This article was written while listening to “Money” by Cardi B on repeat. I recommend playing it as you continue, to enhance your overall reading experience.
General
University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) coupons: If you’re looking for the hub of student savings, the UTSU website’s student discount page is it. Need a refresher from studying? Cineplex tickets go for $10.25, and a Night Out deal that includes two tickets, two drinks, and one popcorn goes for $32. Need an adrenaline rush to make you feel alive after chugging four Monster Energy Drink to write an essay that is due the next day? Canada’s Wonderland tickets here go for $45 including tax -— compared to the $53.99 plus tax online. Scream therapy included, free of charge.
Student Price Card (SPC): Now, this card requires a $10 fee for a year-long membership, but as any good business course will teach you, sometimes you’ve got to spend some to save more. You’ll get exclusive discounts at a wide variety of stores and restaurants, from Roots — 15 per cent off with a SPC card and student ID — to Pizza Hut —10 per cent off regular price.
Transportation
PRESTO transit discount: As a general rule of thumb, don’t pay more if you don’t have to. If you are aged 19 or under, go to a Shopper’s Drug Mart and change your TTC pass fare for cheaper with your ID. You’ll pay $2.15 instead of $3.10 per ride, which seems like a small difference, but trust me — it adds up. If you are aged over 19, consider purchasing a student monthly TTC pass, which goes for $112.25 — much cheaper than the regular selling point of $151.15.
Greyhound: Planning a first-year reading week trip to Montréal so that verybody can drink without breaking a sweat over fake IDs? As a student, you get 10 per cent off tickets with a student ID and an enrollment form, class schedule, or any other documentation verifying enrollment. Time to break out your middle-school level French.
Food
Future Bistro: Located 10 minutes away from campus, this place is a safe haven for broke university students. They usually have a discount for all-day breakfast meals, from Monday to Friday, if you have a Toronto student ID. So that means you can have breakfast for dinner, which is university living at its finest.
Metro on Bloor Street West and Spadina Avenue: Need a place to pick up groceries? You get a student discount on your heart’s desire on Wednesdays and Thursdays with your student ID.
Shoppers Drug Mart on Bloor Street and Bedford Road: Need a more conveniently located place to pick up groceries as a Vic or St. Mike’s student? There’s a 20 per cent discount on Thursdays for all students here as well.
News
U of T libraries free newspaper access: Log in on the U of T Libraries site and get free access to The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. These won’t be the most recently published articles, but you’ll still be able to access older articles for no charge.
Free Toronto Star subscription: Stay updated on the upcoming federal election. Make sure you know all the breaking news, because why not, it’s free! The Toronto Star is giving postsecondary students a free subscription until October 31 so they can be informed voters. We love the healthy intersection between patriotism and the lack of paywalls.
Entertainment and lifestyle
Criterion on Demand: Sure, you have illegal streaming websites for all the movies not on Netflix. But how exciting would it be to do something legally? Now, all U of T students can be the true law-abiding citizens that they’re destined to be with the extensive free film collection on Criterion on Demand. Log in with your U of T account, and you won’t even notice all the due dates looming closer and closer until it’s too late, like the rest of us.
Amazon student discount: Are you too tired to walk to the Shoppers a couple of streets down from you to buy that bottle of shampoo? Is it abnormally cold outside — which it will be, for many months? Amazon Prime it. If you sign up as a student, you get a free six months of Prime, which will score you access to Prime video, shipping, and more. When the six months are up, you get 50 per cent off Prime.
Spotify Premium: The only thing worse than doing work in the library on a weekend is doing it to the sound of keyboards clacking and dull silence. Get a Spotify Premium for $4.99 per month instead as a student. Enough said.
Nights out
Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) Tuesday nights: Do you want a date night that fulfills the two most important criteria for love: cultured and cheap? Go to the ROM on Tuesdays for free as a full-time university student.
The Dance Cave: Blow off some steam on Friday nights to take full advantage of the 19-and-over drinking law in Ontario. This club has free cover for students with student ID, which I wager is a better bet for all you guys out there so you don’t have to pay that extra $10–20 fee at frats. Equality, people — it’s beautiful.
