Keeping on top of your finances is hard.
The pressure to spend money is high during the first few weeks of term, particularly with
freshers’ week offering a daily choice of events to not miss out on.
You’ll need new textbooks, potentially new equipment or software and have a desire to
refresh the wardrobe. The shopping list can feel endless.
Although managing money is difficult, we think we can boil it down to doing three things or to
put it another way: budgeting at university can be as easy as one, two, three!
Step one: what are your funds?
The money you have to fund your studies is likely to come from a combination of tuition
and maintenance student loans, savings, potentially sponsorships or bursaries, and any
support your family are giving.
You might have some income too if you have a part time job. If this income is likely to
fluctuate depending on your studies, you are best to assume a nominal amount.
You’ll also need to think about when you have access to your money. Student loans tend to
be paid to you in installments aligned to the academic terms and income might be weekly or
monthly.
Step two: what are your expenses?
Let’s start with the basics: paying for your course fees, accommodation, critical bills,
transport and your living expenses. These are in the ‘must-haves’ category as you can’t
successfully study at university if you don’t have the cash for these things.
The second category is the ‘nice-to-haves’. This is the money for the monthly subscription
services like streaming or gaming, nights out, new clothes, cinema trips, restaurant jaunts,
holidays. All the good and exciting stuff basically!
Once you have steps one and two sorted ideally the two amounts will match. But for most
people there are choices to be made, what can you really afford in the nice to have
category? Can you boost your income without compromising your study?
You also need to understand when you need to pay for things and how much money you will
need each day, week, month or term.
Once you have set your budget stick to it. One way to do this is have two separate accounts
where you ‘pay’ yourself a weekly or monthly amount from your total funds for the term or
year.
At Mezzino, we make paying for your accommodation easy and allow you to pay in
installments to co-inside with student loan payments. Mezzino rent includes utility bills so
once it is paid you don’t need to worry about your accommodation.
Mezzino help with your finances too by offering different types of high-quality
accommodation, including studios with kitchen facilities, to suit your budget.
Step three: plan for the unexpected?
Inevitably they’ll be expenses that you haven’t anticipated and you’ll need to fund. It could be
that night out that you simply must go to, an extra textbook, a last-minute trip home or a
laptop that needs replacing. Having an emergency fund set aside will give you piece of mind.
Even if you don’t have an emergency fund, the budgeting exercise you have gone through
means you know where you can cut back on your spending to make sure you have enough
for the must-haves.
