7 Tips To Be A Cheapskate Student in Malaysia

2. Flash your 1 Malaysia Student Discount Card for EVERYTHING!

You already win half the battle with the power of the student card. Here are some of the great discounts you can enjoy!

• KLIA Transit: 30% discount on one way ticket

• Malaysia Airline: 10% to 25% discount on economy market fares

• FireFly: 50% discounts on Y class fare

• Rapid KL: Student RapidPass 50% discount for bus 33% discount for bus, LRT and Monorail

• A&W: 50% discount on regular and large root beers

• KFC: 5% discount for transaction below RM20

• Little Taiwan: 10% discount on minimum RM30 purchase from ala carte menu

• Station One Cafe: 5% discount

• The Chicken Rice Shop: Special student meal @ RM9.90 nett

• Focus Point: 20% to 50% discounts on selected frames and sunglasses

• Optical 88: 5% to 10% discount

• Kinokuniya Book Stores: 10% discount on normal price book

• MPH Bookstores: 10% discount on normal price book and stationery

• Mydin: Special price on selected non-food items

3. Hit the aisles after 8.00PM

Ahh... food. It is a temptation no one can resist. Do you know that you can still enjoy scrumptious meals at nearly half their price?

Hit the supermarket aisles when they sell their cooked food for less, usually after 8pm. Aeon, for example, tends to reduce up to 30-40% off the price of its cooked meals after 8pm; awesome for a quick dinner. Ready to take it to the next level? Follow a shop assistant holding a telltale sticker gun, waiting for them to discount items that are about to pass their “sell-by” date. (We're joking!)

4. Charge your phone in public places

(Source: Karolina Grabowska, Pexels)

I bet you charge your mobile phone almost everyday, sometimes twice a day. We get it; with all the constant usage of apps and accessing the Internet, the battery is draining much faster than our parents' old phones. If you want to spend less on electricity, charge your phone in public places. Better still, do it on campus because you spend almost 8 hours a day there. It may not be significant, but every little bit counts!

5. Stay home, not at shopping malls

(Source: Anna Shvets, Pexels)

If your campus is in the city, the temptation to hang out in malls is hard to resist.  Don't do it.  Try to stay at home instead. Staying at home might not sound like fun, some may even label you as having NO LIFE! But do you realiz=se that staying home can save you buckets? You don’t have to travel, that saves Touch ‘n go credit. You cut down in eating-out, that reduces expenses. You won’t be shopping at all, and that saves you even more money. Undeniably, there are always discounts and promotions here, there and everywhere. That's when you must resist even more! Otherwise, you’ll be spending unnecessarily.

6. Forget buying brand-new textbooks

I don’t understand why anyone finds reason to pay a whooping RM 280 for a paperback for a couple of semesters. You might say, “I want to keep it for reference later.” Err.. “NO, YOU DON’T.” Don’t buy brand-new books unless you realise you can’t get by without it, after you’ve finished your class - and if you must, get it from a classmate or senior for cheap. It surprises me how many students fall into the university bookstore trap with its simple one-stop shopping. To save money, simply approach your seniors or lecturers to buy books from them. Chances are, theirs could be secondhand books too!

7. Sacrifice the air-conditioning

(Source: Cottonbro, Pexels)

Malaysians are hermetically sealed with the air-conditioner (AC), inoculated from breezes, bugs and the noise of the newspaper truck. I sometimes imagine our ancestors snickering at this addiction. Try not to turn on the AC. Even if the weather is begging for you to lock yourself in an igloo, don’t give in to firing up your energy-burning, power-bill boosting electric monster. Instead, opt for table fans and ceiling fans that consume less electricity to keep you cool and comfy.

That’s it – 7 simple ways to be a cheapskate! It will help you tremendously to survive in a country where everything goes up rapidly, except our salaries.