Managing money, part-time jobs, and student life
Hi! I am Tia, a second year Human Geography student here at York St John University. In today’s blog I am going to be sharing my top tips for managing your finances whilst at university and my experience with getting a part time job alongside my studies. I hope you find my blog useful for when you start university, or even if you are a current student here.
Student Bank accounts
One of the most important things I was looking into as a prospective student was who I wanted to start my student bank account with. Doing your research is important here as different banks will provide different benefits so you need to choose the one which will suit you most. I chose to go with Santander as my current account was already with them, they also provided me with a rail card for my time at university! This was very worthwhile as I knew I was going to be using the train a lot whilst at university.
Still keeping in touch with the theme of banks… one of my tips for managing your finances would be to download a Monzo bank account.! This was my holy grail in my first year, as it allowed me to organise my loan into different pots. When I first received my student loan into my bank account, I was quite overwhelmed with the sum of money in my bank account. My creating different pots it allowed to break this number into more manageable amounts. Fo instance, I had a pot for my rent, a pot for my food shopping, savings, and money for leisure. This was a great way to keep track of what I was spending, and meant I was spending all my money in one go.
My other top tip to managing your finances is when you apply for your student finance loan make sure you know what number it is you will be receiving. This is to make sure you can afford to live away whilst at university, or to support you whilst living at home. If your loan is lower than your accommodation costs I would recommend getting a part time job over summer, so you have money to cover the rest of the cost!
This leads me into my next section of my blog which is how I managed to get a job whilst at university and how I manage one alongside being a full-time student.
Part-time jobs
I have been very fortunate when at university as I have two jobs, both jobs are with the university. I am a student voice ambassador so I get paid to write blogs and make content for the university to use which can help guide prospective students with their journey on deciding what they want to do after college. Along side this, I am also a Student Ambassador. Being a student ambassador is my ‘main’ job as I do a lot of shifts all of which can vary. My favourite shifts are campus tours, open days (one of which you may have been to) and school visits! Having these jobs have helped me financially whilst at university, but also socially as I have been able to meet a lot of friends outside my degree.
As I am employed by the university, I can pick shifts that work best around my timetable. My job as a student ambassador is 0 hours, so I can work as many shifts as I want to! Some weeks I work 20 hours whereas some weeks I’ll work 2! As a student voice ambassador, I can pick which content I want to create so we have a lot of creative freedom! Both jobs mean I am also
employed for the rest of my time at university, so I do not need to worry about getting a job if I go home for the summer! Most universities have a paid ambassador scheme!
I hope you find my tips useful for managing your finances whilst at university, and get an insight to what jobs are on offer for university students. At YSJ we have a lot of support around finance and part-time jobs, so you are never alone! Thank you, Tia.
For more information on budgets, finances and preparing yourself for university, please visit the York St John website.
You can discover more about all things student life on our Student Voices page.