I never thought that I would cling so desperately to the words “free” and “discounted.”  Here I am, a freshman in college, and I am constantly shopping for deals and checking my receipts to see if I can fill out a survey to get a discount. Fortunately, I haven’t had to go on a Ramen noodle diet quite yet.

However, I have spent a lot of time looking for lists of places that I can go to receive a student discount. During my first semester at FMU, I visited most of those places.

One thing that I was excited to discover last semester was the 10 percent discount FMU students get at Pizza Hut.  I am pretty sure that my roommate and I went there at least 10 times over the course of the semester. We needed to get our pizza fix each week! Discounts are also offered at Wendy’s, Bojangles and Subway.

As great as student discounts are, there were also a few places that I had bad experiences with when asking for a student discount.  For instance, last semester my roommate and I went to Arby’s to get dinner, and the closest Arby’s to campus does not offer students discounts.

Another day, I went to get my coffee fix at Dunkin’ Doughnuts. The employee serving me said he would give me a student discount, but the price of my coffee did not change.

It isn’t a big deal to not get 10 percent off of a $3 meal. However, after a few meals the change starts to add up, especially when you are a full-time college student.

I also visited Charlotte Russe in Florence that was supposed to offer students discounts, but the company recently stopped offering that price cut.

Some nicer stores such as J. Crew, Banana Republic and Ann Taylor offer up to 20 percent off of their apparel, but the closest location of these stores is an hour away. The 20 percent off of the clothing would be spent in the gas money to get there and back.

As a college student with a slim budget, I would like to see more student discounts that are applicable in Florence.  Sure, we have plenty of fast food options that we get a decent discount on, but I would like to see discounts at grocery stores and other places that sell items we need on a daily basis.  The price of living is high, and it is difficult to afford all of the things we need while we’re in college.