social cues, and new legal, financial and red tape structure.  Queen’s University, in Kingston Ontario, has a special program called Atlas which helps international students welcome these changes.  I’ve stolen their diagram of what constitute all the health issues you must monitor when making the changes to post-secondary education.  If you change the middle bubble to ‘success in post-secondary education’ or even ‘success in life’ , you’ll get a good idea of what I mean.

(http://quic.queensu.ca/international-students-and-staff/welcome-and-orientation/international-orientation-fall/aculturation-and-transition-to-life-and-academic-success-atlas/ )

To be successful in university, you can’t just count on academic success; obviously this blog is about doing it cheaply, but you also need to come out unharmed, healthy, and happy.  This is why I promote cutting down the fancy coffees, but not your meds; why I recommend jogging over club hopping, and why choosing a university close to home has lots of advantages. 

When studying more independently than in high school, you may end up meeting lots of different people.  You will be exposed to many different opinions, takes on life, philosophies, ethics, morals and religions.  It can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, especially if you are not sure what your beliefs are.  Luckily, university is a great place to do a few ‘taste-tests’ to solidify your beliefs or to find a philosophy that meshes with you. 

Where I wanted to draw your attention is to a couple of the bubbles:

The Emotional and Mental Health bubble: this is an extremely important one that many people ignore.  If you are treated for a mental illness or emotional problem or both, and that your team is a good one, consider not moving away for post-secondary education.  Two benefits will come from this: 1. you will keep your team of professionals assisting you.  In emotional and mental health, having a team that we are comfortable with is more important than in physical health because so much of mental and emotional health is talking about problems that are very difficult to talk about and because measurement methods involve divulging personal information.  The second benefit of not moving is that the cost will be less, so the stress of being able to pay for your years of studies will be less.  For anyone, with or without mental health problems, this stress can be enormous.  If you are dealing with mental health problems, this stress is by definition something you want to avoid.

The other bubbles I want to draw your attention to are the Social and Interpersonal Health bubble and the Socio-Cultural and Spiritual Health bubble.  Both of these rely heavily on finding peers you can relate to and develop meaningful friendship.  If your culture and religious background are very important to you, finding a city and a university where these are strongly represented should be a priority when choosing a school to attend; you may feel lost without them, and you may feel that you have no one to relate to if you are the lone person of your ethnicity or religion.   So make sure you can feel at ease where your study; it will be your home for a few years, so choose it well.

Remember: choosing an establishment of education should not be an academic decision alone; it should be a mental health and cultural decision as well.