Being a student at University often means being away from home for the first time. This means you have to take control of your money for yourself and budget for everything you need over the year, in a way you have probably never done before. Being a student can cost up to £10,000 a year, so you’ve got quite a lot of expenses too, your food, lodgings, bills, course fees, and other living costs, so it’s important to use your money wisely and try to avoid ending up with larger debts than you need to.

Budgeting
Creating a budget doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be as simple as listing all your income and outgoing money for the month, and seeing how they match up or not. Doing this however, can help you to make sure you know what you are spending your money on, and whether you will have enough to cover all your costs. Make sure you remember to include all the money you will spend, even including allowing yourself money to go outand socialise.

Borrowing Money
What if your budget sheet shows that you don’t have enough income to cover all your outgoings? Well then you may have to look at borrowing some money from somewhere. There are three main options here:

* Student Loans
* Overdraft Facility
* Credit Cards and Loans

Most students are eligible for a student loan, and this is the best option if you need to borrow money. Student loans are backed by the government, and their interest rate is extremely low – currently 1.5% and that is dropping to 0% in September. They don’t need to be paid back until you have graduated and are earning £15,000 per year or more either. There are two types of student loan, one for covering the cost of your course fees, and the other to help with living expenses. You may be eligible for both.

If a student loan isn’t enough, or you have periods at the end of the term or year where you are rather low on cash, you may need to look at using an overdraft facility, credit card, or loan. Oft these, overdrafts are generally the best option particularly as student bank accounts are often designed with built in overdraft facilities which don’t incur charges. They will also have much lower interest rates than loans or credit cards will.

Discounts
Being a student does come with a few perks. Many stores both online and on the high street offer discounts to students when they show proof of being a student, or an NUS extra card. Your proof of ID doesn’t cost anything, but an NUS extra card does cost a few pounds for the year, but can be worthwhile having so it’s worth looking into and seeing if it would save you money.

It’s also always worth taking advantage of discounts that are open to everyone such as 2 for 1 deals at the supermarket for example. If you don’t have much storage space, you could always try shopping with a friend so you split the savings between you.

Spend Wisely
It’s very tempting when you’re out on your own for the first time to go a bit wild and spend a lot of money, but in the long run, it’s probably not worth doing. If you can spend wisely buying text books second hand, keeping tempting food like pizza from the supermarket in the freezer instead of buying more expensive takeaways etc. it will help you in the long run as you’ll come out of your course with far less debt.