Talking Money

Claire: It is a selfish part of your life, you are looking after yourself, you've moved away from home, you've just got your friends, I mean you don't have to live up to them all the time, if they've got more money than you. Or you don't have to go out and be the party face.

Aaron: It's tempting to go wild with money at the start.

Sarah: And restaurants as well, you spend like £10, £15 every time you go, and cause you're just lazy cause you can't be bothered to cooking food. So I guess most of your money goes on nights out and eating out.

Ursula: I am actually genuinely sorry mum and dad, because they do supply me with my allowance and it does go out and I have to ask for more money by the end of the month, middle of the month sometimes.

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.

Eating on a budget

Rosie: In my cupboard I've got lots of pasta and tins of tomatoes. I've also got lots of things in the freezer because it's quite useful to buy things in bulk and then freeze half of it for later.

Vinit: Having a balanced diet is really essential. Balancing work and stress and a healthy lifestyle is very important.

Claire: I'm a bit of a let down when it comes to being a student, because I love fruit. Being New Year I'm trying to eat healthy and things. So I think I've got one banana left, half a punet of strawberries, some blueberries, some raspberries some salmon, some salad and soya milk, because I'm trying to refrain from dairy. Apart from that, most of my friends live on a stable diet of pizza and pasta and sausages and things like that I guess.

Ursula: Even the Ritz has offers. You can eat pretty much anywhere. So I don't know if you've heard of Gilgamesh in Camden, it's quite a nice restaurant. I can eat there for free now because I've got so many points.

Rosie: It's really useful to learn to cook before you go away because then you don't spend so much on take-aways and things.

Claire: People fresh from home can be frustrating. Teaching them to cook spaghetti Bolognese i left the room for a moment and he put a whole packet of spaghetti for his tea into the pan and it's like, 'What are you doing?!'.

Blowing it all on going out

Vinit: A day in the life of my first year would probably be something along the lines of getting up around about twelve o'clock, missing some very important lectures, finding the time to get a bit of breakfast at around about three o'clock in the afternoon, thinking of doing some work and then going out at night. And, I did that quite a lot in my first term and very soon after I begun to regret it.

Ursula: Charlotte Street, I've pretty much been to every restaurant there and I've spent like forty-five pounds without knowing it sometimes, on one meal.

Vinit: I wasn't expecting to have to do so much work. I had a tendency to go out too much, not take my work seriously and that meant i was getting poor grades in my first year.

Ursula: And in terms of alcohol as well, I have been known to spend about a hundred pounds on my card if I buy cocktails, mojitos, whatever.

Vinit: I managed to scrape through in my first year and I've learnt from that by becoming more serious about my work.

Getting the bare necessities

Aaron: When you first get to University you have access to all this money and offers and things and you might be tempted to go off and spend money on things you don't really need. You just end up spending a load of money on things you don't really need and sits in your room and gathers dust. Going out and buying entire collections, maybe of books, equipment that you're never gonna use, like cameras. You don't need to go out and buy the most expensive laptop if you're just going to use it for writing essays on. Bare that in mind that an overdraft is there to help you, but is not gonna solve all your problems, just buy what you need.

Get yourself insured, part 1

Umut: First night I moved into the house in Leamington, unfortunately there was a group of students that thought it would be a good idea to kung-fu kick all the wing mirrors of all the cars along the road and mine was one of the victims unfortunately.

Jemma: Another really good thing to buy is insurance. The cost of replacing your laptop, your mp3 player, all your CDs and clothes if you get burgled is massive.

Nathan: We know that accidents can happen when you're a student and some students get targeted. If your parents have home insurance with HSBC you'll be insured for free.

Alternatively, student home insurance comes to you for as little £25 per.. sounds like I'm a salesman! (laughter) - bloody oath Sheila!

Get yourself insured, part 2

Claire: As far as keeping your things safe, things like having a laptop, I try not to carry a big laptop bag - i'll either go for a rucksack or a large handbag because then it isn't as obvious. Just general streetwise - you're not going to go down a derelict back lane and walk down there in London and things because you're just inviting people.. so things like that, just streetwise I guess.

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!

Best ways to budget

Jemma: The best way to budget, I think, is to always know what's in your bank account - online banking is really useful or make sure that you check your statement at the ATM, or when they come through the door make sure you open the envelope.

Also try and work out what things are going out and when, some things like accommodation go out once a term or once a year, whereas other things are weekly expenditure so try and work out when you'll be paying for stuff.

UNIAID budgeting top tips

Jemma: These are my top tips for budgeting. Firstly, get to like jacket potatoes. They're cheap, they're healthy and you can have lots of different toppings on them. If it's cold in your flat, put a jumper on. Don't put the heating on so it's like a sauna - you'll save loads of money that way.

Make sure you've eaten before you go to the supermarket, going around the supermarket hungry is the worst thing and you'll end up buying loads of stuff that you probably don't even want. Also try and go in the evening when they've put the reduced to clear stickers on.

If you're going to get a part-time job try and get one where you can eat, or at least get free food.

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.