Last week, I told you all about how I handle my finances in a way that is efficient and effective by using GoogleSheets. One of the reasons why I love budgeting and financial planning so much is because it helps me to understand the accounts that I hold in a more tangential way. From there, I am able to keep everything accountable and not waste money in any way. Alongside being organized, employing frugality is beneficial in ensuring the longevity of your finances. Because of this, I have several aspects of my life that I have hacked to be more fiscally conservative. In this post and my next few, I will be explaining several ways that I have cut down on waste and saved myself a lot of money.

And for my first money-saving hack…

Photo by PayJunction

Going Paperless!

About a year and a half ago, I decided to buy myself an iPad, and in doing so, I invested in a paperless future. All of my work, all of my notes, all of my studying, takes place on either my computer, iPad, or phone–I officially use zero paper, and it’s saved me tons of money.

Photo by LitReactor

First and foremost, I no longer have to buy notebooks, but I still get the benefit of handwritten notes. There are several fantastic note-taking apps, but my favorite is Goodnotes. It allows me to make tons of folders and notebooks for all of my particular needs. I can also upload documents into the app and mark them up easily. I use an Apple Pencil with my iPad and am able to effectively take notes on Powerpoint slides, handouts that I’ve easily scanned into the app, or even just a blank notebook. This is also very handy for homework–I can just pull open a notebook with plain white, lined, graph, or practically any form of paper under the sun and start doing some math or marketing or finance.

Goodnotes is an awesome way to get all of my documents in one place and always easily accessible.

Also a benefit of going digital, I can access PDF versions of most of my textbooks and download them to Goodnotes. That way, I don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks. I can simply add them to my class’s folder in Goodnotes and have them easily accessible at all times. And since they’re PDFs that I add to Goodnotes, I can also mark them up ’til the cows come home.

Next week: saving money on food on campus…

Over and Out.

-Courtney