What all are the 5 tips for saving money on entertainment expenses as a college student

All these expenses add up quickly. Here’s just one example: I have three roommates, and a month into living together, we realized all four of us were paying for a Netflix subscription when we only had one TV. Not only that, but we have four Prime accounts, three Hulu accounts, two HBO Max accounts, and a Disney+. All added up, as an apartment, we’re paying over $1,500 a year for streaming services alone! And this is contributing to a greater problem — streaming fatigue. There are so many options now, what with Peacock and Paramount+ and all the other streaming services, after the standard 5 of Prime Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, and Disney+. With all these choices, choosing what you’re going to spend your money on is exhausting. When streaming first started, it was a wonderful way for people to cut their cable bill. "It was a great alternative for people who weren’t watching cable," said Cattle Hogan, a young adult financial advisor and associate financial planner at Element Financial Group. "But slowly but surely, we may have cut cable, but we’ve replaced everything with a million subscriptions, and we’re not saving any money." More from College Voices: TikTok resumes and Instagram portfolios: How college students are using social media to find jobs How to be financially savvy and have fun in your 20sStress and anxiety Procrastination Self-doubt. Don’t fall into these traps in college. And as college students, we have a hard enough time making ends meet, which just makes everything worse. On average, people under 25 years old earn $2,500 per month and spend $1,730 of that on housing, food, clothing, and transportation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of the $770 that’s left, more than $100 is spent on entertainment. That’s a significant amount of the monthly discretionary budget. Fortunately, there are ways to cut down on the money we are spending and still have all the fun! Here are five tips to help you save money on entertainment as a college student: Budgeting is one of the most useful tools in any fiscally responsible person’s arsenal. Making and keeping a budget helps keep track of expenses and, when done correctly, can be used to plan for saving, paying down debt, and more. The first step to making a budget is to determine what goes into it. Make lists of planned and necessary expenses, such as rent payments, car payments, groceries, tuition, etc. Then list out all the incoming money, from jobs, scholarships, grants, parental assistance, and any other way money is ending up in your wallet. From there, form the budget. There are many useful tools online, from templates to instruction articles. Figure out which one works best for you. My personal favorites are Google Sheets or Excel. Utilizing the built-in tools in spreadsheet software is how I’ve formed and kept a budget for the past 5 years.Make a note of everything you spend; keep it in a spreadsheet," said Catherine Landers, a graduate student studying marketing research at the University of Georgia. "Part of spending less is being aware of how much you spend." Identify all entertainment expenses and what you paid for but didn’t use. If you’re not ready to take the full step of making a budget, that’s fine! Budgeting can be a daunting task, though a necessary one for financial security as one approaches adulthood. A smaller-scale version of this is to determine all entertainment expenses and identify what you’re paying for that you don’t use. If you know exactly how much you’re paying every month, it’s much easier to plan around those expenses and incorporate them into your monthly payments and to cut out anything unnecessary. "I don't keep a budget, but I do keep track of my spending," said Colin Tooth, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington studying marketing research. "I was in a personal finance course, and they stressed tracking your spending and knowing the data."