With the on-going economic meltdown of the US, many a grad student who will come to this country will obviously need to start living on a shoe-string budget. Many students in general live pretty much on paltry sums of money initially. At this point, any student who is going to travel to foreign shores to study, needs to start preparing before leaving, as to how to cut un-necessary costs and start living lean! Here are certain items which have a going to be your chief sources of strain on your wallet.

* Health insurance
* Tuition and other academic fees
* Books and Academic supplies
* Housing Rent
* Utilities
* Telephone (depending upon how often you call home and/or your cell phone plan)
* Furniture
* Food
* Entertainment and leisure (hey everyone should watch a movie once in a while)
* Clothing (depending upon how cold it gets where you are)
* Laundry/Cleaning
* Commuting and local transportation
* Dependents (in case you are married)
* Taxes ( you will have to pay taxes, but you will get all that money back at the end of the financial year in almost all cases)

Health Insurance is a must. Many people get cheaper ones that are available even before your travel abroad. In India, you can get more info from TATA AIG, ICICI Prudential, etc. Do not, even for a second, think that you may not get sick and that you are healthy so nothing is going to happen to you. Healthcare costs in the US are astronomically higher than anywhere else, and so its best to get at least some kind of health insurance. Better to get good ones rather than cheap/unreliable ones or the ones which dont cover a lot of injuries/diseases.

Tuition fees is going to be another very high drain on your resources. Unfortunately, unless you have taken a loan or have gotten a scholarship/some sort of funding in the university, you will have to pay in full. Books however, can still be purchased in India or you can have a family member courier them for you. Books, especially first hand books in the US are very expensive. This can reduce your cost per semester by a good $50-$300.

Housing rent and utilities also vary from state to state. People in California and New York city generally end up paying the most, but elsewhere this can be pretty cheap. It varies from $900 per month in California/NYC to $300 in places like Texas, etc. To cut corners, it is better to share apartments, as well as the utility bills. Sometimes, room heaters are more economical than using home-heaters.

In most cases, it is advisable to purchase a cell phone with either of AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint cellular providers. This is a recurring monthly cost of $40. But you can choose to not buy it initially, using landlines (usually free of cost with apartment - may be not) as a phone resource. This might help cut some costs.

Furniture is something you are going to have to buy if you take up a unfurnished apartment. In which case, be ready to shelve out good deal of money, as such things are not cheap if you wanna buy them first hand. Getting second hand could be a bit of a pain at the start, as transporting etc could cause issues. Furnished university housing at such times comes in very handy. You may use craigslist.org before even before you get to the US to start looking for cheaper housing and/or furniture.

Food - tricky. Not many people get the time to cook while they are crazy busy with school work. You will eat out most likely - food prices also vary from city to city - lesser variations within the State. Per day, eating 3 meals outside means around $20. The trick is to cook on weekends for the entire week, you will end up saving a lot this way. About entertainment, its mostly dependent on the person in question! Movies cost about $8-10 and similar cover charges in clubs/pubs (just in case you are interested!).

Needless to say, it gets cold in the US - and snows in most parts (not in California or Florida). So you will have to buy clothes which save you from the merciless winter - and these winters clothes and snow boots are not cheap. This is an expenditure which has to be made so be ready for it. You cannot buy such clothes in India as such winters are not anticipated there and so it doesnt make sense to spend money on them only to realize they are worthless in the face of a North American winter! Many times, you may not have a washing machine in your apartment - there are many pay-per-use machines located around residential areas in the US. They are usually cheap, but a way to cut costs on them is to buy many pairs of under-garments etc from India so that you are able to reduce your frequency of going to the laundro-mats.

Depending upon how far you live from your university - you may end up paying some money to the local buses. But usually local buses are free with university ID cards. In many cases, university itself runs bus services which are free for students.

Dependent and tax related expenses are something you cannot get out of. However, you will get back all the tax that you pay (in case you start working) - for the simple reason that unless you are getting paid a huge salary, you will not be able to meet the limit for taxable income.

(NOTE: The picture on the front page was taken from there: http://recyclican.blogspot.com/2008/09/snapshops-of-sustainability-or-poor.html)