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When most people think of spring break, they think of college aged young people heading off on road trips to sunny beaches and other places far from home. Most of the time they break the bank and have to borrow money to do so. They justify it to themselves that it’s a once in a life time opportunity. Quite often they come back with nothing more than a new credit card bill to pay and a pretty bad hangover. It might be fun during spring break, but afterwards reality sets in.

If you actually get a spring break, don’t break the bank on some one time trip. You’ve got a week off from school, so make the best of it. Find a way to make some extra money during spring break. You might not have the most fun during spring break, but you’ll have more money in your savings account rather than some newly created debt. Here are some great ways to college students to make some extra money on spring break.

Your Job from Last Summer – This is what I’m doing, I sent an email to my employers from last summer and to see if they could use me for a week over spring break to get some projects done, and they were more than happy to make use of me during that time. I was already trained for the job and could just go ahead and start working, and I made about $400 in the process of doing so.

Work Extra Hours at Your Current Job – A lot of college students have jobs in the service industry or at the university while classes are going on, which is definitely a good thing to do. Chances are a lot of your friends and coworkers will be gone, and there will be a shortage of help during the week that spring break is going on. Volunteer to stay and work and pick up everyone else’s shifts that are leaving so that you can get a lot of work in.

Odd Jobs – Most universities have some sort of “career services” that people from the community can contact if they need some odd jobs done. A week before spring break, let them know that if any odd jobs happen to come up over spring break, and usually some do, let them know that you’re their person.

A Spring Cleaning Small Business – When spring time comes around, people realize that they need to do some serious cleaning in their house. Why not post some flyers that you’ll come in and give people’s home a very good once over. You can easily make $15 or $20 an hour doing so, and it’s work that you should already know how to do.

Go Home start eBaying – By the time you’re a sophomore or junior in college, chances are you have a bunch of stuff between your dorm and in your house that you really don’t have any use for anymore. As we grow older, our tastes and interests change, so consider going home, looking through all of your stuff figuring out what you don’t want and don’t need anymore and put that stuff on eBay, craigslist or have a garage sale.

Freelance – If you’re moving towards some sort of technical career, you can use the skills that you’ve learned in college to do some freelance work on the side. I’ll probably be doing some web design work while I’m in spring break. It’s not my expertise per say, but I can do a pretty decent job when I put effort into it. If you have any technical skills such as this, make use of them. There are all sorts of undone projects you can find through sites such as Elance.com for you to do.

These are just a few different ideas that you can make use of while on spring break. Even if you can’t do any of these things, don’t bust your budget on a vacation that you can’t afford, rather stay in and get ahead on your homework, that way you’ll have some more free time when everyone else comes back. I know, I’m no fun, but hey, I have some money.