Hi all, this is Silje!
I hope you're all well and healthy, and that mid-terms went by smoothly. This week I wanted to talk about the advantages students have when it comes to discounts - It's no secret that college students have a tighter budget, and there is a lot of businesses that have decided to help out in offering their products and services at a discounted price. I will share both online and local discount offers that are beneficial to us as students to help save some extra cash.
1. Spotify Premium, Hulu and SHOWTIME bundle
For me personally, music is essential to my everyday life - I play music when I study, while I make food when I go to the gym, and so on. According to my screen time, my Spotify app has about 9 hours of activity per day. And I also know that I am not the only college student out there who enjoys using streaming services to watch a movie or a tv-show. These services can get pretty pricey in the long run - Originally, a Spotify Premium account is priced at $9.99 per month, and the popular streaming service Hulu is priced at $5.99 with additional costs for add-on services that are usually very tempting to pay for. Thankfully, Spotify and Hulu partnered up to offer college students a bundle; Spotify Premium and a Hulu account with the "SHOWTIME" add-on for only $5.99 per month total. All these services combined, it saves you a whopping $21.98 per month, which is a deal that is hard to pass upon.
This offer lets you listen to and download your songs and playlists offline, stream thousands of different movies and tv shows and you can try it for one month free of charge. If you're interested, sign up using this link!
2. Amazon Prime Student
This one is by far one of my personal favorites that I take full advantage of. Amazon is super convenient and offers a lot of great deals. Amazon Prime offers free shipping, and depending on the product, it can be delivered as soon as the same day of placing the order. They also offer to deliver your grocery shopping within two hours! Prime also offers easy and free returns, and conveniently enough there are two Amazon lockers located on campus (in the UC next to OMM, and in Morken center) where you can place your returns to be picked up the following day.
Amazon Prime also offers the streaming platform Prime Video to watch movies and shows for free, Amazon Music Prime for music-streaming, and Prime gaming which offers a lot of cool computer games that you can play. They also offer a textbook rental for those expensive books you need for class at up to a 90% discount.
Usually Amazon Prime would charge you $12.99 a month for their membership, however, as a student, you will receive 6 months of free prime membership. After the free period ends, you will be able to receive the membership half off ($6.49)! If you would like to sign up or just check it out, you can take a look here.
3. Bank of America and Wells Fargo Student Banking
From an international student perspective, opening up a bank account here in the US required a lot of research on which bank I should choose and what came with the most benefits. I found two banks that will let students open up a bank account free of charge and that will not charge you monthly maintenance fees for keeping your account open (those fees can really add up in the long run!).
Bank of America (conveniently located about a 12-minute walk from campus) offers Student Banking (students 24 years and younger) which allows you to open up a checking and a saving account without the monthly fees. All you had to do was to meet for an in-person meeting with the bank and show your documents - for international students specifically, bring your I-20, your passport, and your PLU ID card. They will help you get your account and your mobile bank app set up and will get your debit card sent out to you within about two weeks.
Wells Fargo also has the same deal for students between the age of 17 and 24 - Their "everyday checking" account allows you to open a bank account free of charge without the monthly fees. The closest Wells Fargo is across the street from the Bank of America location (so about a 14-minute walk.). If you prefer to pull out cash regularly, PLU has a Wells Fargo ATM located on campus inside the University Center.
4. Mint Mobile
Finding a phone plan can be an extremely tedious process, and comparing the different carriers to their different prices and what those prices include can get really overwhelming. Usually, international students tend to register for a prepaid plan because opening up a traditional phone-line account usually costs more than it's worth. After browsing through all the different carriers, I wanted to give Mint Mobile some appreciation in this post.
When I first came to the US it took me about two weeks to get my American number and phone plan, due to comparing rates, going to the carrier's store to set up an account and phone number (since most carriers won't let you do it online without an American phone number) and waiting for the SIM card to get shipped to my dorm.
CampusSIMS partnered up with Mint Mobile to ship out a Sim Card to your international home address for free so that you can activate your plan and start using your new number the second you arrive in the US. If you're already in the US with a US Phone number and just looking for a cheaper carrier, then
Mint Mobile has the cheapest prices on the market, for the same coverage and data usage. Worth checking out!
The Outlet Collection Seattle - Auburn, WA
Located about 30 minutes off Campus is the Outlet Collection, which has a lot of different stores - there is something there for everyone. There are major sales going on all the time inside that mall, and a lot of the stores will apply an additional discount if you show them your Student ID at the register. Just for reference, I went to a designer purse-store inside the mall called Kate Spade, where they had sales from 50%-70% off. At the register, they applied an additional 15% off when I showed them my Lutecard. This mall is definitely worth the trip if you need to treat yourself with some shopping without spending a lot of money. A list of the stores in the mall can be found
here.
Student Beans & Honey
Lastly, to keep track of more student discounts I would recommend signing up for an account at Student Beans. They provide you with all of the student discounts that are available to you and lets you save them in your account to use in the future. You can take a look and make a free account here.
Honey is not specifically directed to students directly, however, it is directed towards saving money - which every student wants to do. Honey is a free extension to your browser, that automatically scans the internet for coupon codes when you're online shopping. To see how exactly this works, I found one of
their youtube videos that explain it in less than a minute
here. You can add it for free to your browser with
this link and start saving money. I make sure to do all my online shopping on my computer where Honey is installed and it has saved me so much money!
Those are my tips and tricks to saving some money on products and services that typically can get pretty pricey in the long run - I hope some of these will help you save some money as well!
-- Silje
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