It’s nearly a month to go before I ship off to new heights in a strange city to go to university. I’m still struggling between being excited and extremely anxious and neither of those emotions are lessening the closer I get.
Today I decided to do a mock budget for my first year at uni.
I used the highest possible rent I could be charged (I find out where I’ll be living on the 22nd of August) so as not to set myself up for failure and dear lord was I brought down to Earth.
This is how I'm feeling atm (Source: New Girl)
Of course I know that as a student I’ll be living on pasta and trying to save every penny I can for fun activities (finally being in a city means I can WALK everywhere which is exciting), but I didn’t realise quite how little I’d have!
My friends are already at university and all go to different places with different levels of luxury (ha) for their accommodation.
Some are living in their overdraft due to poorly budgeting throughout the year, some are living with 2k left to do with what they will, and I’ve heard of someone a friend knows that has their parents pay their rent!?
It’s so crazy to be given such a large amount of money (in a loan unfortunately) and just suddenly seeing it vanish on things you need to live on!
With this budget I’ll be living on £50 ($63.98 according to Google) a week including food, which is completely doable and people live on a lot less.
As I mentioned, I’ll be living in a city for the first time so I’ll finally have access to things I’d like to do and can walk there immediately! So this is going to be a battle of self restraint and fighting that ever present fear of missing out :(
My plan is to get a job in a cinema nearby, as that way I can hopefully watch the films they show for free/at a discount and also have an income which would be the best outcome.
That, and my dad has been telling me I should be posting more on Steemit to earn a little something here and there so hopefully I’ll do that too!
Do you guys have any tips for university? Thanks for reading!