This post is giving you the best student money saving tips, every student should be implementing. The great thing about these money saving tips? They are universal and can apply to everyone. Whether you are in the UK, the US, Spain, Canada, Uganda, or anywhere these tips are just for you! PS. if you are not a student, these tips are also for you.
Hello! Money, mulla, Ps, dollar bills, whatever you want to call it we are talking all about money today. Specifically how to save money as a student. These student money saving tips apply to both employed and unemployed students so there are tips in here for everyone.
This post was all about Student Money Saving Tips!
Student Money Saving Tips
Whether you want to save extra pennies or pounds, it does not matter, saving money is saving money. Every single penny adds up so whatever you can save is great.
1. Pay EVERYTHING You Can With Cash
Psychologically, it is much harder to part with physical money than digital money. The thought of spending 50 on your debit card is like so what? However, handing over 50 in cash? No way. This will help you save a lot more money because you think about the purchase a bit more and it also helps with minimalism.
Another benefit of paying with cash is that you can control your spending a bit better. This brings us on to the next tip.
2. Best Student Money Saving Tips: Make a BUDGET
It sounds so gross and so long but trust me, making a budget will save you SO much money. I can personally vouch for this tip as it is saving me 100s a month.
Budgeting is when you simply allocate money to certain categories for a month, so you know exactly how much money you have and where it is allowed to go. Sticking to a budget requires a different level of strength but having an overview of your money is highly important and the first step to understanding your finances and saving some money.
Now to track your budget you can print out these printables we have on the shop, or you ca go super simple and just use some pen and paper, like below.
Be realistic with your budget and try to stick to it. This will help you save so much and stop spending money on things you do not need.
3. Create some Sinking Funds!
A Sinking Fund is a pot of money you use for savings. After you create your budget, and you have some money for savings (or money left over from your budget) you can organise this money into pots. For example, hair, car, holiday, fun money.
You can keep track of this physically with cash or electronically in an app, like Monzo. However it is so much more effective to create sinking funds with cash so you can SEE your money! After all we know its much harder to spend money when it is physical.
With cash, you can have separate envelopes like these that you bring out with you and whatever you buy you take money out from each envelope. For example, if you go to H&M, you pay with the cash in the clothes envelope. Once this money is gone, you cannot spend any more money on clothes.
If you would like to know more about sinking funds, definitely check out my Sinking Funds 101 post.
This is possible to do electronically, too. I used and still use Monzo to help me budget. Within Monzo they have pre-set budgeting categories that you put a value on for every month. You can change these goals for every month and whenever you spend it automatically categorizes it into your budget.
Click here for Monzo UK and get £5 when you sign up! click here for Monzo US (not aff.)
4. Save Your Change
If you pay with cash, put all of your change that you get to the nearest pound/ dollar into savings.
For example, if you buy something that is 5.50 and pay with 10, keep 4 but put 0.5 into savings. This little method works so well.
I am bringing Monzo into it again because Monzo allows you to create pots where you can select an option that whatever money you spend they round it up to the nearest pound, and save the change in this pot. In just a few months i managed to save 50 bucks! 60p here, 60p there doesn’t seem like much per transaction but it really does add up!
Want more student posts?
- Click HERE if you want more ways to ace your A-levels
- Check out everything University and studying HERE
- Here you will find great productivity tips!
- The BEST Stationery list for students is right HERE
5. Go for the Cheaper Alternatives
I cannot stress this enough. As we learnt in this 15 Things You Need to Know Before Starting University post, food can be so expensive. As a student, we do not need Tescos Finest because guess what? Aldi and Lidl taste just as good and most of the time, even better! Save yourself a bunch of money and start looking in cheaper places.
6. Rinse out Deals and Offers – CashBack App
This will save you so much money! I am going to sound like a crazy couponing lady here but if you know you will buy something like washing up powder or coffee more than once, stock up whilst they are on offer.
Online shopping is a big thing and guess what? You can get cashback for all of your spending. Not only can you do this via your bank but if you sign up to an app like TopCashback and QuidCo, you can save money on each of your online spends.
I recommend TopCashback for shopping. Sign up here for a free £10
I recommend QuidCo for insurance (eg. car, phone etc.) Sign up here for a free £15!
7. Only Take Out Money You WANT To Spend
Do not take your card out with you on a night out. Only take the money you want to spend. Save yourself from buying the whole group 2 rounds of jagerbombs and keep your savings SAFE! Bring out a twenty and keep your spending at that.
8. Sell the Things You Do NOT Need
Maybe not a money saving tip, but it is a money gaining tip. As humans, we outgrow things and that is okay. Do you know what is not okay? Hoarding things 😂. I am so guilty of this, especially with clothes and books. I made £80 recently selling a bunch of books on Facebook Marketplace. This is great because no fees are required so you keep all of your money. Every penny that you earn from this should stay in an account you do not touch.
9. Have Saving Goals!
This is so important because it really motivates you to save money.
Start off small and dont overwhelm yourself. Let’s say you have never saved before and don’t have a huge budget, start off with a goal of £200 for the year, see how you do month by month as you work to understand your finances and spending habits and go from there.
There we have it! 9 Vital Student Money Saving Tips you need to implement that will save you big bucks!
Want more student posts?
- Click HERE if you want more ways to ace your A-levels
- Check out everything University and studying HERE
- Here you will find great productivity tips!
- The BEST Stationery list for students is right HERE
This post was all about 9 student money saving tips!
