Do you want to save money? Student discount is the way through.
A clever strategy for overcoming the cost of a college education is to take advantage of your student discounts. Designed specifically with students in mind, these special pricing benefits—which frequently take the shape of reduced costs or special offers—are essential in lessening the financial strain of living and educational costs. Students can manage their finances more skilfully as there is financial savings, which guarantee that adventures, entertainment, and necessities are affordable. This improved affordability encourages a more fulfilling student lifestyle in addition to addressing the growing expenses of education. Student discounts help create a well-rounded and pleasurable student experience by providing savings on a range of goods and services, providing a workable answer to the financial challenges of a university education.
Regarding the eligibility of student discounts, it is important that you have access to your university email address, because once you have made the account it requires you to verify your account through your university email.
It is very easy to access your student, through apps like UNiDAYS, Student Beans, and you can even get access to student subscription on Spotify and Apple Music. To join UNiDAYS for instance, all that the students require is their personal and university email address alongside a string password (one you can easily remember too!). after this step you will receive a verification email to your university email address ensuring that you are a university student. After these confirmation processes you can now search your favourite brands as well as explore the listed categories of items you can buy from. The app is very easy to navigate in terms of selecting favourite brands and receiving updates on any new discounts.
The perks of joining:
- Economic Savings – Greater Affordability
- Promotes the Student Lifestyle – for example gym memberships, clothing discounts (to keep up with the latest fashion trends)
- Promotes Spending Responsibly
- Reduces Financial Stress
- Encourages Loyalty to Brand
- Enhances Life Quality – Promotes Learning Opportunities
- Creating a Community – Getting Ready for Upcoming Financial Challenges
The best time to use your student discounts is in the beginning of your first year, and gradually during holiday seasons like Christmas and Easter. Food delivery services like UberEATS are very generous with student discounts offering 10% off on first time food delivery, and the discount is furthered if you share codes with your friends to get around £5 off. Furthermore, it is always handy to ask in shops whether they offer student discounts, and you can easily save around 10% or mor depending on the shop.
Find out what other students had to say about how they benefitted from student discount:
‘It helps me deal with the living crises.’ – Person 1
‘I couldn’t afford a gym membership, but after using the discount I could access gym membership easily, which helped me deal with my mental health.’ – Person 2
Other tips:
- Make sure you get a loyalty card for supermarkets. Not only will you pay less for various items, you will also access money saving deals and sometimes collect ‘points’ for what you buy which will lead to monthly coupons (Co-op Membership Card, Tesco Clubcard, Nectar etc.).
- Totum: If you sign up for a Totum card, you will receive a year’s Tastecard that will give you money off certain restaurants.
- When you are buying lunch from a supermarket, you can buy a meal deal which includes a drink, main meal and a snack. These are discounted so you can save some money! Top tip: choose all the most expensive items in the deal to get the most money off!
- Student Beans and UniDays: There various discounts that are regularly updated on these apps, food and non-food related.
- Hello Fresh and Gousto are meal kit companies which you can subscribe to and receive recipes and the ingredients you need in the exact portions you need them. There are usually students discount deals such as money off your first few boxes.
- Simply Cook send you recipes and the spices you will need to create them. They list all the ingredients you will need for the recipe so you will just need to buy these at your chosen supermarket. This can be handy for meal planning. Similarly, there are usually student deals so check the apps!
- Clever Cuisine – See the eating section about our university meal plans. You can eat good quality food on campus for a discounted price.
- Use your Campus Card to get discounts on drinks and food across campus.
- Some supermarkets have their own card that saves you money through discounts, cash back or other rewards. These include: Morrisons More, Tesco Clubcard, Sainsbury’s Nectar, Lidl Plus and Asda Rewards.
- The website MySupermarket helps you compare supermarket prices and save money.
- Too Good to Go: A free app that tells you which local restaurants, cafés or stores have extra food that you can buy at a discount and pick up the same day. You get to help stop food waste and save money.
- Similarly, Olio is a link where you can find cheap food that people are selling/giving away, as well as many other items.
- Some restaurants at the Oracle shopping centre offer student discounts if you show your University ID. You can find which restaurants do this here.
- Supermarkets will usually contain both ‘own brand’ and ‘branded’. Own branded products are usually cheaper but quality can vary. E.g. Tesco’s ‘Every day Value’
- All the sushi and cold food in Itsu (Reading town centre) is half price after 7:30pm!
- Every Wednesday Mission Burrito in Reading town centre gives 30% off all food and drink to students!
- Student discount on Spotify
- Always ask if a shop does student discount – you will need to show your UniDays or Totum ID card. Most shops will do at least 10%!
- Through Totum, you can get a cashback card and gain cashback on multiple stores including Asda, Sainsburys and Argos.
Student discounts, a lifeline for finances, empower students financially, encourage a healthy lifestyle, and build community, all of which make university easier. Check out the UoR page to find out more about making the most out of your university life!