It wasn’t until my third year in university where I got the
kick up the arse I needed, was working more hours when I travelled up to
Belfast and decided I was going to make my money stretch and ignore the need
for mom jeans. Northern Ireland isn’t an expensive place. My rent for a
gorgeous house with sea views (and I got
the ensuite room for being the only girl) was only £200 a month with BT
broadband and tv thrown in. This is a bargain because the house was beautiful
and spacious and it broke my heart to leave it. Anyway, because of this my
income was bigger even though my loan was tiny and I gave budgeting a go in
order to save some money up for Leeds which leads (ha!) on to my first point…
Budget with a goal in mind
If it wasn’t for my goal of moving at the end of this summer
half of the budgeting I did would have went out the window and I would have an
extensive wardrobe by now. This isn’t to say I didn’t have the odd sneaky
dominos when I had a long day but by having a set time frame and understanding
that I couldn’t impulse buy absolutely everything it meant I could put away
extra money each month. Also, throw your spare change in a drawer and forget
about it, you’ll be surprised how much you end up with when May rolls around.
Focus on a holiday, a car, something you really want and hopefully that’ll give
you the push to say no to the frivolous things.
Make a list
God a love a list. I get it from my uncle who was able to
tell my mum where’d they’d be at 2pm on a Thursday on their trip to Toronto.
Anyway, one of the first things to do when tackling your finances is to have an
income section and expenditure section and lay out everything you pay for.
Rent, food, electricity, Netflix, somethings gotta go and if you can’t give up
Netflix maybe cool it on the nights out, it’ll save money and just play Kings
with the cheap Tesco vodka, mixed with fruit juice and it’s just like a
cocktail. Tell yourself that, it’ll make the pain a little less harsh. But
seriously, get it all down on paper, try and make it as accurate as possible,
transfer to Excel and figure out how you’re going to afford everything.
If it too hard, there’s an app for that
There are loads of apps that help with budgeting especially
when at the start of university you’re just thrown in at the deep end with most
likely an overdraft and the words ‘free money’ stuck in your head. Try OnTrees
which links your bank accounts (safely obviously) and it keep your incomings
and outgoings in one place. It also gives the option of creating a budget and
it can monitor how well you stick to it. Or if you worry you spend too much
money on ‘food’ (booze and pot noodles) try mySuperList. It allows you to
virtually shop and then tallies the price, comparing between the big
supermarkets and showing where has the best cashback and so on. It’s a bit
boring but it gets the job done and even has all the up to date offers in each
shop so you can’t really go wrong.
Use your student discount
It may seem like an obvious one to end on but you only have
three or four years to use so damn well get the most out of it. For cinemas, to
that jacket in River Island, to even some restaurants use it if you can’t
resist. Also, apply for an NUS card. I didn’t and have so much regret. For £8
it’s worth it on what you can save and everywhere accepts it and can be used
online unlike my shitty Ulster one. I don't hold a grudge, I promise. Also,
because you’re a student check with your university if you can get free tech
stuff. I got MacAfee and Microsoft office for free and I only found this out in
my final year. Check it out it should be somewhere on your university space
(ours was called portal but names change).
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