getwokingham - Reading Evening Post

However, the glistening £1,100 of student loan was a welcome bribe to ease me into student life.

Obviously, I was 19 and had a penchant for Snakebite, and the opportunity to spend a grand on pretty much whatever I wanted was an opportunity not to be missed.

Come November and my cupboards were bare, 9p chicken flavour noodles and cherry Lambrini were my staple diet.

So, here are my hard-learned lessons about the best ways to help the heart-attack inducing bank (im)balance…

1.Make soup.
My recipe: Fry garlic and an onion.

Put a stock cube and a pint of water in. Put more things in (chicken, leeks, carrots, tomatoes, beef etc., it’s all pretty good). Simmer for a while. Eat.

You can get lots of cheap fruit and vegetables from greengrocers and stay healthy at the same time.

2.Buy your books second-hand.

At the university if possible, then you don’t have to pay Amazon’s handling costs or postage. Plus, this way quite often the important passages are highlighted so you can skim read the boring bits.

3.Take sandwiches to university.

It sounds dull but you can spend a fiver a day, easily, on lunch. Just pitta and hummus is usually adequate, since you’ll probably spend half an hour in the library and three hours in the union bar.

4.Look at which bank account you open.

Quite a few give away five-year railcards etc, which save you loads. I didn’t get one and really regretted it.

5.Learn to budget (vaguely)
£1000 a term seems like lots, but it’s roughly £100 a week. Buy your books and stationery first, then divide the remainder by however many weeks term is.

It’s easy to say but a lot harder to actually practice, and frankly allocating, say, £40 for a week’s entertainment is hard to stick to, because sometimes you’ll go out lots but sometimes you’ll sit in and watch Thundercats DVDs for nights on end.

Just be aware of how much you’re roughly spending.

6.Get a student bank account.

Interest free overdraft. Enough said.

7.Don’t sweat it too much

There are always smug so-and-sos who have put their expenditure into little envelopes for food, alcohol etc, but it’s a bit unnecessary. As long as you rein in at least some of your spending, there’s no need to cut out 5p off vouchers from magazines.

Good luck!