What can you do to support me with my student budget?
You can book an appointment with an Advisor to have a discussion about your budget (even if you don’t have one!).
We can sit down with you and talk through your personal situation and worries about money you might have, and we can help you draw up a budget.
We can keep in touch over time, and help you keep track and update the budget as needed.
We can also explore your budget and discuss where you may be overspending, and any strategies to help manage your money.
We also run an interest free short-term loan of up to £200 to support students with short-term cash flow issues.
Budgeting guides and tools
There are many sources of budgeting advice and guidance online. Here are a few that we would recommend you check out:
This page includes a guide on how to work out your weekly budget. It also provides information on ways to work out your budget, including mobile apps, spreadsheets and calculators.
This guide covers a lot of the same material as the MSE page above, but also includes a link to the Save the Student budget spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet can be found here. If you don’t have Microsoft Excel you can open it using Google Sheets which is totally free!
We think this is a good sheet to use as it helps you to break down your budget monthly as well as weekly, and covers most of the basic lines of spending you will have as a student.
You might have a mortgage or you might be a parent with childcare responsibilities, or in some other way have a more complex budget than the ‘typical’ student (as far as that exists!).
If that’s the case you might have types of income or spending in your budget not covered by a standard student budgeting spreadsheet/budget sheet.
We would recommend you look at the Money Advice Service’s budget planner. You can find it here.
It’s extremely comprehensive and covers things like benefits, debts and credit, mortgages, and outgoings such as childcare and school uniforms. It can be saved and returned to online.
If you’re struggling
If you can’t balance your budget or you’re in debt, you may need some more specialist support. Get in touch with us via our Case Form and we can point you in the right direction.
This might mean getting in touch with City’s Student Funding team to ask about bursaries/grants, or you may need specialist debt advice from an external agency.