My school experiences with money were tough. Most times I hear students talk about huge savings as a student, and I can't help but admire them. During my days in the university, I never had enough for textbooks, other basic things, and feeding, not to talk of savings. Who dash monkey banana, lol.
You know, when you are determined not to defer your admission due to money issues but accept to struggle anyhow, managing the little resources your parents can afford, you already know that you are in for a big thing. Right from my secondary school level, my parents wanted my twin brother and me to be separated, like one person should stay back at home while the other continues with academics, and then in the coming years, the one at home will start school, but funny enough, my twin brother and I didn't understand that kind of language from my parents. We didn't understand the language of "there is no money"; all we wanted was to keep doing things together at our will, lol.
Somehow, one of my uncles came through for us during our secondary days, but when it was time for the tertiary level, no one was there to assist us financially except my struggling mom, as my dad was already late then.
As a student, there were textbooks to buy, handouts to buy , projects to type and print, practical materials to buy, and work to submit every week. All these calls for expenses here and there, yet I had very little cash on me. I doubt I ever spent a dime in our school canteen buying food; nay! I always cook because it is cheaper for me. My twin brother was schooling at a different university but not too far from mine. He doesn't know how to cook, and so he always comes to my school, or I cook and take it to him in his school many times. All these were survival tricks.
Money Manager was my second name back then, hehehe. I didn't have most of the textbooks, but you will see me in the library daily doing the needful, and I never failed my papers. I only buy handouts that are compulsory; those that aren't compulsory, I sacrifice my sleep many nights to copy them manually with a pen and a paper. What a hard life.
I did a little business back then in school just to survive. The money my parents manage to give me in a month only lasts for two weeks. So what I did in order to accommodate my monthly budget was borrow money from my good friend whose parents were well-to-do, then order dental materials and sell them to my classmate each time we were having practicals. I sold a lot and made a cool profit then returned the capital to my friend; she was a lifesaver indeed.
In all of these, I didn't have enough money to save, but at least I lived better and dressed better than before and got the needed materials as the medical student I was, but overall, I was highly content with what I had and never allowed the environment and pressures from school to influence me negatively.
Images were taken from canva