Saving Money

Being a finance major, my main concern while living in Montreal was cutting costs. Most students wasted a lot of money in not planning well before coming here, and I want to ensure you don't make the same mistakes as well.

Save Space

Firstly, when coming to Montreal - DON'T BRING A TRUCK LOAD of stuff. Remember, that around campus, you get pretty much everything you need for perhaps a much cheaper price. If your living in New Residence, like I did, you'll save a lot of money! Contrary to beliefs that it's the most expensive residence. You have to keep in mind that you don't pay for electricity, water, food *it's included*, table tennis, events, parties, and there's a huge rez budget as well.

Posters

If your looking to brighten up your room with posters, there are three options. I chose the last one cause I was late and it seemed to be the best. Firstly, in the opening two weeks of university, there's a huge poster sale in the SSMU building where you practically get any and every type of poster. They're about 10$ each with the really nice and big ones being $18 or so. Unfortunately, the good ones go quick and you only have two days to buy the posters - not ideal for a girl who can't make up her mind = me!

Secondly, there are amazing shops down st. Catherine's and one really good one down St. Laurent. They're again about 15$ each but the selection isn't as good.

Thirdly, and my favorite option - amazon.com!! don't use amazon.ca, seriously - worst posters I've ever seen. so yes, amazon. com, it's about 0.49$ to 4.99$ per poster. The posters are huge, amazing quality, and to date I can't find a single poster that isn't there. They have every size, type, genre, band, movie, book, building, city you could think of and it's dirt cheap - 49 cents! However, there's obviously shipping, which works out to about 25$. So what I did was split the shipping between 10 people who wanted to buy HDMI cables, posters, towels, bags, anything. It was amazing, I ended up spending 2 dollars on shipping and 5 dollars on 7 posters. Isn't that amazing? Just find someone with a debit card with an expiration date and visa/mastercard stamp - only then can you use amazon.com. RBC debit cards don't work just by the way.

Groceries

The next topic, is going to be daily grocery shopping. I found that a lot of students just went to expensive shops everyday and bought food whenever they needed it - bad idea. Shops like the metro and provigo are amazing for groceries, but they’re also horribly expensive. So again, what I did was bring two to three friends of mine and go for the Monday student super saver sale. It was basically, spend over 50$ and get 10% off. Which is essentially no tax, or very little tax if you want to get accurate. So yes, I spend about 20$ and with my friends, we more than crossed the 50$ mark and got our 10% off. It’s only on Mondays, so we basically shopped for the next two weeks without overspending. When you go alone, you tend to buy stupid stuff just to cross the 50$ mark.

Oh! And make note of this – NEVER BUY FOOD FROM THE DOLLARAMA. Firstly, no good food which won’t poison/impair/kill is worth a dollar. Even if it’s just chips, don’t do it – you’ll end up spending more at the doctors. But in all honesty, I loved the dollarama, you save so much money going there, whether it’s for decorations for your room *I spent a bomb on that* or cutlery/toiletry- it’s the absolute best place.

Be Smart, you’re in McGill

Lastly, all I can say is be smart. This is Montreal, where everyone from around the world is, so your bound to find a cheap place somewhere. Oh! I almost forgot McGill classifieds! Type it in, on the McGill website and you’ll find students from McGill selling practically anything school related – books, computers, bikes, etc. And for your calculator, the financial one you’ll need for economics and business – buy it online – it’s like 15$. They charge you about 45$ at McGill – RIP OFF! I hopes this eases your budget and saves you a few bucks. I saved a lot of money cutting corners and it worked. I met this hygienic girl in first year and we shared the laundry machine so we only paid half price each time. It was great, but if you’re doing this –make sure the girl/guy is REALLY clean, otherwise your clothes will get...well...dirty!

Clubbing

By the way, you may not realize this, but you lose a lot of money clubbing, buying alcohol, parties, nights out – so keep that to a minimum as well, or find cheap places around Montreal. I found great clubs like ying and yang where there was no cover, mckibbins, where there was ladies night – stuff like that. Anyway, that’s all from me, take care, have fun!