How to budget as a student

Whether you’re starting or continuing with your undergraduate, postgraduate or foundation degree, or other form of higher education, we can imagine it’s an exciting time for you — but we also know you might be feeling worried about managing your finances.

If you’re a parent, guardian or family member of someone studying, you may be sharing the same concerns.

As the cost of living continues to rise, we know that student accommodation is becoming more expensive. According to figures published by Unipol and the National Union of Students (NUS) in their 2021 Accommodation Costs Survey, the average annual cost for student accommodation in the UK is £7,374, and in London it’s £9,488.

If you’re living away or staying at home, either way, you might be wondering how you can properly budget at uni and make your money go further.

Understanding your student living costs

When you receive your maintenance loan at the start of each term (or each month if you’re from Scotland), it can often feel like you have plenty of money to get by. But when you break down the numbers, you might find it tricky to make it stretch.

If this is the case, it can help to understand your student living costs.

Work out your income

Start by working out your total income over the course of one term.

Your income might include:

• Your maintenance loan
• Earnings from a job you had over the holidays, or part-time work during term time
• Money from a parent or guardian
• Bursaries or scholarships
• Any savings you have.

You can add all of these up to work out your total income.

Work out your essential outgoings

Then, make a list of all of your essential outgoings. Next to each item in the list, make a note of how much each outgoing will cost you over the course of one term — this might be tricky to work out, so don’t worry if it’s not exact.

Here are some examples:

• Accommodation fees
• Groceries
• Bills — for example electricity, gas, water, your mobile phone contract, a TV license, and broadband
• Course materials such as textbooks, and study items like stationery
• Transport costs, such as fuel or insurance if you have a car, or money spent on public transport
• Any other insurances you may have, such as mobile phone insurance, or home contents insurance.

Add all of these up to work out your total essential outgoings.

Calculate your weekly student budget

To calculate your weekly budget:

1. Deduct your essential outgoings from your total income.
2. Then, divide this number by the number of weeks in a term.

This is your weekly budget, or the amount of money you've got left to spend on non-essential things each week. This might include things like hobbies, takeaways, new clothes, nights out, or subscription services.

If you’ve followed the steps above and you’re not left with very much, or are left with no money at all, try not to worry — there are ways to reduce your outgoings, or increase your income.

Student budgeting tips

Here are some of our top tips to achieving and maintaining a healthy budget each month:

Open a student bank account

Opening a student bank account can help you keep on top of your finances. Most banks have handy mobile apps, so you’ll be able track your spending on the go, and do things like setting up Direct Debits to manage your bills.

Many banks also offer interest-free overdrafts to students. An overdraft is a way to borrow money short-term with your account, and can be useful for covering unexpected costs or emergency spending. Please note, overdrafts are not suitable for long-term borrowing, and there may be charges if you go over your interest-free limit.

Make the most of student deals

There are lots of deals available to students year-round, from shopping discounts to restaurant offers.

Some just require you to have a student discount card or account that’s linked with your student email, such as the NUS Totem card, UNiDAYS, or Student Beans.

There are also plenty of transport cards available, such as rail cards and coach cards that offer students and young people discounted rates on travel.

Save money on food

Food is often one of the biggest outgoing for students. Things like frequent takeaways and meals out can make you go over budget — but there are ways to have healthy, tasty meals that don’t break the bank:

• Buy ingredients in bulk and batch cook for the week ahead — after a long day of studying, you’ll be less tempted to order a takeaway if you know there’s a meal waiting for you in the fridge
• Freeze food before it goes out of date if you know you’re not going to use it, as long as it’s suitable for freezing
• Keep an eye out for items in the reduced section at the supermarket, as you never know what you might find!
• If your housemates are up for it, create a rota where each of you has to cook for everyone once a week. You could do themed meals to keep it interesting.

Shop secondhand

You could save yourself a lot of money by shopping secondhand.

Whether it’s course textbooks, furniture, or clothes, there are plenty of bargains to be discovered online and in charity shops. As well as helping to reduce your outgoings, shopping secondhand is good for the environment too.

Need more support?

These are just a few ideas to help you manage your money as a student — the most important thing is finding ways that work for you and your individual circumstances.

If you’re a student and worried about your financial situation, or worried for someone else who’s studying, our partner organisation MoneyHelper has a handy guide on government-based financial support that may be available.