Studying and the college experience as a whole is a real project. It’s a time in your life that will lay the groundwork for the rest of your life, and these are years that you’ll remember fondly long into the future.
For these reasons, it really shouldn’t be a period in your life where you are haunted by financial concerns and struggling to make ends meet while attempting to secure the best grades possible.
Studying can be expensive, not just in terms of the cost of any courses and degrees you are pursuing but also in terms of having to meet your personal needs, which is, of course, for many of us, the first time that we’ve been entirely independent of our families, making the process potentially very daunting indeed, especially if you are studying at a college or university that is far away from your hometown and the associated safety net.
So, with this in mind, here are seven ways we feel that students can look to cope with the financial burdens that come with studying full-time.
Try to Save Before Your Start
If you are living at the family home ahead of your studies, then this is an ideal time to save money for what lies ahead. Cut back as much as possible, and perhaps, if you are doing some part-time work, look to put in a lot more shifts so as to give you a decent sum to play around with once the big day arrives.
Cut Down Unnecessary Costs
f we are being honest about it, a lot of our expenditures can be entirely unnecessary, and when you are studying, you might need to tighten your collective belts. This might mean, for instance, cutting back on that coffee you pick up on the way to class or that extra clothing purchase that will just sit in the closet and never be worn.
The typical way to consider this aspect is to measure need vs. want; once you do that, you’ll find that you can easily save a decent chunk every day, all of which adds up nicely over the period of your studies.
Shop Online Wisely
When it comes to getting good value for money, basically any purchase of goods or services will be less expensive online; therefore, it’s a wise way to shop. However, making the most of doing so depends on your ability to seek out the best providers of any particular service, and to that end, we’d strongly suggest checking out these Top 10 Lists of the Best Products and Services.
However, the one downside to the overuse of online shopping resources is the fact that any purchase can be completed in a matter of seconds, so we suggest following the delayed gratification system.
Here, you visit the online store of your choice, pile up the cart with goods that take your interest, and then rather than going on to buy them, simply log out and leave it for a day or two, then return to the cart, and you’ll find that taking the momentum out of the process will lead to you realizing that a number of your choices are not actually worthy of your attention and money after all.
Budget Your Spending and Don’t Bury Your Head in the Sand
Often students, and indeed non-students, can find their debts increasing without even noticing, chiefly because they’ve deliberately decided to ignore the problem.
Firstly, this is likely to result in larger debts due to interest on delayed payments, and secondly, this approach isn’t one that is conducive to studying, not least because you’ll always have the niggling thought in the back of your mind reminding you of the financial elephant in the room.
If you budget your spending and pay a keen focus to your finances, you’ll not only get ahead of any likely problem on the horizon, but you will also learn to be more careful about each and every cent and dollar you spend.
Try to Find a Job that Doesn’t Unduly Affect Your Studies
A large portion of college students will elect to work during their studies, and clearly, most of these are doing so simply to keep their heads above water. A recent survey found that 43% of full-time undergraduate students worked during their courses, while a massive 81% of part-time students did so.
If you need to work while studying, the bottom line is that you will need to do so in a way that doesn’t unduly impact your studies. This may be easier said than done, but you should try to find shift-related work that you can plan around your studies.
Hopefully, you’ll have an employer who is amenable to your situation, but this may not always be the case.
Try No-Spend Days
If you pay a genuine interest in every purchase you make, you’ll start to learn that these really add up, and sometimes you’ll need to put a full stop to it in order to balance the books. So, with this firmly in mind, why not try to institute no-spend days, a certain amount a month, and consider it something of a challenge?
This requires real willpower and good planning, so for instance, on these days, you’ll make the most of the fact that you did an excellent weekly or monthly food shop, meaning you don’t need to incur an additional cost for your meals that day.
Maybe on that day, you choose to walk or run to class rather than take a bus. There is a real sense of achievement to be garnered from such an approach, but you should also try to be realistic about expectations when doing so.