Money-Saving Tips For Online Students
Traveling To On-Campus Embalming Labs By Sarah Beverley
I
f you’re an online Mortuary Science student, you may be making plans to attend on-campus embalming labs this semester or next semester. Try- ing to plan an affordable trip can be stressful and very time consuming, so there are a few important tips I want to share with you that will help you save money and time.
1. Use the Bing airfare prediction tool. You can find this at
Bing.com/ Travel. Enter the dates you plan to travel, and the predictor will tell you the best current rate. Pay attention to the colored arrows. Tey indicate whether to buy or wait. Start as far in advance as possible, because airlines adjust rates on the basis of supply and demand.
2. Use a comparison site for rental cars. Both
RentalCars.com and Car-
Rentals.com compare the rates of top companies. If the rates are high, don’t worry. Tey tend to drop regularly, and they often drop or increase more than $150 from one week to the next. It’s free to make reservations, so you can cancel your older, more ex- pensive reservation after you make a new one following a price drop. 3. Search for hotel discounts. If in- structors offer advice about areas of a city to stay away from, please follow their advice. Te best place to start comparison shopping is on Priceline. com. You can use the map feature to find hotels near your campus.
Choose the hotels with the lowest rates, and then visit their official Web sites. If they have free discount clubs, sign up. Tis may allow you to save up to 30 percent on your first stay. Call the hotel directly for rates, and use any discounts you find. If Pric- eline quotes a better rate, ask the ho- tel to match it. In most cases, they will, and they may offer you a lower rate for an extended stay. A word of advice: Choose a hotel that has at least a microwave and a refrigerator in the room. Several hotels also offer a free continental breakfast. Some of the Extended Stay brand hotels offer affordable rates for suites with dish- washers, refrigerators, microwaves, sinks and stoves.
4. Buy food from a grocery store. If there is one point I want to stress, it’s this one. Te smell of the embalming chemicals may hamper your appetite. It not only saves you money to buy ingredients for salads, sandwiches and other easy meals, but it may also save your stomach. If you must dine at restaurants for dinner, look for coupons using a search engine. You might be surprised at what you can find floating around the Internet. Most restaurants accept photos of coupons on your cell phone in place of a printed coupon.
5. Get travel insurance. We all know that nothing in life is predictable, so it’s good to be prepared. One of the
most reliable companies I recom- mend is Travel Guard. Tey offer ex- tensive coverage for a very affordable price, and they have a good reputa- tion. If you plan to rent a car, be sure to add the Travel Guard vehicle in- surance. Car rental companies offer coverage for a daily fee, but their fees are much higher than Travel Guard’s. In addition to this, rental car compa- nies do not offer the same extensive coverage. Your personal insurance company may not either, but check with your agent to make sure. If you have better rental clause than Travel Guard’s temporary auto insurance, there is no need to buy redundant coverage.
Tese are just a few of the most im- portant tips. If you haven’t flown in a long time, be sure to review TSA’s current guidelines at
TSA.gov. Make sure you have a backup plan for transportation to and from the air- port. If you are driving, have a me- chanic check your vehicle before hit- ting the road. It’s better to catch any problems before leaving, or they may turn into expensive repairs that leave you stranded out of town. Make sure to set a budget for everything. If you work hard to stick to your plan, you won’t short on cash when you return home again.
Sarah Beverley is a freelance writer and travel blogger in Los Angeles, California. She re- ceived her A.A.S. in Mortuary Science in 2011 from Arapahoe Community College.
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