Budgeting your money as a student


Transcript

0:03
Hi I’m Llinos and I’m here with Hannah. Me and Hannah are going to talk about budgeting,
0:08
student finance and give you a good idea of what to expect when going to uni.
0:12
How have you found budgeting as your life as a student? It was hard the first time round.
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All of a sudden you’ve got this big massive money, and then your rent goes out and you’ve
0:20
got a bit left over and you’re like, well what do I spend this on? And the first term
0:24
I found really hard because I didn’t know how much I’d spend on food, I didn’t know how expensive
0:29
things were. It was the first time I’d lived on my own. But eventually you do learn how
0:34
much you spend a week on food and what you’re likely to eat, and what you’re favourite things are to cook, and the quick things.
0:40
So you know how much you want to save aside to be
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going out on a night because you get to know your town. So don’t worry too much in those
0:46
first few weeks where the money is going, just allow yourself to settle down and learn
0:51
how much you’re going to spend, and after that you can start to work out your budgeting.
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You are going to spend more in the first few weeks anyway than you would in the rest of
0:58
the year. Yes, definitely, with freshers. Yes exactly, it’s a big week so there’s a
1:00
lot going on, and you just gradually get used to how much you spending and when. But if
1:05
you have a rough idea it makes it easier to budget afterwards. But there are loads of
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different ways you can save a lot of money as well like getting student railcards and
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discount cards and stuff. What kind of things have you got? I’ve got a railcard, which I
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bought the three year one cos it’s a lot cheaper than buying three times over, and I can save
1:23
so much money on train fares. It’s ridiculous. So I have that and then I have loyalty cards
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for different supermarkets so I save up my points and then I get sent through discount
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which is always great and it’s just a little bit of extra money that I save. As well I
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have a NUS card and although you have to pay for that, it does give you more discounts
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in more places. you definitely get your money back for what you pay for it. And, my student
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card as well, I always ask everywhere do you have student discount? And a lot of the
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time, it’s surprising where they do, such as Nando’s. I didn’t know Nando’s did it until
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the other day. Geniunely you’d be surprised what you’ll get student discount for, and
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one of your favourite phrases is going to be ‘do you do student discount?’ and it’s
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always worth giving it a go. You can save anything 10% – 50% off in certain places like
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travel, food, drink, cinema tickets, entry to nightclubs and loads of different stuff.
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So it’s always worth asking about student discount before you go anywhere. Also,
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it’s always a good idea if you find you’re really poor at budgeting to find if there’s
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a student money advisor at the uni, and the amount of people who buy flat screen tv or
2:26
technology with the first student loan and then can’t eat for the rest of the term is
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ridiculous. So don’t do anything like that. Be sensible and think about where you’re spending
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your money. And food obviously is another cost that you’ve got. There’s various different
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ways you can save money on food. A lot of my friends when they were at uni used to do
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like value weeks where they just buy all the value brands for a whole week and then decide
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which ones they liked. And then carry on buying then and supplementing them with brands and
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stuff afterwards. Or if you cook with your flatmates that’s going to save you a bit of
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money as well. So instead of cooking for yourself every single night, cook for a few people
3:02
and then they can cook for you. And if you’re a really bad cook, that saves you having to
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eat your own food as well! Having a freezer was actually a big way to
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save money because buying fresh food was nice and it was healthy but a lot of the time you
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can buy frozen stuff, it’s a lot easier and cheaper and doesn’t go off as quick. It saves
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a lot of money and you’re not throwing away good food.
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Obviously socialising is going to another big thing that you need to spend you money
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on isn’t it. Yes definitely. Saving a bit of money for going out. Even though you are
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budgeting you are allowed some fun now and again. But there is free activites around
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for example, we have beaches here which we can go and like have a walk on, and there
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are different things you can do. Just having a picnic for example is one thing that really
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fun and free. And you pass your time without spending too much money that way. And one
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other thing that people really forget about and don’t always factor in is books and course
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equipment. So you are going to spend some money on that whilst you’re a student as well.
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So there’s always handy thing you can do to save money, like if you can buy second hand
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books from second or third year students, because they always want to sell them, and
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if you want to buy them cheaper, everybody’s happy. But these are going to be your main
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costs whilst at uni. You should always avoid any store cards or credit cards and ideally
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avoid an overdraft as well shouldn’t you? I mean having an overdraft I’ve found is actually
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quite useful because sometimes my rent would come out before my loan came in, so having
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that overdraft meant that I wan’t going to be in trouble for not paying my rent. I could
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use it, but I knew I had to pay it back immediately. Whenever I do go into my overdraft it’s an
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emergency situation, and it is good to fall back on and it is good to have, but don’t
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take that as free money – it’s not, and you’ve got to pay it back as soon as you can. It
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is a good buffer like Hannah is saying but you don’t want to let it there and get larger
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and larger. Especially if you open a student bank account, they’ll entice you with loads
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of different deals like you can get free railcard or itunes vouchers or that kind of stuff.
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but you just need to double check the terms and conditions as well, cos quite often the
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student overdrafts are free of interest but the minute you stop being a student you can
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whack a really high interest on there. So you don’t want to be massively in your overdraft
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either when you graduate because then you have to be paying for it as well. And you
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work as well don’t you to earn some money whilst you’re a student? Yes, it’s really
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good having a part-time job. I end up having three at the moment – all small hours but
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there are all spread out along the week. And I’ve managed to get a job with the University
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as well, which is great. A lot of universities offer jobs for students, and being in term
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time as well means you can go home over the summer and it’s not going to affect it. What’s
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good about that is you don’t have to sign up to regular hours all the time either if
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you work for a uni, it’s just as and when you’re available. And if you’ve got a job
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at home over the summer it might be worth checking with a company if they are based at the uni
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you are going to, whether you can transfer over with them. So we hope you found this
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video really useful and there are lots of tips available for your finance at university.
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If you’re a student or you’re getting ready for university, leave us a comment and let
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us know your worries or what your tips were, any budgeting things, and share them with
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other people. Make sure you come soon for some more videos and helpful tips. and take
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a look through the channel and sure you subscribe so when you know when we upload a new video.
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