Textbooks, gas fare, tuition, loans; it’s enough to eat people alive. College students around campus are trying to pay their way through school without going insane and cracking under the pressure like a toothpick; while trying to save pennies when they need to save dollars.

How do college students avoid becoming the sleep deprived coffee addict who lives off of ramen noodles and coin operated laundry? Don’t worry, there’s an app for that.

NEIU has now become a member of GeoPerks, a new app that “notifies you when you’re close to a location that provides discounts through one of your memberships,” according to the iTunes store. In order to use this app, you must be a member of a group, such as a college or university, and the app alerts you to deals on restaurants, event tickets, hotels, bowling alleys, many local businesses and much more.

Also, there are perks specific to your group, so if you are a member of multiple participants, you can get even more deals.

Student Government President Brenda Bedolla says, “This is a great opportunity to potentially help [students] save money.”

“Sounds cool,” says student Amber Strans, “Every little bit can help…we’ll see if it can make any difference.”

One issue the app appears to have is it can be slow and may occasionally crash and stop working, however these cases are sporadic.

College is hard, students deal with demanding classes, challenging professors and commuting nightmares. You add an outside job on top of that and you get the life of most college students, not to mention the expenses.

Students spend a lot of their time looking at their phones, with GeoPerks they can now save money while doing it.