Budget Management - Surviving on a Shoestring
Contents

Part 1

INTRODUCTION
INFORMATION ONLINE
A BOOK TO READ

Part 2

STEPS IN DRAWING UP A BUDGET
EXPENDITURE CATEGORIES
HOW WELL ARE YOU GOING?
WHAT TO DO?

Part 3

CREDIT CARDS
SHOPPING
ACCOMMODATION
TRANSPORT
INFORMATION AND ADVICE

To check whether you're living beyond your means, draw up a detailed budget plan. 

 
STEPS IN DRAWING UP A BUDGET

On one side, set down the details of your income - how much you earn every week/fortnight/month or whatever your usual pay period is. That's generally the easy part. 

 
EXPENDITURE CATEGORIES

On the other side, write down a list of all your outgoings. You should divide these into two categories: "essentials" and "luxuries". Obviously, these will vary from person to person but most people would agree on what goes in the first category: food and accommodation, clothing and transport, Internet access, books, equipment and other study costs.

Where such things as smoking, drinking and entertainment should be placed is debatable but it will probably tell you a lot about your chances of balancing your budget if you put these anywhere else but under the heading of "luxuries". Mobile phone costs are another increasingly common drain on many students' budgets, which may be fine if a phone is an essential tool for your work, but less justifiable if it's purely an accessory to aid your social life.

In drawing up your plan, be honest. There's no point in going through the exercise if you're not serious about it and are going to bend the rules to suit yourself. 

 
HOW WELL ARE YOU GOING?

Once you have completed both sides of the ledger, subtract your expenditure from your income to get a picture of how well or badly you're currently managing your finances. If the results show that you are covering the essentials, you may well be living within your means. Alternatively, you may be covering the essentials OK but find that the luxury items are dragging you down. Or it may be that you're not even covering the essentials and, if that is the case, you're probably heading for trouble.

WHAT TO DO?

If there is an unhealthy mismatch between your income and your expenditure, there are probably two options open to you.

You can increase your income by taking on extra work, but this will have to be balanced against the loss of time available to you for study;

or

you can decrease your costs by reducing the amount you spend on, say, clothes, CDs or alcohol. Ultimately, only you can decide how you want to use your limited resources. You may have to ask yourself some hard questions with some even harder answers that require the ability to say "No" to yourself.

If you find this a little hard going, take consolation from the fact that you're not alone and there are usually easy ways to redeploy and manage your resources in a way that suits your needs better. In the next section, we consider a few areas to think about as you go in search of the balanced budget.

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