Budgeting as a Student

Hi! My name is James and I’m a second-year Psychology student at York St John. The biggest learning curve since moving away from home to start University has been managing my finances. While I was preparing myself before moving-in day, everything I read had talked about budgeting your money and being careful while planning meals or shopping, but I thought that this was something that you figured out once you had settled in. Despite me having basic budgeting skills before being fully independent, I shortly found out that the ad hoc budget plan I previously assumed was completely wrong.

Before University, I just made sure that I didn’t spend too much money when I was out, but this just didn’t cut it with groceries or bus journeys, even with student discount. I eventually realized that a good rule of thumb while budgeting was to split your budget into different spending allowances. One of the ways I did this was tracking my spending with Blackbullion- a budgeting app highly recommended by student support at YSJ- and allocating specific amounts to things like my weekly grocery shop or maybe a night out at the Student Union. Even though I couldn’t find a job straight away, I still found this method useful with only my maintenance loan by splitting the amounts into a weekly amount so I could still make sure I was being responsible.

However, even with a concrete budgeting plan I still found it difficult to cap my spending in a tourist-centred city like York. This is where student apps like UniDays or Student Beans comes to the rescue, as there are tonnes of different companies that offer some sort of concession for students, like getting a free sweet treat at Greggs or discounts at restaurants like Toby Carvery- treating yourself every now and then really helps when you restrict yourself to a budget so even something like 30% is really helpful. Carefully picking where you might spend times with friends can also be really effective, as certain pubs/bars offer student deals on drinks or food that can save even a couple of pounds that could be saved to pay for the next time you go out.

But one thing that no one prepared me for was learning to restrain myself. Whether it’s having to turn down a night out or preparing a meal instead of getting takeaway, there is always a constant urge to keep treating yourself. A lot of people fall into the trap of their student account’s overdraft to buy things they maybe can’t afford just because it’s interest-free, forgetting they need to budget as a student. Luckily, I managed to stop myself from doing this, but with so many people doing it I did nearly jump on the bandwagon. Because of this, I really do recommend to at least plan a weekly grocery shop to see how much you might spend. Then you can start to build up a weekly plan on how much you can spend so you can make sure you don’t get too stressed out!