This can be very very stressful so this is blog post is here to give you a chance to organize everything semester by semester (or term by term, if you prefer) and keep on top of your money!
I'd advise having a little money book where you can work out everything that you have, will need to spend, and what you can waste on clothes and alcohol! In this book, you should:
- Work out what is available to you; this can be your grant, loan, income from job or parents. It's then advisable to work out what you will have weekly - like a weekly budget e.g. £50 a week!
- Accommodation is the biggest cost you'll have to pay out whilst being at university, most universities take this in a termly or semester-ly lump sum payment on the day that your loan comes in, so you can work out what you have for the rest of the term weekly after you've paid that off. (Note that you should definitely pay this off as soon as you possibly can, you leave university in enough debt as it is, so don't fall back on accommodation payments - it's unnecessary stress!)
Personally, I would advise doing a weekly food shop online and getting it delivered to your address, this way you avoid spending money on things that you do not need. I always find that when I'm walking around a shop i'll pick up random things and put them in the basket just because I can, online however, its much easier to avoid this extra expenditure which is more than beneficial for your bank balance!
Again, from experience, I made the very silly mistake of buying all of my text books in a massive bundle at once AFTER term had started. If you know for sure what courses you'll be taking or want to be taking - for example if you're studying English as an extra course, the reading list will be very unlikely to change from year to year so you'll be able to find that and get a family member to buy them for you over the summer. This makes things so much easier in your first term. I spent about £200 on books in the first week of university, which meant that I spent almost 4 weeks of my weekly budget.
It is important to remember that there will be term time expenses that you'll need to pay for - things such as printing credits, and other equipment like pens, paper and memory sticks. I spent a lot of my money on things for revision for my exams like post it notes, revision cards, folders, highlighters, felt pens and stuff like that so make sure you set aside money for that (or be mega cheeky and claim it as a necessity for your studies and BEG your parents to buy you it.. that's what i do!).
A good way to save money is on lunch - your university probably has some sort of fast food place that is ridiculously tempting - like ours has subway, which can be so tempting but getting a subway everyday adds up and can be very expensive. Its much cheaper and better to make yourself some sort of lunch. If you can go home for lunch, go home and make yourself something, but avoid the canteen and the fast food places as much as possible!
If you have an overdraft, try not to use it too much - I haven't used one at all, but once you do start to use it, it can be very hard to get out of it, some banks allow you time after you finish university to pay it off without any interest, but some don't so make sure you check out your terms and conditions thoroughly because this can end up quite bad! I don't use an overdraft at all because I know that as soon as I get one I will spend everything on new clothes - so if you like shopping and spending lots of money, don't get one!
Hopefully this is useful for you, I wish I had looked into stuff like this before but I just didn't set aside the time to do it! If you have any questions or anything, comment below and i'll get back to you!
Muchos love,
Ysabelle xxxx