Saving Money at Unversity Top Tips

Following on from the University Mini Series I started last week I am back with a new post all about saving money as a student. This is super important as once the money is gone, it’s gone and overdrafts are scary things! So the tips are as follows:

1) Smart price is your new best friend.

2) Freeze your bread if you aren’t likely to use a whole loaf in one week, or buy a smaller loaf. This saves on throwing out mouldy food. 

3) Buy fruit and veg from markets or veg stalls. Buying from these places is not only good for local businesses but also better for you as the fruit is a lot cheaper.

4) Learn to cook. One thing I learnt to make is homemade chips in the oven. One large potato from a market can cost as little as 20p and can make enough chips for 1-2 people.

          

5) When buying fabric softener, pour three quarters of it into a separate bottle and fill the original bottle with water. This works exactly the same as the original fabric softener it just lasts 4 times as long

6) Buy a money box you can’t get into! I bought a money box you can only open with a tin opener and started putting loose change in there after I’d been to town or shopping and it started filling up pretty quickly. I had over £60 in just a couple of months. This is a great way of saving for when your bank balance is looking dismal.

7) Student discount. Need I say more?

The next few tips are more along the lines of earning extra money rather than saving money but it all helps in the long run to try keep you out of your overdraft.

1) Aside from watching your pennies the best advice I have for saving money (or earning more shall I say) is a part time job. Get involved with the Student Ambassadors scheme at your university or apply for jobs working within the students union. These pay more than regular jobs and often the work is more flexible so you can avoid clashing with work with lectures.  

2) If you are doing an English/creative writing/journalism degree or if you enjoy writing, look up iTrigga. This is a company that hire you to work from home writing short advertising articles on different products. I am unsure of the pay but I imagine it is all good experience that is relevant to your course and will help to keep you earning money. It may also give you an idea of the career you want to pursue in the future. You have to send off a sample of your written work to the company to see if it meets their standards and then based on that they will employ you.

3) Install Qmee to your browser. If you search a lot through google this is a great one for you. You search as normal and sometimes an advert will appear in the sidebar of your search results with an amount next to it (i.e 6p). If this is relevant to your needs click this and 6p will be added to your Qmee piggy bank. There is no minimal amount you can withdraw from Qmee and it can be withdrawn straight to your paypal account. This is a great tool to use as you are saving as you go, albeit very small amounts but it all adds up in the end.

I hope this was helpful to you, it’s a little different to last week’s post but also very useful to know! If you have any further tips to add please leave them in the comments box!