Extreme Skint Tip: Change your handwriting

Do you find that your handwriting is usually large compared to your classmates? Are you still using wide ruled notebooks? Are you going through tons of paper each class? You may want to consider changing your handwriting. Make it smaller. Get the letters closer together. If you're using a pen, switch to a fine ball point. If you use mechanical pencils, use .5mm lead instead of .7. With more words on the page, you'll use less notebook paper and confuse handwriting analysts.

Extreme Skint Tips: Gate crash clubs with free food

At the beginning fo the year, especially during Week of Welcome, lots of clubs have their first meetings or socials for new students to meet. If it's a club you're remotely interested in, GO! There is usually free food. In my first term at OSU, I ate so much free pizza that I went off it for six months because I was sick of it. If your'e religious or at least comfortable with religion, groups like Collegiate Christian Fellowship and University Christian Fellowship often have snacks or meals at their gatherings. International Student Association hosts a free coffee hour in their room in the EMU. Bring a mug and meet a bunch of students from all over the word over a cup of joe.

Extreme Skint Tip: Internet Free

Internet can cost $30-$40 per month. Over the course of a year, that could be nearly $500! What skint student has that kind of money? Here's a wild and crazy idea: try living without internet at home. This really only works if you've got a laptop that you can take with you to the campus libraries, the EMU, the Eugene or Springfield Public libraries, a coffeeshop (although if you're really a skint student, what are you doing going out for coffee?), anywhere you can get free wi-fi. It may be a moderate inconvenience, but you're likely to be more productive at home, and if you've got to submit something online late at night, you can always park for a quick second outside one of the public libraries with your laptop. When I first started experimenting without home internet, I would park at the public library parking lot and put in two quarters, enough for 40 minutes. I found that I could pretty quickly get my stuff done if I opened up my email, facebook, and all the blogs I followed in tabs, read them one by one, then when my time was up, I left and didn't waste time on the internet the rest of the day.

Extra tip: Keep a little notebook in your laptop case for stuff to Google later.