My First Year University Experience: Finances

I would like to say a massive thank you for such a great response to my First Year Experience posts. This is part IV, the final installment of the series. If you haven't read the other parts, definitely give them a read. I have posted my Academic, Social Life and Accommodation experience. Today I will be sharing my experience in terms of finances. One of the most important aspects (if not, the MOST important) of university is money. University is an expensive investment and hopefully this post will help Freshers to handle their money wisely.


S T U D E N T   F I N A N C E
Applying for student finance seems so long ago now that I barely remember it. Of course I have applied for my second year installment, but they saved a lot of my data so I didn't have to do much. I applied for both the tuition and maintenance loan, which I recommend everyone to do. Even if you are staying home for uni, you can receive up to about £3000 in loan, which will be a massive help when it comes to travel costs and resources. Unfortunately the amount of maintenance loan you receive is based on your parents' income (bit stupid if you ask me). I didn't receive enough loan to cover my rent alone which was a bit of a nightmare, but I made it work. If you don't know how it works, you apply for student finance and they will give you a total for the year. You will receive the full £9250 tuition, unless you request otherwise and maintenance loan based on your application. You receive the 1st installment in September, 2nd in January and 3rd in the spring time (around April).

Getting the text alert that your money will be in your account, is every student's favourite day. But BE WARNED, it doesn't stretch as much as you think. It has to last you about 3 months, so don't go round flexing designer with the money and then be eating ice for dinner.

W O R K
With my student finance not being enough to survive on, I had to work here and there to keep up living costs. I work for a hospitality agency called Off To Work and it is a really good place to work if you are a student. It's great pay and casual contract, which means you can work whenever it suits you. At the beginning of the year I would work here and there after a lecture but as the workload piled up I stopped my shifts and just worked lots during the holidays. With my wages, I would pay for food, toiletries and anything else important. I would also buy personal items too like clothes and presents, however I was really good at restricting my own spending. I would definitely recommend getting a part-time job whilst at university because it will help you a lot. Even if you get the maximum amount of loan, it probably still won't be enough. I think even if you only had a weekend job, you would feel the difference. University life can get hectic and very busy, very quickly so if you are going to get a job, I would work for an agency or start work at the beginning and do lots of shifts before things get wild. That way you won't be breaking the piggy bank. Be careful of contracts though because I had a few friends who worked at places and had troubles leaving when they needed to focus on studies, because of their contract. Do your research first!

Another piece of advice I have is to search for jobs in the city you are studying in, before you move there, that way you can start as early as possible. I was lucky enough to have the same job I had in sixth form, however I know the hassle job hunting can be.

R E N T
I used my student finance for rent and then I had some extra help from my family if I needed it. I also applied for student overdraft, which really helped me out with my final installment. My final rent price was the biggest of the three and with it being exam season, it was very difficult to do shifts. I highly recommend applying for an overdraft because you never know when you may need it. You don't have to use it, but at least you have the option. OBVIOUSLY don't use it to buy clothes or anything that's not necessary. You can spend it on rent like I did or on a new laptop since it's a good investment. The good thing about student overdraft is that there is no rush to pay it back. You have ages to pay it back and you can get more each year if you apply. I got £1000 overdraft in first year. I didn't use all of it, but having it there was a great support.

L I V I N G   C O S T S
I'm going to say this loud and proud.... ALDI IS THE PLUG. I don't care what anyone says, ALDI is the best supermarket. They have great quality food for such an affordable price. I started uni vowing to myself that I wouldn't overspend on takeaways and I would try to cook everyday. Honestly, ALDI helped me to do that. I would spend about £15 on 2 weeks worth of food.

Although I bought most of my food from ALDI, I would get my snacks from Tesco (because we had one on campus) and then my toiletries from other places like Home Bargains and Wilkos. I would recommend getting some things in bulk because it will work out cheaper. For example, I would buy a 9 pack of toilet roll for about £2.40 from Home Bargains and I would buy about 2 mega packs of sanitary at one time for £2.45 each at Wilko, so I always had some in the flat.

My advice for living costs is to put them as a priority after rent. Always pay your rent first (so you actually have a home) and then pay for everything you NEED before anything you want. Sounds like common sense but a lot of the time common sense flies out the window when £1K drops in your account over night. This leads me onto managing your money.

T R A C K I N G / B U D G E T T I N G
I would say that managing your money is one of the biggest skills that I learnt during my first year. I had my job during sixth form but I had never done enough hours to handle a lot of money all at once. It wasn't until the summer before university that I started to have more money, but even then it was pretty much all for uni, so I didn't really need to budget. I would just put aside some money for the summer and then everything else was for university. Once you start uni, money is going in and out constantly, so it's important to manage it well. My budget book was one of my best pals during first year. I bought a random notebook from TKMAXX and used it to track all of my income and expenditure. Here is an example of how it looked

Income

Parents/Family:
(Bday money, extra help)
Work:
Student Finance:

Expenditure:

Rent:
Tuition:
Groceries:
Takeaway:
Personal:
(Gifts, nights out, makeup etc)
Transport:
Uni:
(Stationery, textbooks)

Overall income:
Overall expenditure:

Every day I would write down the amount I spent and in what area, then add it altogether at the end of the week. Based on that, I would create a little budget for myself for the next week. For example if I spent a lot of money on presents for Christmas, I would restrict myself from a few nights out or buying too much in the sales to make up for it.

I recently discovered an easy way of doing this recently. It's an app called Yolt. My friend from work told me about it and it's been amazing. It's basically the same thing but on an app and it does everything for you. You just need to sync your account to the app and it tracks your spending. It will show you how much you spend on nights out, food, transport etc every month. It even tracks how often and how much you take cash out of your account. If you would prefer this, it is a good option. I'm sure there are many other apps out there too.

Managing your money is very easy if you are willing to sacrifice and be disciplined. I did pretty well with stretching my money during my first year and I'm quite proud of myself for gaining that skill. I know it will be much easier to handle money during my second year as I won't have rent to worry about. I May have to help my parents out a bit with bills but IT won't be near as much as this year has been. The only consistent spending I'll have is transport and personal expenses.

T I P S
- Make use of freebies during Freshers week.
You will get a million leaflets and vouchers and I would recommend you look at them all. You never know what you may use. They were giving out tokens worth £3 entry to PRYZM nightclub during my freshers and stupid me lost it. I ended up paying like £7 because I didn't have that discount. You also get a lot of discounts for pizza places which is a life saver when you don't want to cook.

- Get good perks.
When you create a student bank account or other membership type services, they tend to offer perks. For example, HSBC offer £80 amazon gift cards and 12 months free Prime. This was a huge benefit to me. I used the gift card to pay for all my textbooks and having Amazon Prime made life bliss. Free next day delivery and a bunch of TV shows/Movies to watch. It saves you so much money in the long run, so pick perks that are worth it. Santander is viewed as the best option for most students however I rarely use the train as my uni is 15 mins on the bus or 2 mins walk from accommodation. It wouldn't be worth it for me.

- Use Student Discount
Use your student discount wherever you can. UNiDAYS has some great student deals that have saved me so much money this year. You can get 10% off in Superdrug, 50% off Bella Italia, 2 for £10 on Harvester/Toby Carvery etc. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT. I bought a Totum card but they gave me some problems and basically had the same deals as UNiDAYS, so I wouldn't recommend it to be honest. Just stick to UNiDAYS.

It isn't always going to be sunshine and roses (unless you're rich - In that case it must be nice), but hopefully these tips and my experience will help some people in some way. Unfortunately money is a common barrier and it's really a shame that it's the case. I hope that anyone struggling with finance understands that it is OK to ask for help. There will always be someone willing to help you. Universities always have a finance department ready to make things easier. Education is an investment worth making.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Let me know which post you found most helpful in the series and if you would like me to do the same in second year.

Thanks for reading,
Have a great day x