Being a college student isn’t easy. We get independent (and that is great!) but we have to make our own decisions. These decisions also include spending the right amount of money on useful and necessary things and avoid wasting it. Here are some money tips for college students:
Create a budget
Make a rough budget for a week or a month including all kinds of expenditures like food, travel, books, stationery, daily products, etc plus 15% of the total estimated amount. This way, you will get an idea that how much you should expect your money to be spent at a particular time. Try not to exceed if you are not able to save from it.
Don’t do unnecessary expenditure
Stick to the budget and avoid unnecessary expenses. Don’t go for partying whenever you feel like or whenever your friends tell you to. While hangouts, we usually eat junk food which is neither good for health nor money. So, avoid reckless spending and start saving.
Shop smart for textbooks
Someone referred to a good textbook and you are thinking to buy it? Don’t go buying the books just because your friends or seniors asked you to. Ask your teachers first or issue the book from the library or download the softcopy of the book first and then, if you find that entire book helpful, you get a green signal to buy it. If only a chapter or a few topics or only some points from different topics/ chapters are important, note those points down or get only that portion photocopied and not the entire book. This will not only help you to save money but also save the paper.
Set financial goal
Setting a financial goal helps you to save money and have a healthy budget. Set a spending limit. You can do that in two ways:
- Setting expenses based on a time limit (for a day or a week or a month)
- Setting the limit based on different kind of expenses (like – 100rs for snacks/week, 100 for accessories/month, etc)
This will also help you to create a rough budget and then you can easily try to cut some of the expenses and start saving.
Keep a track on your expenditure
Besides a rough budget and setting-up a financial goal, keeping a track on your daily expenditure is the best way to know when you are overspending and ultimately helps you to start thinking of saving some money. Now, with the advancement in technology, you can easily track your expenses with the help of certain apps on your mobile phones. The one that I find the best is MONITO app.
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