It's getting to the time of going back to school. For me, it's about to be my last year in college. I'm fortunate enough this year to have a job on campus, and I finally feel like I'm ready to manage school work and a job at the same time. It's just what I need to have to extra spending money.

It's difficult to manage working and studying, all while having fun and being social at school. A good tip for making extra money is to check out your school's website where they most likely have a page posted on good ways to make money.

My freshman year at college, my friend found a link on the website to the Purdue Chicken Factory (located in Salisbury, MD, just a 10 minute drive from my campus). The opportunity sounded weird, but luckily I had her to bravely try it out and then pass on the message that it was a great way to make money.

So I decided to try it! I went out to the Purdue Chicken Factory and discovered that there were about 20 other testers at any given test time, which are scheduled at many times throughout each day. All you do is go into the test room where you are given a few different samples of one product (a lot of which are tasty chicken nuggets or seasoned grilled chicken). You try a few bites, and then rate them. It takes about 5 minutes and you walk out with a $20 bill!

Doing this at school is an easy way for me to make some extra spending money. It's not much, but for getting free food, it isn't bad! Every little bit helps, right?

How do you make extra spending money while you're at school?

My dad's kitchen sink recently started leaking, so he's been using a bucket to catch the water until he gets it fixed. By using this temporary fix, he's come to a revelation. He's finally able to see just how much water goes to waste!

When he turns on the kitchen faucet, the water drips from the pipe into the bucket. He realized just how much water he uses by doing simple things like washing his hands or washing a few dishes. Just by doing his dishes from dinner, the bucket fills up in no time, and he has to go pour out five gallons of water! So, as you can imagine, as he relies on this bucket trick until he gets the pipe fixed, he has become much more aware of the need to conserve water.

I have never been one to pay attention to how much water I use. I know that I use much more water than necessary when I leave the faucet running while I wash dishes. I also have a terrible habit of leaving the bathroom faucet running while I brush my teeth (I know, I know, I am the person environmentalists want to kill).

But now I am making a goal: I will not waste so much water. Not only can conserving water help the environment, but it will certainly lighten up your water bill.

Do you pay attention to how much water you use? Are you concerned more about environmental or financial reasons?