Boozing, partying and nursing hangovers with a group of people that you’ve just met.
When it comes to student life, there really is nothing quite like being a fresher.
It’s a time that represents most youngsters’ first experience of complete independence from their families, as they are thrust into a world full of new opportunities and left in a house surrounded by strangers, all left in the same position as them.
One thing that is overlooked during the first year however is money.
Budgeting goes out of the window as bank balances are put to the back of student’s minds, with any financial consequences being suppressed and bottled up for a later date with people approaching cash machines and withdrawing cash without a care in the world.
Your first year provides a one off experience and students should therefore enjoy it but it is important that they watch their funds so they can enjoy the multitude of other experiences involved throughout their course.
In order to do this however, there are a few things that students can do to keep their bank balance in check.
Quite simply, a student shouldn’t be afraid to check their bank balance when using an ATM, eventhough the prospect of being told that you don’t have enough money to go clubbing may be daunting and downright disastrous during ‘Freshers.’
It is important that the student loan is remembered though as although the cash machine may say that you have suddenly become rich overnight, this money is paying for your course and shouldn’t be touched, or else a student could be using their overdraft much sooner than they think.
Failure to keep this in mind can result in people quite easily going into the red and adding to the £6000 plus a year of debt that the course will already provide.
And nobody wants that lingering over them.
A good way to prevent yourself from spending more money than was planned at the start of a night-out is leaving your debit card at your accommodation and only taking out a predetermined amount of cash.
By doing this you can remove the niggling temptation to impress all your new friends and blow all of your money on the first night by getting in the rounds of Jagerbombs and Vodka Redbull.
Just remember, a week is not one night out and so you should pace yourself and budget your money to last you the whole week so as to have a better time and meet more people.
Of course, students have just as long to waste their money during the day as they do at night and should therefore prioritise certain things so as to stay healthy and enjoy the experience of Freshers’ week.
Such priorities would involve food aswell as drink and although a student might joke that all you need in your fridge is booze, you surprisingly do have to eat to stay alive.
They don’t however include things such as new clothes, due to the fact that students spend their first day in a new area wheeling around a suitcase full of outfits. Extra additions are therefore not needed.
What students should be shopping for though is food and this is an area that money can be saved on throughout the year. Any advice on this topic however, would just be echoing the words of numerous people’s parents, by highlighting the importance of buying only essential and cheap branded food, aswell as grabbing anything on sale.
The student union and the canteen provide great places to do both of these things but students should avoid eating every meal there is as this will cost a fortune and, more importantly, eat into their drinking budget.
Ideally, every student at university would have a part time job but obviously this cannot be the case due to the amount of people that are job hunting, so you have to be careful with the money that you have.
Worst comes to the worst, you could always ring your parents and tell them that your drinking fund is low but this is a risky tactic and could backfire on you massively to the extent that your dad will never let you hear the end of it.
At the end of the day, your first year is a fantastic experience and students should embrace it with open arms.
If you can be sensible with your money at the same time then it will be one of the best years of a student’s life. If not however, then you could be on the wrong end of an ear bashing from both your parents and the bank.
By Christian Wilson
