It is quite normal that when we are at university we worry about subjects, jobs, parties, friends, holiday activities and much more. These types of responsibilities are usually the most common for students who have full financial support from their parents or other family members. But haven’t you considered creating a personal finances plan to see how best to spend your money?
However, in all universities, not all students are financed by their parents. But there is also a large group of students who must work at least part-time in order to pay for their education and cover certain personal expenses. So they are looking for ways to stretch their income as far as possible.
But have you thought about creating a personal finances plan for students? If not, let me tell you that college is the best time to learn how to make decisions about specific needs and how we should categorise our expenses.
Define your average monthly income and expenses
Start by planning your financial strategy for the month in your personal finances plan. In fact, defining your average monthly income and expenses is something you should do before you start university.
On a sheet of paper write down all the big expenses you might have, such as tuition, books, food, rent, transportation, etc….
If your salary is not enough and you have to take out a loan, you should add it to your monthly planning. By doing this you will be able to save money to cover expenses that were not planned.
Keep in mind that by defining your monthly average, you will be able to know how much you have left to participate in recreational activities. Such as going to events, parties, or simply going out with your friends.
Parents can often become our best financial tutors, teaching us all about the basics of financial management. One tip that can help you is to talk to cousins or friends who are already in college, who can tell you the approximate amount of expenses they have each month.
Make yourself a template
The best way to create a personal finance template is to use an Excel spreadsheet, where the calculations are done automatically and the expense tracking will be much more accurate.
If you don’t know how to make a template, you can choose to search the internet and download one for free. So you won’t have to learn how to use certain Excel formulas or functions, which for most people can be very tedious.
In the template you get you must enter income and expenditure data (including date, concept, price and quantity purchased); in addition to this, as you go breaking down all the data will be updated automatically, so do not worry about the changes you should do.
Set your financial goals
Financial objectives are not only in professional or financial areas, but can also be personal. So by establishing what we want and how we are going to distribute our expenses, we will be able to achieve:
Financial freedom.
To be able to have fun and release student stress.
Cover more expenses without so much effort.
It is important to be clear that so far we can differentiate between the general objectives and those that we have specifically. In both cases we must establish them separately (according to your needs).
Keep a weekly follow-up
By keeping a weekly control, you will be able to define in the medium term which are the expenses you had in the month, and if there is a second way to save.
Weekly expenses will also help you to know what budget you have left for the rest of the month and how you should distribute it.
Create your savings account
When we have all our money in cash, we may be more tempted to spend all the capital we had available for a certain period of time. So by saving a little in a savings account, we can become more financially secure, avoiding getting into social pressure and spending more money than we should.
This good habit can help us to save and avoid wasting money on things that are not necessary, consider keeping the money in your savings account before allocating it to other non-priority things.
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