Consumerism

Every college student is familiar with the struggles of having to set up a new home base every year. Most of us find ourselves at Target, on Amazon, or on Facebook Marketplace, scouring the shops every time we switch dorms for a suitable mini-fridge and decorative lamp to make our room comfortable and livable. But at some point, thanks to ridiculous storage prices and limited suitcase space, we find ourselves having to prematurely part ways with items that work just fine. This problem of temporary ownership is one that plagues all college campuses; on Columbia’s campus alone, more than 80,000 pounds of reusable items are abandoned every year. Across the country, over 200 million tons of these items fill landfills annually.

3 a.m. pancake runs at JJ’s Place, state-of-the-art swimming pools and squash courts, acupuncture therapy, anti-gravity yoga classes, discounted tickets for Broadway musicals, and on and on. The opportunities here seem endless.

It's almost the Monday after Thanksgiving, and nowadays that means a healthy dose of finals anxiety AND some great deals at your favorite online merchants. Below, I've compiled a list of advice on where to get some of the best sales, and some links to some of the best deals I've found. Keep in mind, all deals not specifically noted to start Monday are available right now. Technology The hot button item during any sale is usually the TV, and this is where you have a chance to save some serious money. What most retailers will do is heavily discount off brand sets in an effort to get them out the door, so that means you need to decide whether you want to take the risk of picking up a lemon, or go for the more established brands and save less money. On the off-brand end of the spectrum, the best deal I've seen so far is a 32'' Quantum View 1080p LCD for $189 at Wal-Mart. If you're a student on a budget who wants to play some Black Ops in style, this is a pretty good way to go about it. more On the higher end of the spectrum, BestBuy is offering a 40'' Samsung 1080p LCD for $429. That's the same price as Wal-Mart, but if you order anything from BestBuy over $250 and pick it up in store, you get a $25 gift card, so think about that if you're considering purchasing a big ticket item. On the tablet side of things, Apple's one day "shopping event" is over, so don't look to Apple.com for deals. What you're left with are the likes of MacMall selling the latest iPad for a $15 discount. Yay 3% off! If Apple's not your thing, Amazon has the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 for $180 (70 dollars off). Amazon also has good deals, and usually the best deals, on smaller stuff like thumb drives. Right now you can pick up a 16gb SanDisk flash drive for 9 bucks, and you'll save about $70. Video Games Cyber Monday is also a good time to get discounts on games. If you're a PC gamer, stop reading this now, go to store.steampowered.com, and you'll paradoxically end up going broke from all the savings. For console people, the path is less certain. GameStop is having a sale, but unlike most retailers, they take the "Monday" part of Cyber Monday seriously, and haven't revealed what it is yet. You can sign up here to be notified as soon as it goes up, or you can just stay up all night clicking reload. Amazon has you covered for all sports games, and BestBuy and other usual suspects have some decent deals on a limited selection of other titles, but most of the best deals from Black Friday are already over. The best deal left that I could find is an Xbox 360 bundle from Target that comes with a wireless controller, Forza 4 and Skyrim for $250. Fashion/Clothes The most drastic sales of all might be in the clothing department. Amazon has up to 60% off outerwear and is generally offering pretty heavy discounts on a certain selection of their stock. Lord and Taylor is offering 25% off virtually anything on their website through Wednesday with the promo code "CYBER". Not to be outdone, J. Crew Factory is offering 40% off literally everything, plus an additional 15% off when you spend over $100 with the coupon code "GIVEANDGET". Scoop NYC has at least 25% off everything on their store and free shipping tomorrow, and finally, Karma Loop has 15% off and free shipping for all orders, and 20% off and free shipping for every order over $75 with the promo code "50SHADES".

As I sit on the rim of my bathtub beside my dozen brown, plastic bottles of homemade soda, I squeeze each bottle between my thumb and forefinger to test whether the sides compress or hold firm. In brewing terms, compression means no carbonation occurred, signaling failure. The only worse scenario is excess carbonation, in which the bottles transform into glass grenades that detonate, leaving sticky shards smattered around the room—hence my beginner's plastic. As a finicky drinker, I ventured into the home brewing field to create a fitting complement to the food at my upcoming dinner party. The costs of alcohol proved prohibitive and I lacked time to concoct my own, while my opinion of name-brand sodas fizzled out long ago.