As a college student in the United States it’s hard not to realize that being able to save money is an important skill, and unfortunately not one most people have mastered. But worry not, as someone who’s had to go from coming home from college with less than $5 in their account to having saved nearly $2,000 in two months, I’ve got you covered.

1. Track Your Spending.
Get your butt to the app store on your phone, download a spending tracker and start to pay attention to where your money is spent. Do you spend too much money eating out, on clothes, shoes, video games? Do you spend money right after you get it? Having an app that let’s you see where the money is going makes you a lot more self-aware. My personal favorite is an app called Spending, but I’ve also heard good things from friends about Pocket Express and Receipt Box. All free to download.

2. Cut the Crap.
Okay, so you’re tracking your spending now. Watching a balance decrease before your eyes with every purchase makes things feel a little different than just swiping a card and checking your balance once a week. Here’s a fun fact. If you were to buy one small coffee from Starbucks every day for an entire year you would spend a little under $1,500 on coffee. So, if I were you, I’d start brewing your own coffee, find some flavors and go nuts. It’ll save you a couple hundred. Having more money is 50 percent making the money and 50 percent not spending it on unneeded things. Once in a while is fine, but every day? I don’t think so.

3. Savings Jar and Savings Account.
Put all of your loose change in a jar or a bin or a pig or some type of container. Trust me, if you’re someone that uses cash to pay for a lot of things, putting that change away will add up by the end of the summer. Doing that over the course of high school landed me with $600 in change that I deposited into my account right before freshman year.

If you’re not a cash person, I suggest opening a savings account with your bank. That way with every pay check you can deposit a fraction of it into the savings account and never have to see it again until you really need that money. But that money is for emergencies only!

3. Join Rewards Programs and Understand the Benefits of a College ID.
You’re already going to be spending money at certain places like Giant, CVS and the like, so why not get a little cash back for every amount spent. Reward cards are usually free to open (if there’s a charge, it’s probably not worth it anyways), and, let me tell you, they’re wonderful.

At Giant you get points for every dollar you spend and eventually it adds up to cents off the gallon at Giant gas stations. College kids, whenever you and your friends go shopping, use the same card to increase the amount off per gallon that you can get, and if more than one of you has a car, alternate who gets to use the discount.

CVS ExtraBucks are my best friend. You get lots of coupons just for owning a card too, so it’s worth it. Plenti is expansive in that it covers Rite Aid, Exxon for gas, Macy’s and a couple other places. Pretty much any store that you’d go to frequently, ask about a loyalty card.

Owning a college ID also has more benefits than just getting you into your dorm hall and activating your meal plan. There are a few articles out there covering places that give discounts to college kids, but this list is the most frequently updated that I’ve found.

4. DON’T BUY YOUR TEXTBOOKS FULL PRICE ANYWHERE
Get your ISBN numbers, get your butt to BooksPrice (a beautiful website that compares prices of your book from all websites across the interwebs), and find the cheapest prices for both purchases and rentals of any and all books. I cut a hundred dollars off of my textbook prices for next semester just by ordering from a couple different places rather than bulking them even just from Amazon. And while you’re at it, keep RetailMeNot open in another browser and search for coupons in regards to shipping or even small percentages off your final total.

5. Sell Your Stuff or Yourself.
Sell your old textbooks! Sell them to underclassmen or friends who are going to be taking the class. Sell them to textbooks.com, who gives you a quote and pays for the shipping label for you to send the books to them. Offer up your old clothes to boutiques and get a couple extra bucks (just don’t expect too much from it). Cash in old jewelry or old phones that are gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. eBay will become your best friend. And don't forget to SELL YOURSELF. What I mean by that is, do some odd jobs. Ask neighbors if they would let you run errands, babysit kids, tutor. Care.com and TaskRabbit are great places to market your skills.

6. Survey Websites.
Hear me out. The catch with these kinds of websites is that you never know if you’re going to get scammed, or if it’ll actually be worth it but I have tried at least ten different survey websites and the one with the best outcome and the best reviews was I-Say.com. The biggest thing to consider, and I guess come to terms with, is that there really isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme to these things. You have to fill out surveys, get points and then redeem them. There are Amazon, iTunes and PayPal gift cards from five to fifty dollars. It takes some time, but if you have the time to sit in front of your computer and aimlessly scroll through Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, then I think you can invest some time to something that’ll have a better payout than what was I doing for the past five hours. Trust me, your Netflix can wait.

7. Put Your Talents to the Test.
Are you good at some kind of craft, some kind of artsy thing? USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. I’ve put my retired art skills to work and have been designing and sewing pillows for people. Currently making anywhere from $10 to $20 an order. It’s a side hobby, but it’s money right? If you can sew, crochet, paint shoes or hats to shirts. Scope out the DIY section of Pinterest and go crazy.

Basically, there’s a lot you can do to keep yourself from staring at empty pockets for the course of these four years. I promise, your future self will thank you for starting good saving habits sooner rather than later. It doesn’t mean you sacrifice going out and splurging every now and again, it just means you make yourself more aware and realize that the only thing between you and the money you wish you had, is you.