Being a student is a financial nightmare. Whether you have credit card debt, maintenance loans, working part time or living off of family support the chances are you are broke. In this article I will break down a few of the ways that you can save money as a student and start paying off debts are saving for a deposit.
Tip #1:
Paying yourself before your bills. The idea of paying yourself before bills is often touted as the best way to save money as it instantly shrinks your budget and prevents over spending. But what is paying yourself I hear you ask? Paying yourself means automatically taking a % of your money, whenever you receive it and sending it to a savings account. For most students, 10% is the most comfortable amount to automatically redirect to your savings but if you can afford more then more is better. If you cant afford 10% then try 5%, the effects of compound interest over the course of your degree will grow even that 5% to a nice chunk of change.
Tip #2:
Form a budget. A budget is the core to all your financial structure. You would not build a house without foundations the same way you can not build savings without a budget. How can you save any money if you dont understand what you have coming in and going out? A budget also enables you to identify areas you are overspending and enable you to cut back in those areas.
Tip #3
Think about your food. I eat a plant based diet so I save a fortune not having to buy meat, eggs or dairy so consider that if you want to save or maybe consider have two days a week without meat, you will quickly see the savings. Companies, especially takeaways like Domino's love to bombard students with coupons and deals on pizzas etc as they know students tend to not enjoy cooking or spend a lot of our time parting where a nice takeaway at the end of the night is the cherry on the cake. Consider pre buying a pizza from the shop before your night out and cooking it when you get home, it's probably going to be ready quicker than ordering and you don't need to worry about it arriving cold.
Tip #4
Be extremely careful about signing up for any form of credit whilst being a student. In the UK many of the UK banks offer 0% interest for the entire duration of the course on overdrafts up to £1500 but the day you graduate the interest kicks up to around 18% in some cases and you will start receiving bills. Credit Cards I would say are a total no go whilst a student unless you are incredibly strict with your money and can guarantee you will pay the entire bill off every single month without fail. Interest rates aimed at students are incredibly high and you can quickly fall behind if you slip up even on a single month.
Tip #5
Consider bulk buying with housemates. It is unlikely you will be able to eat your way through 10kg of rice before it goes bad but buying in bulk is the cheapest way to buy things due to the economics of scale. For this reason, consider splitting the cost of that 10kg bag of rice with a housemate or two and you can save a small fortune over time. The same principal applies to home goods such as toilet paper and household cleaners, do you really need five bottles of anti bacterial spray under the sink? Split the cost on all your household goods and you can save a good amount of money.
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