Would£ 200 a month be enough to live on at university

hi
ive worked it all out and if i stayed in university accomidation i would be left with roughly £200 a month , can i survive on this :smile:

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Reply 1

Rascacielos

Survive? Of course you can.

I live on less than £100 per month and manage just fine.

Reply 2

kellyyy

Original post by SubAtomic

approx. £50 a week. Yes. Look at people who have to survive on benefits.

/thread

Thats true it just doesnt sound a lot ahah :tongue:

Reply 3

Tiger Rag

have you budgeted for books, travel, etc?

Reply 4

psychocustard

Original post by OU Student

have you budgeted for books, travel, etc?

Depending on what course they're on, books shouldn't be that much of an issue.

I've bought one book throughout my whole course, and I could have coped without that quite easily. Always check the library before you buy!

Reply 5

kellyyy

Original post by OU Student

have you budgeted for books, travel, etc?

thats all coming out of that £200

Reply 6

TheSmithsIndeed

Yes

My budget for university was £50 per week as well and it was more than enough (which is good baring in mind I study in a capital city). It was paying for all of the course books at the beginning that cost me a fortune :frown:

Reply 7

Deema

With ease! Just manage your money from the start, bring food to start you off so you can spend more at freshers, and generally just lower your standards i.e. tescos own brand is your friend, and just because you have a visa debit, does not mean you can go on shopping sprees :wink:

i made this mistake early on and am now paying back a really bad overdraft!

Reply 8

Dan1909

£200 a month will be a relative life of luxury compared to what some people live off of. You'll be fine :smile:

Reply 9

Megaross

£200? I'd love to have that a month off my loan, that's loads.

Before I got my job I was living on £5-20 a week!

Hell, the first job I ever got, I was earning less than £200 a month.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 10

jelly1000

Easily, food should be £15-20 max, make sure you pre drink when going out and then you have loads to spend.

Reply 11

Origami Bullets

Yeah, it's perfectly doable, although you're probably not going to be living the life of riley.

The one area where you may run into problem is all those start of term expenses that you hadn't quite thought about - bus pass, society membership, sports kit, that sort of thing. Make sure you get your parents to take you on a funded trip around Ikea to buy all your kitchen equipment / bedding, and then a funded trip around Sainsburys to buy things like herbs, spices (i.e. those things that you don't use much of, keep for ages, and it's really annoying to have to do without!) and some basic foodstuffs to keep you going for a week or two.

Reply 12

Maria_love!!

I think you should look for several part-time job,perhaps its raise your budget. :smile:

Reply 13

M1011

£200? A month? Are you royalty?

Easily done :tongue:

Reply 14

Lintu93

As someone else said, be very wary of all the expenses you haven't budgeted for. Stuff like new clothes/shoes if yours wear out, gym memberships, a new passport, new glasses, repairs for your laptop, etc. Been caught out by all of them - it's never a good feeling when you check your bank balance and realise that you've only got £10 to last you for most of the month...

Reply 15

Elissabeth

Original post by Lintu93

Agree- think about clothes etc, you will probably need a winter coat.

And think about insurance for your stuff.

And transport in order to go home etc.

Buy a railcard straight off if you haven't already.

Whereabouts in the country? London varies hugely from other places.

Reply 16

Megaross

Ha, clothes. I have bought probably 2 new shirts since I've been at uni (2 years), one was for a job interview, one was for fancy dress.
The joys of being a bloke, you just wait for birthdays and christmas and go "**** it that'll do".

Reply 17

Electronica

Original post by Megaross

Haha I know this all too well. Now that I've stopped growing out of any of my clothes and they theoretically will last forever, I often wonder when the right time to buy new clothes actually is. :tongue:

£200 for university is easily done. Don't pamper yourself. :smile:

Reply 18

cantevendeal

It can definitely be done.

If you want to be super strict I have heard of a great tip that keeps your spending down throughout the week.

All you do is simply take out £50 at the start of the week and then freeze your bank card. Try as hard as you can to live off the £50 for that week and then unfreeze your card on the Sunday and then repeat again.

It seems like effort but it can really make you cut costs. When you see how much you have left in your wallet you can easily turn down things that might be tempting you...what's more, you can't just get out your card because you have frozen it in water!!

Hope that helps.

Reply 19

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