Money. A boring and often stressful topic for many (unless you’re loaded), but it must be done!
I’ve always tried to be as independent as possible when it comes to money. Although my family are wonderful at helping me out whenever I need them, I don’t like asking for money unless I really need it.
For many of you, you’re probably working a lot over the summer to gather some money for Uni… so maybe finding out a few tips for saving it will be useful, so you don’t spend it all at once!
(I’ve got myself into this awful habit of listing and numbering all of the points in my blogs. It’s not intentional, promise!)
1) Before your University year, get all of your student finance information out (or whatever form of income you have) and add it all up. Work out as best as you can how much money you will have for the entire year. For example… you may get paid your student finance in three chunks, but add it all into one total to start with.
2) Take out the chunks of money that you know you will be spending over the year. My main ones for example are…. my monthly phone bill, my car expenses and my rent. Estimate the total of these outgoings and subtract all of these from your yearly income. (This may sound obvious.. but stay with me!)
3) Take your total from Step 2 and divide it by the amount of weeks that you need money for. I usually do mine from the weeks of September – June (the University year.) This will give you a weekly budget!
4) By having a weekly budget, you will become more conscious of how much money you’re spending. For me especially, it stops me from splashing out on things that I know I can’t afford, or that will go over my budget, because I know that any extra money I take out one week will mean less money for another week. You can work out really easily how much you want to spend on food/petrol/fun things etc etc..
5) Some weeks will of course be more expensive when you need to buy last minute Uni books, a load of birthday presents or to fix your car etc.. but other weeks you won’t use all of your budget. So save it!
Rather than transferring the extra £10 that you didn’t spend one week to the week after… get yourself a savings account, or a piggy bank and stick that £10 in it.
The week after, you’ll still have your weekly limit so you won’t be any less off, and at the end of the year, you’ll have a bunch of money that you didn’t even feel like you’d saved for.
Once you get the hang of it, it’s such an easy way to manage your money.
There’s loads of chances for you to work part time alongside your studies when at university; there’s flexible jobs which allow you to work as little or as often as you want. This is great when you want to focus on studying as you can pick and choose when you want to work. It’s a great way to avoid stress when doing assignments and trying to juggle a part-time job! It’s also great to keep your student loan topped up too, and put money aside to save!
When you have a large chunk of money stuck in your account from student finance it’s easy to spend loads at once. Put your saving methods into place before you start spending.
Sticking to a simple weekly budget and putting aside what you don’t spend will really make a difference.
Without even feeling like I’ve had to scrape together all my spare pennies, I’ve saved enough money for my holiday this summer with friends by just saving the odd note here and there, yippee!
Have fun saving 🙂
Worcester Student Life 