Five ways for students to be more financially stable when studying!
1. Make sure you take advantage of student bank accounts, for free cash joining offers and 0% interest overdrafts, but always remember that an overdraft isn’t free cash, even if it's interest-free, you will need to pay it back at some point, you don't want to still be paying it off when you have left further education! 2. Set a budget and try and keep to it! It’s hard to be sociable and not dent the bank account, and so if going out, only take what you can afford to spend with you, and don't take your credit card! For food budgeting, buy gift cards for your chosen supermarket and use these as your budget, that way you can’t spend more than you have on your gift card balance! 3. Cashback apps can make a difference to your bank account, as per the point above, buy gift cards from cashback apps such as Karma Cashback (Sign up for free here), and use these for budgeting, and at the same time earn cashback on your gift card purchase. Grab 3.5% at Asda and a whopping 7% on a British Pub Card, which can be used to purchase drinks! It's amazing how quickly the cashback will add up! 4. Credit cards are very easy to spend on, but with horrible interest rates & you may find that extra drink in the pub, or that cute outfit you saw in the local boutique, may take you years to pay off, and you might be paying hundreds of unnecessary pounds in interest, which could even affect your credit rating, making future purchases such as mortgages or loans, harder, or more expensive to get. 5. There are loads of student-only deals out there for students to take advantage of, such as the Amazon Prime Student Deal, giving you 6 months free of Amazon Prime and its benefits, and then half price going forwards, or restaurant and store deals giving students discount on their purchases. Make sure you get an NUS card and flash it at the cashier every time you make a purchase, to see if they offer a student discount!