Over the past two years university student Erin has been giving Martin Lewis a run for his money when it comes to hunting down the best hacks, tips and tricks to save cash and earn money. The 21-year-old has seen Oasis for free; earned tickets to race days; made money from selling secondhand clothes (£200 in one weekend alone); and enjoyed cut-price treats with friends. On Thursday, tens of thousands of young people found out if they had achieved the grades for the course of their choice.
Now, as they celebrate, or hurriedly activate, their plan B, the day-to-day costs of student life probably aren’t uppermost in their mind. But perhaps they should be: research from Nationwide Building Society reveals that money mistakes dominate students’ list of regrets. From failing to budget and track spending properly, overspending on nights out and relying too heavily on their overdraft, to blowing their entire student loan payment in the first few weeks, six of the top seven mistakes students have made are related to money.
Erin, who is about to start the third year of a psychology and cognitive neuroscience degree at the University of Nottingham, says going to university has “taught me loads” about managing money. Erin sets herself a budget and has a rule that if she needs to go over it, she has to dip into the savings earned from her job, which, she says, focuses the mind on whether she needs to spend that money. Her view is that wherever possible, the money she is saving “is not money I can spend [as] that is undoing all the good work I’ve done”.
To cut spending, she makes the most of discounts and deals, and joins with friends to maximise the benefits. She, and some of her friends, have Nationwide FlexStudent bank accounts, which offers a £10 Just Eat voucher every month for the first 12 months. In her first year, she says, they pooled their vouchers and had “floor picnics” in their halls of residence, where they would all sit and share their takeaways.
It was, she says, “a life-saver because we didn’t have great cooking facilities and were on really limited budgets … It was a nice way to treat ourselves”. Saving money has not meant missing out on a social life, as she has found ways to get into gigs and events that do not involve spending. As a brand rep for a company that organises days out at racecourses around the UK, she gets a free ticket and transport to any events she has promoted.
Tickets can be pricey for these “race day” outings, which are popular with students. She had to post a promotional message on her social media and send a link to three group chats, and she earned commission on any ticket bought via her link. Signing up with an agency for voluntary work at events has also got her into gigs and festivals for nothing.
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