Keeping University Costs Low

When at university, you need to discard with all ideas of living the life of a king or a queen. Instead you need to be frugal and live on rations!

This might sound a little extreme, but if you start off with the mind-set that your student loan is not money to be spent, but rather money to be WELL-SPENT, then you will save yourself a lot of debt by the end of the course.

Whilst when you first go to university the last thing you may be thinking about is earning above around £15,000 a year and paying back the loan to your friends at the student loan company, BUT it pays to plan ahead.

Therefore, how can you keep your debt low?

Well, when it comes to moving in with other students, try to find a place that can accommodate a large number of students... this is because in general the more people staying a place, the lower the rent will be pro-rata for each student. As long as you can stand living with several other people, this is a good way of reducing one of the largest bills.

Then when it comes to food, stick to humble foods and accept that you cannot really 'taste the difference' as it were too often.

Avoid being lazy and avoiding cooking, because eating out is a surefire way to burn your budget - whilst that £12 for a pizza out may sound good value, you can get the same for about £2 - 3 fresh from the local supermarket!

By simple tips like this, you can save a lot of money during the course of a year.

Also remember that you should not be spending your money on designer label clothes or anything too flash - keep your fashion tastes (and other tastes) as sober as possible and you will realise that the money you have can actually last you a decent amount of time.

We're not saying have no fun at all - the occasional meal out, trip to the cinema, bit of expenditure on a nice suit for interviews and so on, are of course necessary - we're just suggesting that you spend your money wisely. And to do that requires good budgeting - so read the article on budgeting to find out more about that!

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