Living cheaply but well in Seattle, Washington

I'm a grad student attending the University of Washington and trying to live my life as well as I can while still saving money off of my grad student stipend. Believe it or not, there are tons of great resources in Seattle and other cities that make this much more possible than most people would believe. Below I've listed a number of links that will be able to help you out!

For many people credit cards are the last thing associated with saving money, but if you're smart then you use the system to your advantage. Many credit cards will reward you for your purchases by giving you a certain percentage back. Usually it's somewhat small (~1%), but that can add up and it's more than you would have received otherwise.

My favorite card that gives cash back is the Citibank Dividend Platinum card. This card gives you 5% back on purchases from supermarkets, drug stores and gas stations and 1% back for all other purchases. Just imagine, 5% back on all purchases from Safeway, QFC, Albertson's, Whole Foods and RiteAid. That will add up really quickly.

One of the big companies that provide cable internet in Seattle is Comcast. While, in general, I haven't been that impressed by Comcast in other cities, Washington has a law that makes Comcast live up to certain customer support requirements that makes it fairly decent. Of course, like all cable companies, if they ever have to come out to your place to fix something you're going to have to wait at least a week and pay some outrageous fee. Fortunately, you probably don't have to do this! For internet access they'll try to convince you that you need them to install service and that you should rent a cable modem. That is plain stupid!

Go to ComcastOffers.com and purchase your internet there. They'll send you out a self-install kit free of charge along with a brand new modem to keep. The downside is that you have to shell out about $80, but the upside is that if you can remember to send in the provided rebates you can end up getting that money back and have free cable internet service for the first six months. If you're really sharp, after that six months, you can cancel your service and have a roommate repeat this process - this time you won't even need the modem, but you can sell it on ebay for an extra $40 or so.

Seattle is famous for three companies: Microsoft, Starbucks and Costco. For gamers, this used to mean squat, but a few years ago Microsoft introduced the X-Box and all of a sudden some of the coolest games around were being produced right across the lake in Redmond. But, so what, the stores still sell the games for the same amount here, right? Well, yes, but not all of them. Make friends with a Microsoft employee and they can get you games (and other software) on the cheap from the employee store - used to be $10 for an Microsoft produced X-box game and word is they're still under $20.

If you don't make friends easily or that's still to rich for your blood, Microsoft also has a program where they let ordinary folks become video game testers for the day and reward them for their hard work with a gift (usually a video game). Check out the Microsoft's Playtest site.

Seattle is full of fine dining and, believe it or not, you can enjoy this fine cuisine without breaking the bank.

Never, ever, let your money sit around in a savings or checking account. That's just plain stupid - you're just making money for your bank. Paying for them to provide customer service for people that don't do online banking and do everything in person. Why pay for what you don't use? Why pay at all since you can still take advantage of those services by just maintaining a minimum amount of money in your account? Open a checking account at a bank with a lot of ATMs, keep only a few hundred dollars in there and try to pay for everything with a credit card. Keep the money you want easily at hand in a money market account and invest the rest.

Online Money Market Providers

Grocery stores have switched to a different model to make money. They entice you to shop with offers of what appear to be incredible "sales" on particular items while keeping their "regular" prices near the moon. Have you ever wondered how they can sell the same ice cream for $6.99 and then put it on sale for $3.99? They're not losing money, even at $3.99. Fortunately, if you're lucky enough to live where you have access to more than one grocery store, you can play them by only buying sale products. If you disregard brands, you will rarely have to buy anything at their inflated regular price ever again!