matt85

In a couple of months i will be a skint student rather than being in my current postion of a skint officey-type person.

Basically i wont have a great deal of savings when i go (maybe £500) and my loan will be around £3k PA. However, i dont have tuition fees or accommodation to come out of that as i have already pretty much covered it.

What i need to know is how to manage my money whilst there so that it lasts me a bit longer and keeps me away from the dreaded overdraft/ credit card situation.

What i am talking about is how to work out what to live on a week, how to save money by shopping in certain places/ eating certain things and also daft stuff like how to keep your mobile phone bill as low as possible so it all ends up saving you a few quid.

Has anybody been in this situation and if so do you have any hints or tips to keep me in the black for as long as possible as i can see an impending financial crisis getting closer by the day.

(And yes i aready know drinking 6 nights a week and eating Kebabs all the time doesnt help matters )

Thanks in advance.

imlach

Food : cook for yourself. Will save you a fortune. Don't buy ready meals. Stock up on pasta, rice, beans, lentils, soups, etc.

Nights out : perhaps go out a few hours later, but have a few drinks at home beforehand to get a bit merry, then you'll spend less on expensive pub/club drinks (if you're a drinker that is!)

Ditch the car if you have one - do you really need it? Which Uni you going to? Get a bus-pass.

scoobyjimbo

Agree with imlach... stock up in bulk from the offywith your mates before going out, stick as much as you can to the students union as they always have cheap food and drink.. i.e. pound a pint.. god you can make yourself ill on those nights.. good though..

Go to the supermarket and buy all their tins of stuff, if you go around 6 you can pickup the cheap stuff when they mark it down, surpising how well you can eat on that for not very much money.. all in all have fun, and dont spend too much in freshers week, my mate at cardiff spent about 30% of his semesters cash during that week alone and had to get a job to see him through the rest :-)

J

matt85

Ill be in Nottingham and i have paid out an obscene amount in car insurance which lasts until May so im going to have a car until then and then just not bother when it expires.

I wanted to just cancel the insurance and get a refund but if i cancel with 9 months left they give me 15% back which is a pi**take so it makes sense to at least use it until May when it expires, then get the bus pass out.

The going out later bit is a good point. An even better idea is to go out early but spend time chatting up birds rather than drinking with the lads

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I didn't even own a mobile while I was at uni. If you're meeting with friends in College or (shock!) in lectures, you'll be able to talk to them face to face and won't need a phone.

Cook for yourself - college food is usually crap and you're better off boiling your own rice, pasta and potatoes. Eating out is hugely expensive by comparison. Drink is cheapest if you brew it yourself and most expensive if you drink in pubs - do a decent home brew and you'll make friends easily too!

Swap the car for a bike. Make sure you pay off your credit card every month, even if that means borrowing money elsewhere to do so - c/c's are frighteningly expensive.

Make sure you always know the balance of your c/c, bank account and any loans - don't just bury your head in the sand if things start to look bad. Get a saturday job if you can - but not if that interferes with your studies too much. You don't want to come out still broke but without a degree!

And... enjoy! Uni is really hard work but it can be fun too. Don't waste the opportunity.

imlach

If you got your car insurance in May, I'd phone them and double check that'd you'd only get 15% refund....

Seems awfully low. Yes, you won't get back the pro-rata amount, but even if you got 60% back, it'd be better. It might save you more in the longrun between now & next May once you take into account depreciation, road tax, petrol, etc.

David_Dickson

Buy a cheap-ish bicycle and a big-*** lock for it. free transport and its kinda healthy.

What are your living arrangements? sharing with others? if so, instead of everyone cooking their own seperate meals each day, try to organise it so you all chip in and cook up big pots of stuff. Mince, pasta, potatoes, whatever, good, basic, cheap food that can be cooked in reasonably large quantities.

See if you can get hold of a card for Makro or Costco or somewhere like that. Buying food in bulk is a larger initial outlay but works out a lot cheaper in the long-run. Just make sure you can use it all before its use-by dates so you arent wasting it.
If you cant get access to wholesalers, shop at Asda or Tesco rather than Sainsburys etc.
Asda do some incredibly cheap own-brand stuff (brand-X supernoodles for 9p per pack) but beware, a lot of this stuff is so bland you are better off eating the packaging.
Learn how to cook properly. If you are making spaghetti bolognese, a jar of Dolmio probably costs over a quid, but a tin of chopped tomatoes, some mushrooms, garlic etc and a little know-how will give good results for a few pence.

As said above, get a few drinks in before you head out to the pubs. or get a lot of drinks in before you head out, then just drink water or soft drinks when you are there, this lets you recover a bit and actually talk to people in a sober manner, while also cuts down on hangovers.
Either that or dont go out...staying in is the new going out, and if there are a few of you in the flat, staying in can be a great laugh.
When I was at uni, loads of people from the blocks of flats would carry our sofas downstairs onto the playing fields outside in summer evenings. A long extension lead and a hifi provided the sounds, and we all used to have massive parties/chill sessions, which grew hugely popular. Just be carefull with noise levels and litter!

If you need to get a p/t job, try and get one where you get access to usefull staff discounts. I worked at Halfords, which proved handy for car parts and stuff, but if I worked in a supermarket I could have got cheap food instead.

ChrisB

If you go to Makro intending to stock up, shop carefully as it isn't always cheaper than Tesco or Asda specials or value stuff.

imlach

I'd agree with the above. Costco especially tends to stock "labels" - ie, Tilda rice, Heinz Beans (sorry, they're now Beanz!), etc.

So, in reality, buying 24 tins of Heinz Beans from Costco may be cheaper than buying Heinz beanz at Asda, but Asda's own label value beans will probably be 1/4 of the price!! ie, 9p/tin rather than 36p/tin for Heinz.

Learn to cook now while you the pressure is off. Volunteer to cook a few meals a week for your family. Learn how to do soups, vegetable curries, spaghetti dishes, how to make your own italian tomato sauces etc...

Not only is it very very cheap, it's also better for you.....

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

The Paupers Cookbook is an essential bit of kit for a student, it got me through my twenties

Brendan Hughes

I was given One Is Fun by Delia Smith, a lot of simple and tasty recipies in there, specifically designed for one person (so you don't need to calculate things like half an egg, or put something in the oven for 2 hours).

Freak

hoffmeister!

Its also the rules that you have to make a can mountain from the emptys- ours touched the ceiling and was huge

Rachael

cut up your credit card... then you can't spend what you haven't got!

weapon69

out of interest, what are you going to study? If its music or film studies or something then you'll only have about 10 lectures a week plenty of free time to have a p/t job.

ScoobyDriverWannabe

you can also get a student bank account with a £1200 intrest free overdraft which gradually increases while your at uni

Hanslow

Get yourself to a farm shop or something and get yourself a sack of spuds. Jacket potatoes every night with your meal

We did that, and got a sack of onions as well. Kept in a cool dark place and lasted us pretty much most of a term. Onions chopped and cooked in a home made sauce with veg and meat (if you can afford it ). Served with rice/pasta and jacket spud

Don't use your mobile. Communicate with most people by either walking round to visit, or emailing at Uni arranging details for that night.

BlkKnight

If you have been in full time employment for more than 2 years, you are classed as an "independant(sp) person" so when applying for grants your parents income is not taken into account - I got best part of £2500 per year for that

matt85

Argh... So it appears i will have to learn how to cook then!! Ah well, suppose it had to happen someday, didnt it.

I havent been in FT employment for two years so may be struggling there with the loan.

Also, interesting point about the discounts your job brings. Possibly try and get a job in the local lap-dancing club in that case

Freak

You dont have to have been in FT employment- you just have to have been independent from your parents for a set amount of time- full time employment isnt a stipulation.
Regardless of that, you will still be eligible for a normal student loan anyway.

ChrisB

We Blu-tacked / taped all ours to the lounge walls

matt85

I was planning on using pizza boxes

ChrisB

Don't forget to eat the contents first then

Brendan Hughes

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

BlkKnight

Overdrafts & loans are baaaad m'k

Get a job & work part-time in year 1 (as much as you can), then ease off in year 2. Try not to work in year 3 as pressuer from uni will be madness.

Freak

speaking from experience here:

Went to uni, got a student account and credit card (barclays)
Credit card was 350 limit, which i still have.
The overdraft, i increased to 1200 which was covered by my loan instalments.
However, i left it fully overdrawn for about 18 months after finishing uni- then out of the blue - no warning letters or anything- the bank demanded immediate and full payment of the overdraft, despite the fact i was actually doing a post grad course.
They wanted payment in full- or send in the bailiffs- no other options.

I was appalled at barclays attitude and service- paid it in full over the phone, closed the account and wrote them a ****ty letter. If i hadnt been able to pay it back there and then i would have been in severe ****.

matt85

Yeh i can definately imagine Barclays doing that.

The past 18 months or so i have worked in financial services (admittedly at the very bottom) so i have a pretty good idea as to how to manage my money in the respect of loans etc, so i should be ok in that respect.

What i need to know is which Pizza shops do free delivery, what bars do £1 a pint and where all the 'All-You-Can-Eat buffets are hiding!

I think i might also do a part-time job as well whilst there but only if i can find something i can enjoy as im totally sick to f*ck of the menial sh*t that i have been doing since i left school, even if its only 15 hours a week. Or maybe i just dont like working