The importance of setting a budget as a student

July is the month where you are either partying, doing an internship, looking at your exam results or starting to think about September when you will be in Uni! I still remember my first day in Manchester, where I spent four years of my life as a Computer Science student. I hope you will have my same good memory. As soon as you settle in your new accommodation, meet your new friends and start partying for freshers week, you stumble across a big topic, budgeting.

This is incredibly important for any student. One of the hardest things, at Uni, is budgeting since you are surrounded by a lot of entertainment. However, we all had a budget and there are a few tips to stick to a number. The first step is to understand how much you can afford for the whole year in living costs.

If you are a UK student, you should also be eligible for living costs loans, which you can find here. As the table shows these differ based on location and situation.

On the other hand, if you are an EU student, you can’t apply for living costs loans, but there are some exceptions, which are defined on this page. When I went to Uni, I wasn’t eligible for the living costs loans. I had to figure out how much my parents could afford per year.

I was also living in a catered student hall, so all the expenses for food, which can usually average at £32 per week were cut off. Lidl is a great place to bring that number around £25, but I have seen masters who could food shop at £20 per week.

After figuring out the number, there is a simple math calculation you can do. This helps you understand how many weeks you have per academic year.

52 weeks in a year – 4 week Christmas – 4 week easter – 8 week summer = 36 weeks

36 weeks is the right number and it’s approximately the length of a contract for a student accommodation, if you live in halls. With the number of weeks and the total amount, a simple division will give you the right budget per week. This is the best way to think about budgeting; week is the only period which can give you an exact number to stick to.

At Uni, I have seen people who had budgets from £40 to £100 per week; but this is entirely up to you and your needs. 😉 Have a great year and let us know how you are budgeting!