Talking Money

Hi I'm Sarah. I'm a first year studying maths and economics at the London School of Economics. Wildest experiences? Nothing too wild. Nothing too extreme yet. But I'll let you guys know if something does happen. We had fresher's fortnight so it was two weeks of what was meant to be madness but apart from me and a few other people noone went out and went crazy. In five or ten years I'll be wearing a pencil skirts high heels very classy hopefully. I hope to be successful. Nice house in London, nice car, flashiness. And you just need to work hard and get there I guess.

Investing in your future

Sarah: OK, tell me when to start, directions please. Hi I'm Sarah, I'm studying at the London School of Economics in my first year.

Mike: I should be earning anything between £40,000 and a £120,000 a year.

Ursula: 5 years later if I progress onto a consultant level I'll be earning between £60-100,000 so it should definitely be enough to fund me eating out like I do now.

Vinit: Education, as my dad once said, is one of the best investments you can make. Research your course and talk to as many people as you can because it's one thing you wouldn't want to get wrong.

Mike: Any investment in my future will definitely be worth it.

Claire: Money is always an issue, it does get me down sometimes 'cos I'm thinking what am I going to do if I don't have money, but what am I going to do if I don't have this career, what will I have for myself.

Living in halls

Naz: If you're thinking of going to university and living in halls of residence it's most important that you get to know who your neighbours are - so get into the kitchen, make yourself a cup of tea and get to know who you're going to live with for the rest of the year.

Rosie: Whenever you walk into the building you can hear music coming from behind all the doors, til about 10 o'clock at night people will be practicing scales and things so there's music all around.

Jana: Aaaahh, aaahhh, aaaahah (singing)...we've won lots of awards

Sarah: The thing with my halls is they're really secluded, you do just end up living with the people that you're set with. My flat mate gets particularly annoyed when I have people over so I always have to turn things down.

Naz: All the bills were included in the rent I paid. There was definitely a culture shock moving to university and living in halls of residence, erm I'd have to wake up and make my own breakfast for one.

Naz: Living on campus meant that I saved money on taxis and bus fares.

Raz: If you're living in a halls of residence which is 5 minutes away and your lecture finishes at 5 o'clock, that's a 5 minute walk back to your halls and then you can study and do whatever you like.

Naz: If you have a bad..uhh...if you..uh....if you've had a hard day at university you can come back to your halls of residence, knock on your mates door, chill out, listen to some music and rock out for the evening.

The dos of budgeting

Mike: When I first got to University I found that my finances went in somewhat of a whirlwind. My accommodation had come out and my bank statement was looking rather dire.

Sarah: Obviously, you don't have to sit down and work out I can spend this much on food, this much on out???, this much on clothes, just you can have a rough idea, in my opinion, on how much you're spending.

Mike: For my course, I had to buy a lot of books which cost an absolute fortune; my bookshelf is now worth more than a PS3. I started to budget because I realised if I didn't I was going to end up in serious trouble. Budgeting is really important when you first start University.

Sarah: And, making sure you stick to it, I mean, don't go over it, don't go under it, really train yourself to spend a certain amount every week or month.

Mike: My way of budgeting is by listing everything going into my account, everything going out of my account, and then breaking it down in to week sections.

The don'ts of budgeting

Sarah: 'Top tips to save money'...I think I am the wrong person to ask!

Naz: I made quite a few extravagant purchases. I used to just spend money as I wished. Clothes shopping was a very bad habit of mine.

Alex: There are some people who are going to be at university who are very rich and can do whatever they want so be very careful with say, if you're going into town with them, they'll take you along to the fancy restaurants. Be prepared to say 'no, I'm just wanna go and get a sandwich from a shop'.

Ursula: I have been known to spend like, I don't know, a hundred pounds on my card in a club. So it's not good for my bank balance the next morning.

What's in store for graduates

Ursula: After my second degree, my medical degree, i'll probably have at least £30,000 of debt.. erm.. which is quite depressing but hopefully i'll be able to pay it back!

Rosie: I suppose it's just this anxiety, this feeling of it looming over you and that i've got to pay it back at the end of the 4 years.

Jemma: When I came out of uni with quite a lot of debt it was quite crushing that I didn't realise how much it would be. However I wouldn't have done anything differently I think it was good to have my own money although it was borrowed to have at uni.

Aaron: In terms of repaying your loan, you don't need to start repaying it until you earn a certain amount of money which is around £15,000 a year. However, they say your loan is "this much" but it does have a interest. The amount that you borrowed for your 3 or 4 years isn't what you'll pay back, it does increase.

Sarah: At the moment i'm just hoping i'll get a really good job to pay it off!

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!

Working during holidays

Alex: During the summer I worked at Henley Royal Regatta.

Sarah: Over the summer holidays I worked at Chester Zoo.

Alex: I earnt about £6 an hour, it wasn't a fun job, and I had to put up with a lot of bosses being a bit of a pain.

Sarah: Over the holidays obviously you need to save money for university, so I attempted to save money, might have saved about £500, which i think I spent all over Fresher Week!

Alex: Primarily, that money contributed towards my partying.

Sarah: Your family is always your first priority when you get back because you haven't seen them in so long. I think most of the time I made sure my priority was my family, then my friends, then work way below.

Don't worry, have fun

Aaron: The worst things about university are probably money issues of worrying about whether your going to be able to pay your rent. And so it's finance issues really.

Sarah: I have a vague idea of what a budget it.

Nathan: We'd like to welcome the students in and make it easier to talk about their finances so we can take that away from them, their worries about their finances and they can just enjoy their time at university and their study.

Claire: It is a free part of your life and you are growing up and you're learning things and your learning who your are just enjoy it as much as you can because you probably can't go back on this moment.