First of all - have you opened a student account? Some of them have sweet deals where they give you £50 for opening one, which is awesome. Also you'll have an overdraft which is interest free until a year or so after you graduate (as you can imagine it is extremely useful). Don't go mad with it, I usually allow myself to get in my overdraft by no more than £200 over the course of the whole year which I pay back very quickly by working over summer.farman wrote:Bonsoir ninjas,
Am off to uni this sunday and have just figured out the basics of my finance and its tellin me that i have fuck all left over from my loan after adding up accom/tuition fees. I already figured that i would need to get a job of some sort but is it really this savage? I havent looked at other uni fees so i cant really compare (im off London south bank uni btw.) Basically what im asking is how far do/did you make money last at uni and for any tips on the matter. Ta in advance!
Peace x
Another good tip is to shop at Morrison's mate (cheap as hell) - and only buy the bare minimum. I usually get my shop down to a tenner a week, sometimes less if I'm extremely smart about it. You can survive obviously, you just need to not stuff yourself with food every night, or snack much (if at all) - but you should still get fruit and stuff! Bag of apples is like a quid or something.
I'd basically have ~£300 to cover bills and food a term, which seems hilarious, and means you can't do a lotta the things you might wanna do (which isn't to say you can't do anything!), and petty cash becomes a serious deal. But if you can make it work, you'll feel very proud of yourself. It's worth learning to live like that - it toughens you up.
Another good idea is starting a "change jar" or something, put all your small change in it and eventually you end up with a nice little bonus. Also look for pdf's of all your course texts (your university library should have some - knew loads of people last year who spent £20 on a book which was available in pdf from the library).
If you wanna do extremely well at your course then getting a job is ill-advised. Uni work can consume your life - unless you're one of those types who feels that paying £3300 a year to slack off, learn nothing, and end up with a crap degree is a good idea. But I dunno, if you can find one shift a week someplace then it could be worth it - the extra £40 would really, really help.
Good luck mate, work hard and enjoy yourself - it'll be a right laugh.
