The best money saving tip that works for me is transferring a certain amount of money over from my main current account to my monzo account every week. This money is the weekly balance I give myself to spend on food shopping, bus fares and other essentials for the week. This allows me to keep track of what I’m spending and where my money is going. Ultimately, it helps me spend less as I can visually see if I’m having an expensive week and should cut down on spending, or if I haven’t spent much and am on the right track. I think the main piece of advice I’ve been given is just to keep an eye on your finances and make sure that wherever possible, you’re doing the most to spend as little as possible. There are so many student deals out there, from railcard discounts to cinema tickets and these kinds of money saving techniques can really benefit you!
Eva T
University of Sussex
Surprisingly I wasn’t really given lots of advice on how to save money or tips on how to budget. However, naturally I’ve never liked to spend lots of my money all at once and spent smaller amounts every now and then. I do believe this is a good way to reduce expenditure and can be beneficial. One thing that I have learnt whilst being at uni was shopping in lower charging shops like Lidl and avoiding places like M&S and even Tesco as it can add up really quickly. I’ve also found taking advantage of your student discount is useful when trying to save a few pounds. A student bank account is also useful, this can be used to deposit some money into which can be saved and can prevent you from spending it recklessly. These may also have some incentives, like discounts on travel etc.
Ella G
Nottingham Trent University
When I first started Uni I wasn’t the best at handling money in that I would spend as I pleased and did little to monitor or manage my spending effectively. I then had the quick realisation that this was not going to work in the long run. Following this I developed a system in which I transferred myself a weekly budget and split this into different groups such as food, transport and leisure. I used the Monzo banking app in which you can organise your money into separate pots to split my money for different purposes. This allowed me to minimise my overspending and also to keep track of where my money was going and how much I was spending in each area. This technique was a great help for me as I was still able to have fun and treat myself sometimes but I was more cautious and was able to monitor if I had the capacity to do so. Overall, I think the best money saving advice I could give is just to keep an eye on things and make sure you’re aware of where your money is going. This doesn’t mean restricting yourself too much but maybe just ask yourself twice if you really need something before you buy another plant for your room!
Yelena Z
University of Sussex
The best piece of advice I received was from my mum during first year, as she suggested I create a money management plan. After paying rent at the start of each term, I would be left with whatever amount I had from my maintenance loan, this would then be divided into a weekly salary and to provide for my outgoings for each week. She helped me to highlight the main outgoings I had, which were food, travel and uni resources. Then we also highlighted some secondary outgoings like takeaways, going out and clothes. I then added the main and secondary outgoings together which gave me a rough indication of how much I’d be spending each week. It helped so much as if I went below or over this amount, I’d then at least know that the following week I needed to hold back on purchases a bit to make up for the overspending, or I could spend a bit extra if I didn’t go over my weekly budget. Also I’d definitely recommend opening an ISA account as well as having a current account. This allows you to easily transfer money between both accounts, but I would keep the majority of my money in my ISA and then just transfer my weekly budget to my current account at the start of each week. Having all your money in one account even if you have a weekly budget in mind, makes it too easy to just overspend, especially on nights out when you’re feeling extra generous. I’m in third year now and this technique has helped me to save throughout uni, luckily I’ve never had to go into overdraft and when I had a job during second year, I was able to use that money for whatever I wanted as I already had my financial priorities in place.
Khai O
Manchester Met
It really depends how you want to live at university, I always try and do as many things as possible and will say yes to everything. This is of course costly and if you want to make the most out of your time at uni then all I can really say is get a job. You have to make money to spend it and getting a job is the easiest way to do this. There are so many jobs out there for students even if you do a demanding degree. Studying mechanical engineering myself I know there is not much free time between assignments, sports and nights out so getting the right job that allows you to work whenever you want is key. Personally I work delivering packages for Amazon but previous jobs I have done are Deliveroo, agency work and working with student estate agents. These are all jobs that allow you to more or less work whenever you want to and mean you can pick up work when you don’t have a lot of work on.
Tim A
Liverpool University
I took a year out before uni and spent my time working in bars. This basically funded my first year. My advice for students would be to get a summer job if you can and seek part time employment whilst at uni. I waited until after Christmas as I wanted to get settled and have free time to spend with new friends. After that I got another job and found that I had more fun with my work colleagues than the friends I had met on my course.
Food wise you want to make sure you’re eating right so if I was struggling I’d attempt to learn at least 2 meals that you can make quickly, because if going to take over an hour you’re not going to want to do it frequently and with ingredients that you’ll consistently have in the house i.e. onions and garlic. For this I would recommend, spaghetti bolognese and burritos, both are very simple, quick and cheap to make.
Miles W
Leeds beckett