Sometimes being a poor college student can make life difficult. You don’t have the money to buy things that some people consider a basic necessity because you need to save that money for important things like Ramen Noodles since you had to pay for expensive books. However, more often than not, poor college students use their own ingenuity to create substitutes for those necessities so they can allocate their limited funds to more necessary necessities. These innovative substitutes aren’t always pretty but they get the job done. If these same solutions were found anywhere besides college housing they would most likely be labeled trailer trash or redneck, but to fellow humble college students, it is a brilliant solution worthy of MacGyver himself. Here are 31 MacGyver type fixes only a college student would be satisfied with, check out these ridiculous life hacks:
1. Need to reheat pizza but you don’t have a microwave? No worries. use an iron to heat up the crust without making it soggy while you reheat the top with a blow dryer.
2. Hole in your sock? Instead of throwing it out, just use a Sharpie to color your skin (or toe nail) the same color as the sock and no one will know.
3. If your Iron is being used to heat pizza in the bathroom, you can iron you shirts with hot pans off the stove.
4. The original riding lawn mower.
5. Pots being used to iron your roommate’s shirt and you want spaghetti? No worries. Boil those noodles in your coffee pot.
6. The spaghetti idea was so good, you can run with it and hard boil some eggs too. (Hard boiled eggs in spaghetti is actually a thing, although I have never tried it myself).
7. Don’t have a dust pan? Use a pizza box instead (I have also used a paper plate torn in half). It gets the job done.
8. If you have the replacement razor but not the handle, use needle nose pliers. I would recommend wrapping a rubber band around the handle so you don’t have to squeeze it the whole time or worry about dropping the blades.
9. Most people would have left this couch on the side of the road, but not college students with no couch and a vision of what it could be.
10. I’ve always thought that bumpers and 2×4’s were interchangeable.
11. There you go officer. Problem fixed. Tupperware, pill vials and zip ties. Who would have thought….
12. What college student has a set of skewers on hand? How often do you really make kabobs? However, when a kabob craving hits these geniuses used wire hangers.
13. I think this plate might be on its last leg. I’m not sure scotch tape was the tape of choice here…
14. Eating Cup O Noodle and you don’t have chop sticks? Not a problem for this big thinker. Two pens will do the trick. (the red pen is out of ink anyways).
15. This solves multiple problems. Watching a movie on our phone but your sick of holding it and the sound sucks? This little gadget holds the phone for your hands free viewing pleasure and it has built-in surround sound speakers.
16. As long as the hands still turn, there’s no need to buy a new one when you have paper and a sharpie.
17. This just makes me laugh. Who doesn’t want seats out of an airline on their front porch? They recline at least 4 inches, come with seatbelt for safety and have trays on the back that drop down for additional storage.
18. Who doesn’t think BBQ possibilities when they see a rogue shopping cart?
19. Maybe they built this sweet grill for their van in shop class.
20. Hot dog roast for you and 14 of your closest buddies? Grab a rake.
21. The original anti-theft device. Hopefully they take the face plate of the stereo inside with them when they leave the car too.
22. Blow Dryers are not just for warming pizza in the bathroom. They are good for reheating any type of leftover. Even whatever this is.
23. If it doesn’t serve two purposes there is no point having it in your home. And I can’t think of a 2nd use for those shower rings, but hangers… they can do triple duty with holding up the shower curtain, hanging clothes AND baking kabobs.
24. I’m assuming there is a mirror on the other side of the brush. I wonder if this is the same car with the pill vial Tupperware head lights.
25. After boiling your pasta in the coffee pot, strain it with a tennis racket. It’s probably a good thing you use your posts as an iron, they won’t fit in your sink to wash.
26. I’m pretty sure that stools cost more than garbage cans, but this works in a pinch.
27. Free water without hurting your thumb pressing the button while waiting for it to fill. I hope this guy is going to school on a scholarship for being brilliant.
28. Recycling is the answer to everything. Even broken shower heads.
29. If you are going to be snowed in, you might as well put that snow to use.
30. Every student has a ruler that they don’t use, attach a can lid and you have a pizza cutter that will have tons of use. And you can measure each piece to ensure equal sized slices.
I have to admit that while some of these solutions are a little ridiculous, some of them are pretty smart. I may even have to remember some of these if I ever find myself in a pinch. I haven’t lived in college housing for about 10 years, but I these made me laugh because I could definitely see some of my roommates doing these types of things back in the day. It’s things like this that would make you look back at your college years, and where you have come from, with fondness.