It’s never too early to start saving money. We at Dealspotr have seen, time after time, high school and college students often come up with some of the most creative and smart ways to save money — techniques and ideas which, frankly, everyone could really learn from.
Our Smart Savings Scholarship is a celebration of those ideas. Every quarter, we’ll award $500 scholarships to three students around the U.S. who share with us the answer to the question: What’s the most creative way you’ve saved money?
Saving money could mean...
To enter, create a short TikTok or YouTube video (less than five minutes, preferably around 2-3 minutes) to share your savings tip. Tell the world how you’ve saved money. Our editors will review every submission and we’ll select three that provide the most helpful, unique, and creative advice to each receive a $500 scholarship.
Submit your tip through the form on this page by June 30, 2024.
Three $500 scholarships will be awarded to three students. The recipients will be announced on July 8, 2024 and will be notified via email. Scholarship recipients will have two weeks to claim the scholarship. The $500 scholarship will be remitted within one week of the recipient’s claim either directly to the recipient or to the recipient’s college or university, based on school scholarship requirements.
Scholarship: $500
Winner: Connor Tharp
Video: Thrifting
Winner: Asjia Roberson
Video: Smart Savings With Style
Winner: Benjamin Schwartz
Video: Envelope Savings Tips
Scholarship: $1,000
Winner: Paola Mellado
School: Louisiana State University
Major: Nursing
Graduation year: 2024
Winning Tip: "The way I saved money in college was by starting a clothing drive in my sorority house. I realized that I had spent a lot of my money on clothes and accessories to use for college events. I created two spreadsheets, one where girls can go on google docs and add any clothes they did not want or use anymore that other girls in the house might want and use for other events. The other was for girls to include clothing or accessories that they needed and wanted to borrow for the day. Although you may think, well you can just go around and ask people, this was more useful than people thought because as girls would go on and put their items they needed, they also saw the needs of other girls and let them borrow whatever they needed if they had it. These methods saved us a lot of money throughout the semester that most of us ended up using towards college funds!"
Winning this scholarship is an amazing opportunity for me to save money throughout college by helping me pay for my books and classes. I think Dealspotr’s idea on sharing other people’s ideas on how to save for college is very helpful to many other students looking to save for college!
Scholarship: $1,000
Winner: Allison Tallman
School: University of Tulsa
Major: Speech Pathology
Graduation year: 2020
Winning Tip: "The way I saved money in college was by starting a textbook drive in my sorority house. At the end of the semester, girls would donate textbooks that they had not sold back or any others from previous semesters. ISBN's were entered into a Google Document and shared with everyone in the house. People were able to check these books out at no cost. We eventually got a large stock of textbooks and some girls did not have to buy them! This helped me and around 200 other women save a little money on this extremely overpriced college essential."
Saving money in college is so important and can be done in so many creative ways. I love Dealspotr's idea of sharing ways that real college students save money! I will use the prize money to pay off student loans and continue my journey to becoming a speech pathologist!
Scholarship: $1,000
Winner: Alan Kwong
School: Pennsylvania State University
Winning Tip: Shoutout brands on Twitter for coupons and free sample
"This scholarship money will help to pay off some of my tuition for college. Thanks Dealspotr for helping me to pursue my interests in Electrical Engineering at Penn State!"
Scholarship: $2,000
Winner: Jaqueline Rojas Robles
School: University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)
Winning Essay: Saving Money in College through the Power of Couponing
"Thank you Dealspotr for this amazing opportunity! Receiving this scholarship will help reduce my financial burdens and allow me to pay my tuition for this semester. As a result, I will be able to register for classes next semester and be a step closer to obtaining my degree in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago."
Scholarship: $2,000
Winner: Gabriel Rios
School: University of Central Florida
Winning Essay: Couponing in College + Money Saving Pro Tips
"Thank you to DealSpotr for this wonderful opportunity! The scholarship will be very useful for the texts and classes required by my major program. I'll be putting the funds to good use, considering my textbooks next semester are totaling about $650!"
Scholarship: $1,000
Winner: Grant Kleiman
School: Southwest Minnesota State University
Winning Essay: Appy Hour: Money-Saving Tools for Smart College Students
"The scholarship will be very useful in covering the cost of books and other expenses. One of my books next semester costs $215.00! I'm currently studying Professional Writing at Southwest Minnesota State University and plan to pursue a career in writing and counseling."
Scholarship: $2,500
Winner: Kayleigh Warburton
School: University of Central Florida
Scholarship: $1,000
Winner: Kaitlyn Vogt
School: Grand Valley State University
