Budgeting Tips For Students

By Author: Bonny Kominek
Total Articles: 32
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When you first leave home to go to university, it can be hard to deal with all the extra responsibilities that you have to deal with. One of the most important things that you will have to learn to do is to manage your finances effectively.

If you have never lived away from home before, you will not have had to face up to many financial challenges, as your parents would have provided for most of your needs. Also, if you have just turned 18, you will never have had to deal with the temptations of easy credit before.

Many students, when faced with their first taste of financial independence, fall into the trap of spending their money recklessly, only to find themselves flat broke within a month or two, or building up large credit card and overdraft debts.

If you can set a budget and stick to it, you will save yourself a lot of heartache, and learn lessons that will prove to be very useful in the years to come. You can do this the high tech way, with a computer, or in the low tech way, with paper and a pen. Both are equally effective.

The first thing that you have to do when setting out a budget is to ...
... work out how much money you would have available every month if you did not spend any of it. Then you will have to write down all the things that you absolutely have to pay for, such as groceries, bills, rent, and books, and how much they will cost each month.

If the monthly total of your expenses exceeds your total monthly income, you will either have to find ways to save money on these expenses, or take a part time job to earn you some extra money.

The money that is left over after you have paid for the essentials is yours to do with what you want. However, it is a good idea to put a little money away each month in a bank account to give you a financial cushion for when you are presented with an unexpected expense.

Non essential expenses such as going out clubbing or buying clothes should be paid for out of a strict weekly allowance, set by you. If you can stick to this, you can enjoy these luxuries without driving yourself below the poverty line. Bonny Kominek is the author of this article. Alliance