University life shouldn’t be expensive, but poor money management can quickly lead to financial problems. Which can seriously affect your mental health and negatively impact your ability to study. Worrying about money is one headache you don’t need as a student.
Here is our guide on how not to run into financial difficulties and it all forms around a budget.
How to set a budget:
- List your monthly expenses: This means writing down all your monthly costs which must be paid. This includes accommodation costs, travel expenses, utilities, phone/internet costs, food, books, study materials, medications. This list should be formed of your basic necessities. These are costs you cannot avoid.
- List your monthly income: This is the money available to spend in the month. It is formed from a combination of loans/grants, jobs/side-hustles, money from parents, any savings
- Your main source of income may be a student loan; therefore work out exactly how much you get paid and when you get paid as these could come in lump sums
- Calculate your weekly budget
- This is your monthly income minus your monthly expenses for the monthly budget. Then divide this by 4 for a weekly budget.
- To be more precise only include those months/weeks which you are actually at uni for
- This weekly budget allows you to visualize how much you can spend on non-essential items
- Non-essential items: restaurants/takeaways, bars, clubs, cinema, coffee, clothes/fashion, subscriptions: gym, Netflix, amazon prime, holidays, beauty etc.
Living within these limits will help prevent falling into financial problems, It’s important to understand the responsibility of living independently. It’s easy to fall into a spiral of overspending, but very difficult to recover.
Top Tips
- Form an emergency fund- a small back-up of money for emergency situations e.g. car breakdown, unexpected expenses, fines (parking, library etc.)
- Consider part-time jobs, this could be delivering food/on campus options/work experience opportunities
- Cut costs: think about if you really need subscription services. Are there cheaper/free alternatives e.g. maybe a student gym will be cheaper than one open to the public
- Avoid credit cards, payday loans, overdrafts: these may all come with interest or fees which build up over time and become impossible to pay off and affect your credit rating for the future, which could have an impact on buying a house.
- Speak to older students: they will know the secrets to the cheapest eat-outs, bars, cafes. Where not to go and how do avoid being taken advantage of. They will help to unlock your student city and make connections.
- Find out what your university can offer, speak to the university bursary, student unions/associations. You may be entitled to more than you think e.g. access to healthcare, student discount cards
- Above all if you find yourself in a difficult financial position then speak to someone whether it is a university official, parent, financial advisor. The sooner you address a financial situation the easier and quicker it is to rectify, and raising the issue with someone will make it far easier to manage.
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