HOW TO SAVE MONEY IN NURSING SCHOOL

Hey there friends. Christina here. And today in this video, I am going to give you my top money tips for nursing school to help you save money in nursing school. Because, friend, I know that nursing school kind of bleeds you dry in that area, right? You've got like textbooks and uniforms and tuition and all of the things that you need to plan for and spend your money on a nursing school in order to be successful. Obviously you have to pay for tuition and books and all that stuff. So. So I'm going to give you my best tips here to help you save money in those areas. So I hope you love it. Let's dive in. Now the first one that I want to talk about is textbooks. Now textbooks, obviously you've got a gazillion of them in nursing school. So there are some really great strategies that I have come to find from not only me, but other nursing students that have been really helpful. Now the first one that I want to talk about is buying or renting online. So Amazon, come on, like, who doesn't love Amazon, right on Amazon. I don't know if you knew, but you can actually rent textbooks for class. So instead of like buying all your textbooks, you can actually rent it out. Now here's a place where you might get stuck. I don't want you to end up renting a book for four years where and having be more expensive that way if you were to rent it for four years rather than just buy it up front. Front, because sometimes the cost can be a little higher if you're renting. So definitely watch out for that. Don't get stuck there. Definitely check those prices depending on how long you need a book for. Take that into consideration just to make sure that you're not going to spend more than you need to on that textbook. Because if you're renting it for four years, then it might be better if you just bought it up front. So definitely take that into consideration. But Amazon is the first place that I would check for books. Do not, friend, do not buy your textbooks at your college bookstore. No, no, no, it is, it is way, way more money usually at your college bookstore than it would be if you just bought it online on Amazon. And I know also there are a lot of other websites that I've heard of that do that same kind of thing that Amazon does, like rent it or you could buy it for, for slightly less money on those like more college textbook websites. Now I don't have any experience with any of those. Honestly, I did not buy my in nursing school. I bought mine off of Amazon. So that's the one that I'm going to recommend. I don't like recommending things that I've never used. So I'm just letting you know that they are out there. Ask your nursing school buddy if maybe they have used some. But they're, they are definitely out there. And again, I just, I don't want to misdirect you any which way because I haven't used them personally. I do not want to recommend anything that I haven't like, used and know and love. So Amazon for me, total win. So I'm going to recommend that to you to be a place that you check out for your college textbooks. Now, a couple other tips for textbooks are tracking down previous students. At my school. When I was in nursing school, we actually had a Facebook page for nursing students that were in the program or had just graduated, which was super handy because when a student would graduate and pass their nclex, they would just post inside that Facebook group and be like, hey, I got like all these millions of books right here and I will sell them to a new nursing student or something for a lot less money. So check into that. See if there's like a student that just graduated or just passed their nclex who would be willing to sell you their old textbooks. And that's another tip that I have is you might not need the newest edition. Now, friend, I know that this is a little controversial, especially with nursing instructors, but hear me out. I have found in my personal experience that the textbooks, especially, especially the textbooks that update every single year, like, they don't change that much. Let's be honest, like, they do not change that much. Especially if the textbook is updating super, super regularly, like annually or even every two years. The information does not change that fast. So definitely. I know this book. Nursing Diagnosis here, Handbook. This is the 10th edition. And I mean, I still have it, so I'm sure that it's still applicable. The Davis Drug Guide, you know, these things just don't change. I know this, this is the 14th edition. I don't even know what edition they are now, but like 14 editions. Yeah, they've got it down by now. So if it comes out every year, take a look at the older editions because those are probably going to be less money for you to spend just, just on the older editions for basically the same thing. And the last thing I want to say about textbooks is Goodwill. Like, who doesn't love Goodwill, right? I love Goodwill, Amazon and Goodwill. Like, what else do you need? So Goodwill, my Husband and I and my son actually go to Goodwill all the time, like every week because we love wandering around and I often see the same textbooks that I used in class for nursing school. So it's pretty awesome because like I said before, if a student just graduated or is just, just passed their nclex, they could just drop their books off at Goodwill and you could purchase them for a lot less money. So definitely that could be a great place to check out. Check out your local Goodwill. Especially a Goodwill that's like by your nursing school. You know, one that's like really pretty close because that's probably where you're gonna find a lot more of the nursing textbooks at that one. So that would be another place for you to check out for textbooks. And now I do want to mention that if you are a nursing SOS member, this month for June, I created a complete resource guide for you and that has all of my favorite textbook resources and a whole bunch of other resources for nursing school that are like my favorites that I really recommend that you check out. So if you are a member, definitely log into your dashboard, find that in the bonus section and download it because it's going to help you a lot. Kind of organize everything that you need for school. And my top picks for all the resources that you need, including your textbook. So definitely check it out. If you are not a member, don't worry. I have two of my favorites here for you, so David's Drug Guide and the Nursing Diagnosis Handbook by Ackley and Ladwig. So these are game changers for you in nursing school. I recommend them all the time to nursing students. They are two of my faves. So I will put affiliate links down below to Amazon, of course, down in the description below. So if you feel like those would be super helpful for you, definitely snag them. Friend, friend. I'm telling you, they are life changing. Especially the Nursing Diagnosis Handbook because, well, I'm not going to get too much into it right now. You guys know if you've watched this channel for a long time, you know that how much I love this book. It basically writes your care plans for you. Huge deal. Huge deal. So I will put a link to those resources down below in the description. Those are affiliate links, like I said. So if you do decide to purchase something through that link, thank you so much for all your support of our channel. I really appreciate you guys and your love and support of everything we do here. I could not feel more blessed. Okay, so the next thing that I want to talk about is a budgeting system. I shouldn't say system, because this is, like, it's technically a system, but it's a really cute wallet. Seriously, it's so pretty and all flowers on it. And it's pink. Okay, I say, who doesn't love pink? But I know a lot of people don't like pink. I love pink. So this is my budgeting wallet. And what a budgeting wallet looks like is it has all of these different zippers, zippered pockets, which is actually kind of fancy because this is made by Thrifty zippers. I hope you can see that. Thrifty zippers. Basically, you just divide up all of your money into pockets and you can put it all there and then making sure that you don't overspend on your budgeting categories. So this is really, really handy for you. If you tend to overspend on food in nursing school, that is a huge deal. I hear this from our nursing SOS members all the time that not planning for dinner and not planning for lunch is a huge financial issue, because when you don't plan, then you end up, like, getting takeout or ordering pizza or, you know, overspending on your. Your meal budget, your food budget each month. So this is really handy to have, you know, just pull out whatever your budget is from the bank. So in cash. Take it in cash, and then put the cash in your budgeting wallet, like this one. And then you will be able just to, you know, unzip your pocket and just automatically see what you have, rather than just always spending it on a debit card and, you know, having a hard time keeping track of exactly how much you've spent, spent per each category every month. So this has been super helpful for us. I really, really love it. I love spending in cash more than anything else. And I also really like it with. With our son, with Daniel, because I feel like I'm teaching him how to handle money. So I don't know, it makes me feel like a lot more in control of my life. And I used it all through nursing school, too. So, again, that is Thrifty Zippers. For all these links, I will put them down below like I said before. So, yeah, you'll have all of these resources for you to help you out. Now the next one I want to talk about is carpooling. I have heard from some of our members and other students. This blows my mind that some of your clinical sites are like, two hours away. What? Like, that's crazy to me are. I think the furthest clinical I had was like, an hour like 50 minutes. I would say like 50 minutes away, which I thought was super far. But then you guys tell me that you're like driving like two hours to get to clinical. Like, that's crazy. That's. That's nuts. That's nuts. So carpool with a friend. Like, do not spend two hours, okay? And that was even two hours one way. So like four hours total. Do not spend four hours total on gas if you can help it. Every single week. Like carpool with a friend. So that will save a ton of time, time and money for you in nursing school because you're not going to be, you know, spending all that gas money every single week driving two hours. Like, that's crazy. Two hours for clinical. If you have a two hour commute to clinical, please let me know down in the comments because I just think that's crazy and I want to empathize with you and support you on that. I'm really sorry. So make sure that you're carpooling with your friends, with nurse, with your classmates and people in your clinical group if you can. If you can manage that. This is something that we constantly did in nursing school. I think very, very rarely do. Did I go to clinical alone also, because it's really fun and I feel like with a nursing school buddy, you can decompress more and talk out your stress and anxiety before you go to clinical. Because clinical is really stressful. So it's really nice to just have that support system that's kind of like, you know, there you're there in a car for like two hours. It's crazy. All right, the next thing that I want to talk about is uniforms. Schnazzy. Schnazzy uniforms that are typically white and blue or white and white. There's a lot of white in nursing school. So for uniforms, I very, very, very much recommend again that you buy it online if you purchase it, you know, either on campus, I don't know, do schools. My school didn't sell uniforms, but I'm sure some do for, for your scrubs, for your school uniforms. So if you buy it at school, I'm sure it's a lot more money. If you buy it online, again, less money. So I definitely recommend that. There's a lot of scrub sites, scrubs and beyond.com I have used, actually, I think that's where I got most of mine. And so I really liked that. The scrubs that I wear still now. So in all the videos that I'm wearing scrubs, they are the Dickies EDS scrubs. I really like them. They are a little more form fitting, like slim and they're long, so they fit me pretty well. I have a pretty long torso. I really, really like them. And I also. Another big thing for me is I'm pretty modest. I don't like, like deep like V necks and stuff in my scrubs. So this actually, this does have a V neck. Maybe you can't really see see it because of the wet on white, but it does have a V neck. But it doesn't come down super low, which I don't know, makes me feel a little bit more modest. That's kind of my preference. So I, I do like the V necks that just kind of end pretty. You know, they're pretty shallow V necks but they're so pretty and I like them. Also. These EDS scrubs have a lot of pockets, which, I mean every, every nursing student and nurse needs a ton of pockets. So definitely the best place probably to buy it online. I also really recommend goodwill for scrubs as well. And again, same goodwill that's probably closest to your school because they will have probably a lot, you know, a lot of scrubs more than a goodwill that's like not as close to a nursing school. So definitely check out the local goodwill because again, a lot of nursing students, when you graduate past your nclex, if you're not wearing the same school to your first job, if you have a dress code at your first job that is different than the dress code at your school, then you know, what are you gonna do with your scrubs. So a lot of students do donate them after they graduate. So definitely check that out. And along that same line, if your school has like kind of a hand down, hand me down program, I don't know, ours was called a uniform closet. So if your school has a uniform closet where other students, so at our school, other students could, could donate their either like used scrubs that they didn't need anymore or yep, the scrubs that they had graduated out of and no longer needed, they would donate them after they graduated. And then us little newbie nursing students could go in and raid the closet and find the sizes that fit well for us. And of course because it was the school's, you know, school's uniforms primarily, they were all, you know, the same colors that you needed for school. So it was really, really nice. And also as well like the patches that you get for school, it was be a little, a lot of money actually. Like you would think a patch doesn't cost that much, but I remember them Being pretty, like, it was quite a lot more money than I had anticipated. They're like four or five dollars, if I remember right. And I don't know, I thought that was kind of crazy. So it's really nice. Even if, like, you find a uniform at Goodwill that maybe doesn't fit you, maybe is the wrong color, but has the patch, definitely get it. Because it might even be cheaper if you just bought it for the patch. I found this to be true because I found a couple of shirts at Goodwill that. That were not my size at all, but they had the patch for my school, for my nursing school. So I just bought it because the shirt ended up being cheaper. I don't know if the shirt was like $2 or $3 at Goodwill, but the patch was like 5 or $6. So you might as well just buy it and just cut off the patch and use it in a new shirt. So I hope that's helpful. So those are my best tips to help you save money in nursing school. I hope you found these tips helpful. I really enjoyed creating this video for you and putting all of this together. I hope that it was helpful. Really. I mean, these are all my favorite resources to use. You know me that I would never recommend anything to you that I didn't personally use or love myself. So I really hope that all this was helpful. Please let me know down in the comments below what your experience is with nursing school and money and maybe like, overspending on dinner or where you find your uniforms or where you find your textbooks. I would love to hear from you. Help each other out in the comments. You know, I would love to create. Well, apparently we have a delivery. Hang on. Okay. Who doesn't love when you get stuff from Amazon, right? Man, Amazon is just the best. Okay, so what was I saying? Help each other out in the comments. If you have a tip or a trick or a nursing school hack, I would love to hear from you. And I think that's what I was saying. Right. Okay. Thank you so much for watching, friend, and I will see you in the next video.