Young Adults MoneySaving Tips

Ronda

Carry a small note pad around with you and write down anything and everything you spend. This helps you to see at the end of the month what you spend and on what which helps to analyse any unnecessary costs for further months. It might be a pain for a few weeks but its worth it when you realise how much u spend on snacks/nights out haha! Also wrote down which shifts you have done that month so that u can check them against your payslip to check u have been paid correctly.

namarub

Subscribe to offers emails and pages on facebook like MoneySavingExpert and StudentMoneySaver - they provide a great distraction to work and if discounts are mixed in with other things it doesn't seem as if you're searching for them. Plus the student orientated ones are often age appropriate so there are more deals that you might be interested in and you don't even have to find them yourself.

Reckless_Curiosity

A few tips from a student going into his 2nd year, tips I've learnt the hard way but nonetheless have helped me immensely in the meantime!

1. ALWAYS do the legwork yourself, never take someone's word for anything - be it looking for houses or cheap veg, don't just listen to your friends on what they swear is the cheapest! Looking for student houses in Leeds I nearly had us lock in to a 12 month contract at £75 per person per week, when my potential housemate spotted exactly the same kind of house 2 roads down for £60, massive savings and little discernable difference in decor or tenancy arrangements.

2. Cook fresh! Asian markets and local grocers often pop up where there are high volumes of student houses, making it easy to buy a week's worth of quality vegetables for under a fiver. These markets often sell exotic veg, spices, and all sorts of weird and wonderful ingredients - a simple google search for 3 or 4 recipes you might like before food shopping can save you a shedload, and save your tastebuds from rotten corner-shop ready meals.

3. Come Dine With Me! Share meals with housemates and neighbours, by having one person a night cook for the whole group; not only will you only have to cook once or twice a week (saving you time, effort and money), you get amazing food cooked for you and you improve on your cooking skills - something that will no doubt come in handy if you ever have that special someone over... I estimate spending £8 on food in one week of sharing out cooking between 4 people, and £3 went on super noodles and madeira cake in a moment of weakness. So, £5 on fresh veg and the odd spice for a whole week's worth of great, healthy food! (Handy note - if you can't be arsed cooking or friends are away, some local/asian supermarkets flog ramen and super noodles at 3 for £1. madeira cake is filling and tasty great for breakfast and snacks and often cheap/voluminous)

4. Spreadsheets! Though i can't say I stuck to mine with any degree of seriousness, a simple week-by-week account of what money you currently have and what you spent it on works wonders. It allows for safe budgeting, narrows the risk of nasty overdraft surprises at the end of a no-doubt expensive year, and lets you re-budget in accordance to how well or poorly you are doing. Targets like saving £5 more a week than usual are great too, especially when meeting them guarantees enough money for a decent night out with friends at the end.

Hope these help!

:beer:

DAN1111111111

I Think we should be encouraged to have a current account for day to day money and a savings account for deeper savings.. but more importantly....
set up a standing order for just £10 per week to go from the current into the savings account and in just one year that would save over £500! without feeling the pinch.

Saralouise1

I find the best thing to do is as soon as you get paid pay all your bills and anything else needed to pay out then split what you have left over into 4 or 5 if it's a 5 week month. For example if you get paid £900 a month and your bills = £400 you have £500 to split between 5 weeks so that's £100 a week to use for socialising etc then at least you know your bills are paid and you have got money left for each week until your next pay day! This has helped me so much to stay on top of bills and still have enough to treat myself every week! :money:

the_real_Phil_Brown

Download the weQ4u app to your smartphone, it does exactly what it says on the tin! When ringing all those pesky bills companies to sort out your student accommodation, don't pay or use up your minutes to be put on hold.

Not only does this app redirect 0800/0845 numbers (and a lot more) so they come from your inclusive minutes on your mobile (similar to saynoto0870 or 0800buster), but if you're held in a queue, you simply press 9+ on the keypad and they'll queue for you, reconnecting you when the call gets put through.

When council tax, BT, broadband, gas, electric, water, mobile, insurance and any other companies you ring keep you waiting - don't pay through the nose for it!

the_real_Phil_Brown

Update: "We treat everyone on O2 to thousands of wifi hotspots, on us." As far as I can tell, that means if you're already on O2 or you get a Pay & Go Sim, you can get free Wifi from their hotspots. Check Wifi locations using their website (google "o2 coverage checker")


Original post below:
You can get free broadband if you live near a BT Openzone hotspot. Buy an O2 pay and go mobile broadband dongle, DON'T use the data on it, but instead connect to the hotspot as part of the O2 deal. I used to do this and use a program called Virtual Router to reroute the Wifi to my lucky housemates - whether this still works or not I don't know, but definitely worth looking into.

Another option is to connect to BT Wifi/FON hotspots if a family member is on BT Wifi and is willing for you to use their login. As far as I could tell on the BT faq site, there's no policy to stop your parents giving you their username and password for this - however since it also gives you control of the account, you might want to be up-front about this from the start and promise not to be naughty!

The way I use the above is when we visit my parents, I log on to their Wifi using their BT Wifi/FON password rather than straight to the router. That way all the videos I stream don't eat up their limited monthly allowance!

fergalicious

On the EE network (and maybe others), if you are on pay-as-you-go and top up £10/month they give you unlimited texts starting on the 1st of the next month. If you don't use a lot of credit, you can swing this to only top up £10 every 3 months.

In the 1st month, top up £5 at the beginning of the month and use it as you would over the month. On one of the last days of the month, top up another £5. Because you've technically topped up £10 in that month, you will then get unlimited texts starting on the 1st of the 2nd month. So, if you mostly text, you won't really go into the second lot of £5 in the 2nd month and will still have it to use in the 3rd month. This works out as £3.33 a month or £40 a year!

the_real_Phil_Brown

P.S. Sometimes you can get a free pay and go dongle from O2 if you have their broadband (I guess Sky now) and move house or have an outage... We did, so have a spare dongle in the house - check your cupboards in case you already have one!

Krishn

Earn and learn - this may not be for every student - however consider joining the Territorial Army or University OTC. Not only do you get paid for attending drill nights (usually 2 hours); weekends and an annual camp (2 weeks - can be abroad depending on your unit), but you'll make some great friends; you'll be getting fit; learning a trade/skill and strengthening your CV for the world of work.

Do remember it is voluntary and you get out what you put in.

Check out pay rates on Army website.