College life can be a draining experience, not only emotionally but also for your wallet. Since college students usually don’t have much income (or it’s strictly limited), you must learn to save money make do with what you have.
Learning to budget is an essential part of becoming an adult. But that knowledge comes with lots of trial and error. Almost everyone goes through it, but unfortunately, it’s rarely taught in schools or even at home. This is exactly why articles like this one exist. Today, we will give you some useful tips on budgeting, saving money and financial literacy lessons.
Learn to prioritize
This might seem like the most obvious tip, but learning to set your priorities straight is the most important part of correct budgeting. You must assess your income and spending habits to coin an appropriate budget for yourself.
Write down your sources of income and the approximate sum they amount to. Then, write down what you spend your money on. Be realistic and honest. If you spend more money on takeout than you would like, write it down as it is and then try to correct the sum. Otherwise, you risk running into debt or living beyond your means.
Spendings usually fall into the following categories:
- Housing (rent, taxes, amenities)
- Transportation (gas, car repairs, or public transport fees)
- Food (groceries, takeout)
- Healthcare (insurance, medical bills)
- Education (college bills, textbooks)
- Personal (grooming, sports)
- Education
When it comes to housing, education, services like Paperwriter or medical bills, there’s no cutting corners. However, in terms of other expenses, you can assess how much you spend on each category and make adjustments.
Cook at home
If you tend to order delivery a lot, consider following cooking blogs on YouTube to learn more about fast, student-friendly recipes. You can learn a lot from professional chefs, and there’s an abundance of detailed, beginner-friendly recipes on YouTube and TikTok.
Many students don’t have enough time to cook, and that’s natural. School is extremely demanding and takes a lot of time. But adulting is also about learning essential survival skills. Consider cooking as one of those skills. The faster you learn, the better.
Start with exploring simple recipes that come together in one pot or bowl. Salads can be very nutritious if you add enough ingredients from each category:
- Protein (chicken, eggs, fish, meat, tofu, beans)
- Carbs (vegetables, greens, bread)
- Fats (cheese, avocado, oils, seeds)
Pasta is the most beginner-friendly dish one can imagine. It cooks quickly and can be made with few ingredients. For example, carbonara pasta only requires pancetta, egg yolks and pecorino romano cheese. You can substitute pancetta for bacon; just don’t tell Italians you did that.
There are hundreds of ways you can make pasta in one pot, just using ingredients you already have at home. Explore those recipes and have fun with the ingredients.
Limit going out
Going out can really drain your budget, especially if you live in a big city. Sure, bar hopping is fun, and it would be unreasonable to expect a student to spend their evenings at home. But just one night out drinking or clubbing can come up to a lump sum.
Try talking to your friends and suggesting you spend more time doing free or less expensive activities. Unfortunately, budgeting sometimes means saying no to fun things. But if you put two and two together, you can see that saving money is more important than going out one night.
If your friends support your efforts to spend money, suggest that you host the next party at your house. Skip the cinema and throw a movie night at home. Instead of bar hopping, choose a theme and make cocktails yourself.
Spending time at home might not seem that exciting at first glance, but the safety of a familiar atmosphere can make the party even better.
Subscriptions
Netflix, HBO Max, paid apps, and other subscriptions can put a dent in your pocket. You may not mind paying $5 a month to have access to great movies, but those subscriptions add up, and you may not even notice how you spend hundreds of dollars every month on things you may not even be using.
Take a close look at the services you pay for and see if you use them often enough. It’s not the end of the world if you only have one streaming service instead of three. And maybe seeing ads in apps is not that bad if, in the end, you have the money to pay for the best essay writing service out there. Think about what you really need and channel your money there instead of letting it go to waste on services you’ve not using.
Wrapping up
Budgeting may feel restricting at first, but once you get used to it, you may notice how freeing it actually is. You won’t worry about being able to afford another drink if you don’t go to a bar at all. Categorize your spending, learn to have fun at home, explore fast and easy recipes and assess your subscriptions. Then, you’ll see how easy it is to live within your budget.