Being a university can be fun, exciting, and intellectually stimulating, but it’s rarely a flush time in a person’s life. Many students find that there’s barely any money left after their accommodation, supplies, and trips home have been debited from their accounts.
However, while that’s the standard student experience, that doesn’t mean that it’s automatically the way things have to be! Even a few simple adjustments can have a big impact on your financial health.
In this post, we’ll run through some strategies that are often overlooked by students, but which can make a big difference.
Automate Some Savings
OK, it’s maybe not realistic to think that you’ll save huge sums of money when you’re a student, but saving modest amounts that still have an impact? That’s doable.
Even putting £10 – 20 a week into a savings account can add up to a decent amount that you’ll very much appreciate when Christmas or other splurge times roll around. We’d recommend using an automated savings app to make the process even more straightforward.
There are also ‘round-up’ savings apps that’ll round up your card charges to the nearest pound and deposit the difference into your savings account. You’d be surprised at how quickly those small amounts can add up.
Love Your Accommodation
Want an easy way to save money while also boosting the quality of your student experience? Find accommodation that you genuinely love spending time in. There is accommodation for students that come complete with everything you need to feel truly relaxed and at home, such as comfortable living rooms and weekly communal cleaning.
How does this help your budget, we hear you ask? It’s simple — if you love your home, then you’ll feel less of a need to spend your evenings outside, draining your bank account. You’ll also be much more inclined to cook meals yourself, rather than ordering takeout. Even if the accommodation isn’t the cheapest on the market, it’s nearly always worth paying slightly more — it simply pays off in other ways.
Work With Your Flatmates
Your flatmates will help to make a happy, positive environment at home. They might also save you money (and you them!). Rather than everyone having their own subscription services, look at bundling them together. You really only need one Netflix account per household.
Track Your Spending
This might be obvious to some, but you’d be surprised at how many students fail to track how much they’re actually spending. They think their bank balance should be one number, but when they go to check, they realise that, oh dear, it’s much less than they thought it’d be.
Why does that happen? Because the student has actually spent a lot more money than they thought they had — it’s just because the individual purchases were so small, they didn’t factor them into their budget. While a single £2 charge won’t make a difference, numerous £2 charges absolutely will. Identify your money blind spots, tighten them up, and it’ll be much easier to retain a grip on your finances.
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