Go away to college, they said. It will be fun, they said.

Meanwhile, you are more terrified to check your bank account than you are to check last weeks chem test you know you failed.

For me personally, going away to college is hands down the best experience. I have learned so much about myself and have gained so much independence from it.

With being a college student, though, comes being broke. You have a job but somehow cannot manage to save any kind of money at all.

You aren’t the only broke 20-year-old struggling, I can promise you that. You are just like every single college student out there if you can relate to any of these struggles.

1. You find yourself starting to ration, irrational things in your head.

“No, I don’t need to do laundry this week” are some of the things you start thinking, simply because you can’t afford laundry detergent. But let’s be real, that stuff is expensive. It’s cheaper to go out and buy new underwear than it is to buy Tide. (No, I don’t know this from experience...)

2. You start to find alternative ways to eat.

Sure, I can go buy bread, but this Busch Light someone left in my fridge has just as many carbs, I’ll survive.

3. You learn to hate the first of every month.

This is because you know rent is due, the utility bill is due, your credit card bill is due, and you have absolutely no idea how you are going to pay any of this.

4. You learn how to wiggle around due dates.

You find out just how many days each of these things can be put off for payment before getting a late fee, just to buy yourself some extra time on figuring out where the hell this money is coming from.

5. You let the creepy people giving out free hugs on campus, hug you.

This is because they are passing out free t-shirts and you know damn well you can’t buy new clothes.

6. You learn how to save change.

I used to hate carrying around spare change, but hey, four quarters is a dollar, and Lord knows I don’t even have that.

7. Your new favorite line becomes “is there a student discount here?”

8. Bottle returns are better than Christmas morning.

9. You “Netflix and chill”, purely because you can’t afford to do anything else.

This is especially helpful when you aren’t even sure if this person is worth the money it takes to go out on a real date.

10. You bond with others over free food.

Sometimes you find you and your group of friends going to school events simply because they have free food if you listen to a seminar you have absolutely no interest in.

These are only some of the things we broke college students think.

However, there are plenty of benefits to being broke. It teaches you how to manage life in so many different ways, I’m sure you didn’t know were possible. Maybe not the best life-managing skills, but hey, they work. Being broke humbles you because you learn to laugh off your stress instead of letting it consume you.

At least, I know while as broke as I may be now, when I have a career, I am going to be happy making whatever salary at that point because it’s more than the $4 I have in my pocket now.