Talking Money

Hi. My name is Lucy and I studied sociology at Leeds University. I've worked for HSBC for about six years and joined on their graduate scheme. I currently head up the student development team and absolutely love what I'm doing. I work really closely with students and really try to help them and understand their needs and wants. I absolutely loved going to university. I made friends for life there. Absolutely brilliant. Went out a lot, studied a lot, learned so much and met people I would have never met under other circumstances. It was brilliant.

HSBC on saving money

Lucy: My money saving tip would be that if you've got a part time job and you've got a salary coming in, just pop it into a savings account and it will grow interest in there and you just pop in ... eh ... and you can just draw money in an out but it can make some interest for you and make you more money.

HSBC on budgeting

Sarah: I have a vague idea what a budget is.

Nathan: One of the major problems students have is budgeting, i've been through that myself. Pop in to speak to one of our advisors to see what costs you're going to have from living costs, travel costs, day outs, food - anything you need to budget for we can help you with it.

Lucy: We're in touch with students daily, we've got student ambassadors from around the country. We also found that they had a bit of trouble budgeting and they wanted some online tools rather than having to come to the branch a lot. We've then worked with UNIAID to develop our student calculator which has been a great success and students find it really simple to use and really helpful.

Go on the internet, have a look at your accounts and manage your money that way. It means that you can look at it any time of the night and you always know how much you've spent the night before even if you can't remember!

Budgeting top tips

Mike: Budgeting is a really important part of managing your money.

Ursula: Use student deals for restaurants and living and eating out.

Mike: List all your income and all your expenditure.

Aaron: Don't buy what you don't need.

Lucy: Err.. I can't remember what number 3 was! Err. There's that one where if you go to the supermarket late in the afternoon they have all the marked-down food.

Jemma: Get to like jacket potatoes. They're really cheap, they're healthy and you can have lots of different toppings on them.

Jana: There are loads of things that you can do for free - walking, hiking, borrow books or films, if you want to watch DVDs you can borrow them from the library. Take advantage of the many discounts that are offered to students.

Jemma: Jacket potato fillings - butter, tuna, mayonnaise, egg?!

Lucy: No!

Jemma: Prawn

Lucy: Yeah!

Jemma: Chicken..

Lucy: No

Jemma: Chili!

Lucy: No

Jemma: Salad..?

Lucy: Yeah

Jemma: Fish! ... that's it.

HSBC on funding

Lucy:It is hard at university now. There are a lot of expenditures that I didn't have when I was at university. What we try and do is we try and give support as much as we can. We try and help in-terms of the over draft limits, we try and help in-terms of budgeting as well, because it is really tough when you move away from home for the first time.

Holly: There is a lot of government funding out there and a lot of money to help students, but often it's hidden and not very easily found. You need to do research, speak to your uni advisors to find that money.

Lucy: UNIAID is a great charity, we've helped them for 5 years and they've helped millions of students in-terms of finance, understanding budgeting and making the most of student life.

Nathan: We're very friendly and approachable so if any students do have any financial concern, they can always just come in and see us.