If you’re a student, you can pay $20 a year for a Student Advantage card and get discounts on goods and services offered by 64 national brands and “thousands of local shops and restaurants nationwide.” Hopefully , if you’re eligible for this thing, you’re not already sold and are getting ready to run some numbers to determine if it’s really worth it to fork over the 20 bucks.

When I was a student, I was aware that this card existed but did not sign up for one. My general policy is not to spend money in order to save money unless I’m absolutely certain the savings will come through. Plans change. Crap happens. If you’re on an obsessive quest to never waste a single buck, you’ll want to make absolutely sure that $20 annual fee will pay itself back. You’ll want to consider if, based on your spending habits, this investment will produce an acceptable return.

Here’s a complete list of all national brands that’ll reduce prices for card holders. You’ll find that most of these discounts are, in fact, minimally useful. A number of the “national brands” are obscure (when’s the last time you made a purchase on Shoebuy.com?). Also, many of these places are not the cheapest source for the items they sell, and who cares if you get a piddly 10% discount on some product when the price is super-inflated to begin with?

Although most of these discounts are not going to be very useful for most people, there are a few that are pretty good: 15% off Greyhound and Amtrak fares, 5% off purchases at BN.com, 10% off domain registration at GoDaddy, 10% off purchases at Target.com.

What I want to get across here is that the important thing is not the size of the discount. The important thing is how much money that discount is going to save you. I think most people intuitively grasp this concept, but it’s worth reemphasizing. It’s super important to ask yourself, “when’s the last time I actually bought something at Target.com?” If the answer is “never,” then the 10% discount is of no use to you. The fact that most other people don’t have access to such a discount has no relevance to your situation.

There are a couple of times in college when I could have saved money on a Greyhound or Amtrak fare, but not enough to make up for the $20 annual fee. I tended to book such trips about once a year and the trips always cost less than $100, so I wouldn’t have derived any benefit from a Student Advantage card.

A few additional notes: Student Advantage doesn’t appear to make any effort to check whether or not you’re actually a student. I don’t advocate dishonesty, but I do believe everybody needs to weigh the moral and financial implications for themselves. Also, Student Advantage will offer you a 30-day free trial, and it’s almost always worth it to take them up on this offer as long as you remember to cancel before the fee comes due. They’ll even give you a $10 rebate after your first purchase with a national partner, including Greyhound and Amtrak. (Unfortunately, this wasn’t offered when I was in school, but if it had been, you can bet I would’ve been on it!)

My advice is that, if you’re eligible for the card, you should seriously consider signing up for a free trial, but understand that canceling your membership may be the best decision after that, and be ready to actually pick up the phone and do it. In the end, it all comes down to cold, hard numbers. Is $20 more or less than you’ll save by using the card, without altering your spending patterns? This is just one more reason why it’s important to understand your own spending and to always be a super-analytical personal finance nerd!

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my RSS feed or subscribing by email!