A Few Tips for Saving Money as a Student

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Try and batch cook if you can. Cooking and buying food for one person can be really tricky and you often end up with leftover food which sometimes goes to waste. If you can, try and batch cook things like spaghetti bolognaise, chilli etc and then freeze the rest. Buying meat in bulk often works out cheaper too and then you have some meals in for when you can't be bothered to cook!

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Bring your own lunch to uni/work wherever you are going. It will work out so much cheaper than buying a meal deal everyday even though I know this is tempting!

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Make the most of all of the facilities at uni and the books you can get out - you won't need to buy all of the textbooks for your course as you can often borrow them from uni and make the most of this!

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Try and walk as much as you can. If you can, walk to uni or walk to town, or get the bus rather than getting Ubers. This will save you a lot of money.

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I agree with what has been said about student discounts - make sure you take advantage of these as they are great and you will have lots of choice on there to save you some money! It's always worth checking just to see if there are any discounts there.

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Make a budget and try your best to stick to it. Try and make this before you start uni so you aren't tempted to go over too much in the first week.

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If you go to the gym, see if your uni has a gym that you can go to as they are often quite a lot cheaper and you still get lots of facilities included!

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Consider getting a railcard as these give you great discounts on trains and if you get the train a lot it will be worth it as you will save lots of money.

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See if there are any bursaries that you are eligible for at uni. Lots of people don't know about these but there are often some that you can apply for!

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Cook for yourself in batches using budget-friendly ingredients. Brown pasta/rise, chickpeas, tinned tomatoes, carrots, supermarket own brand pesto and olives can make a multitude of nice cheap meals!

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Walk to town rather than get the bus - if your town is close enough and the weather's nice, it is also a great way to maintain your wellbeing and get some good exercise.

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Share supermarket deliveries to your flat. My flat used to do a joint delivery every fortnight with all the food we needed for the next two weeks and then just pay what we owe. It only costs about four or five quid for delivery and split between say 10 people its only 40-50p each. It saves a lot of money on buses as well as saving duplicating items and food waste.

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First Bus often do uni term tickets which are tied directly to your uni's term dates - make sure to check them out as they're often quite a bit cheaper than yearly tickets, especially when you will likely be home for part of the year.

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Bring a pack up - making your own food is a good way to keep practicing your cooking and could save money on buying food on campus (although by all means buy food at uni occasionally! 🙂 )

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Shop at home rather than on campus - shops on campuses are usually limited and more expensive than large supermarkets - and make sure to make use of yellow stickers for reduced price items!