How To Save Money: Use a Student ID at Catch a Gideon

April 10th, 2007 by digerati

Remember that student ID of yours? Do you know how much money it saved you?

A lot of people keep their IDs in good shape, or even get new ones right before they graduate. Why? Because everyone knows students get discounts! Movies, pizza, tickets, it’s all there.

That’s the easy way to save money, a straight discount. But do you know the other way your student ID likely saved you money? That’s right, you didn’t pay taxes when you bought things with it.

That’s less apparent unless you pay attention. At GW (in DC) it’s more noticeable since taxes are often as high as 10% on many items and foods.

Ok, so that’s great if you’re in school, but you’re probably not funding your card anyway, it’s usually included as part of tuition or other required fees. Also, at many schools it only works in the cafeteria.

But many schools are expanding their debit like cards to work at external locations. GW has a few dozen restaurants that work with their “GWorld” card. Better yet, the card works at locations like CVS and other stores near campus.

Another point is that although the access to buildings on campus expires at graduation, the debit system remains intact until the money is spent. In fact, I can add money to it. And if I lost my card, I can get an alumni card from the school and put money on that.

Basically this means I can load up money on the card and use it at local stores and restaurants and save the price of the tax, a significant reduction in the district.

If you don’t live near your alma mater but live near another campus, you can often find a way to get a card from that university. If you’re using stores or services that take student discounts you should have a student ID.

Speculative possibility (maybe someone can COMMENT on this?): if you occasionally use stores or services that take your student ID as a debit type card (thus no tax), you may not want to load too much money on the card since you don’t know when you will lose it. If you put money on the card, you give money to the university (read: non-profit). If you receive goods or services for that money you cannot deduct it, but if you receive nothing for that money, you might be able to deduct what you don’t spend that year. Of course, if you had a remaining balance when you spend that balance you’ll have to report the cost of whatever you buy as income for that year. Anyone have a more official stance on this?