By Melissa Wermeister
Money is very tight and a hard thing to save when you are a college student. It seems like there are so many expenses: tuition, which is a killer; books, car payments, rent, food and on top of that, any type of social life you want to have. All this can really drain a hole in your pocket. So what is the best way to get a little extra spending money?
First, start out by cleaning out your closet. Make a pile of clothes that you still wear and a pile of clothes that you have no intention on ever wearing again. After you have sorted through your clothes, take the ones that you do not want to a consignment shop. Many consignment shops, such as Plato’s Closet or My Closet, will buy clothes. How much you receive for the clothes depends on the consignment shop you go to and the condition that the clothes are in. My Closet consignment shop is located at 925 Baxter Ave. and the phone number is 485-0454. There are many other consignment shops; just walk up and down Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue, and you will hit all kinds of consignment shops.
After you have cleaned out your closet, you can move over to your CDs. Browse through your CDs; if there is something in that pile that you have not listened to in over a year, then chances are you probably aren’t going to. Many places will buy used CDs: Ear-X-Tacy, Better Days, Electric Lady Land. Most of these places will buy CDs from you for three to five dollars, depending on the condition of the CD and the popularity of the music. Three to five dollars doesn’t even amount to the price that you originally bought the CD for, but hey, when you are a college student every penny counts. Ear-X-Tacy is located at 1534 Bardstown Rd and the number is 452-1749. Electric Lady Land is located at 2325 Bardstown Rd and the number is 458-4295. Better Days is located at 1608 Bardstown Rd and the number is 456-2394.
Once you have your clothes and CDs taken care of, take a good look at your room, because pawn shops will pawn just about anything from you. Electronics, jewelry, instruments; if you have anything under these categories, a pawn shop will be happy to take them off your hands, depending on the condition, of course. Cash America Pawn has eight different locations: 4636 Dixie Hwy., 6410 Preston Hwy., 3354 Hikes Ln. and 4133 Shelbyville Rd. are just some of them. Easy Cash Pawn and Jewelry, located at 9808 Taylorsville Rd., will even cash one of your personal checks and wait to deposit it until two weeks later.
If selling your stuff is too sentimental for you, then maybe charity of self is your way to earn money. Many places will pay you around $25 for your blood. To give blood, you have to be at least 17 and weigh over 110 pounds. If you think having a needle in you for about an hour is worth the money, you can donate plasma at the Alpha Plasma Center, conveniently located at 1913 4th Street next to Gray’s Bookstore.
Now we can move on to the labor part of making money. There are many things you can do to make money; it just requires the willingness to do work. Car washes make a great deal of money, especially when the seasons are changing from winter to spring, as cars are always filthy. Spring and summer are also the seasons for yard sales. Sit outside and sell your junk for about three hours, and you will be amazed with how much you can make. With the days warming up, grass is going to grow rapidly. Even though cutting grass can be hard work, the pay is not too bad. Last but not least, if you love kids and have fun with them, there is a need for baby-sitters all year long. The pay rate for baby-sitting depends on the person and sometimes the amount of kids. Look at it this way: you get to have fun and get paid for it.
These are three ways for college students to get that extra cash: selling your junk, self-inflicted pain, or labor. Either way, it is money, and well needed at that.
