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Check out our student budget calculator and top university budgeting FAQs. If you’re looking for more information surrounding budgeting at university, including how to budget as a student, how to create a budget spreadsheet, what to include, how much a student will typically spend on food/general living, as well as some amazing money-saving tips, then you’ve come to the right place!
Many students can relate to being short of money. One of the best ways to get a hold of your finances and help ease any financial worries is by creating a budget to track your incomings and outgoings. You can think of your bank account as a bucket. Three times a year, a huge amount of water is poured into the bucket – this being your student loan. However, because your bucket is full of small holes, water is inevitably going to leak out as time goes on. If the water level gets worrying low, you can stop the leaking by plugging holes – and altering your spending habits.
Even if you aren’t a student, budgeting still allows you to be aware of how much money is needed to comfortably get by on a weekly and monthly basis. When planning holidays, budgeting helps ensure you don’t jet off abroad while seriously short of cash.
To begin budgeting as a student at university, here are a few steps to go about devising a budget:
There are a few different ways of making a budget spreadsheet, including through mobile phone apps (such as Monzo, Squirrel and Splitwise – both of which work on iOS and Android), building an online spreadsheet or by using good old-fashioned pen and paper.
Put simply, your budget wants to contain all of your incomings and outgoings. Incomings include your student loan, work income, support money from parents or other relatives, any money you’ve saved up, or any grants, bursaries, sponsorships or scholarships. Outgoings can be much more varied but usually include household costs (bills, food shopping, essential household supplies), travel expenses, university-related fees and anything else you might spend money on like eating/drinking out, hobbies, clothes and subscription services.
Create a table that includes all of these ingoings and outgoings. Then, work out the difference to know how much money you’ll have leftover. Depending on the timeframe you’re interested in, this table could help you budget week-on-week, month-on-month or term-on-term (if you’re a student).
Alternatively, you could use our student budgeting planner which includes the vast majority of common ingoings and outgoings (for students and otherwise). With our budget spreadsheet, you can plan your spending on a weekly and monthly basis to see how much money you’ll be left with.
Once you’ve got a spreadsheet (or something similar) set up – whether this is a standard budget planner or student budget planner – then all you need to do is input your income and expenses into the empty spaces, before working out the difference.
For some extra context, here’s a list of different expenses that you may want to consider tracking:
Household
Travel
University (if relevant)
Other
The idea behind the 50-30-20 rule is to spend 50% of your income on needs, 30% on wants and save the other 20%.
Needs refer to the essentials, including rent/mortgage, bills, food and work transport. Wants are non-essential bits of spending for your enjoyment, such as eating/drinking out, clothes shopping, holidays and subscriptions. The 20% of savings could go into a savings account, investment/pension fund or can be used to pay off any debts.
To work this out, calculate your average monthly salary (along with any other monthly income you may have). Then, split your monthly salary into three groups; one worth 50%, one worth 30% and the other worth 20%. From this, you can get a rough idea of how much money should be spent across needs, wants and savings each month. While the 50-30-20 divide is just a guide, it does still provide a great benchmark for budgeting and saving.
There are loads of ways that students can save money while at university. Aside from getting a part-time job to boost your income, here are some of our favourite money-saving tips for students:
For more information, check out our student budgeting article on how to budget as a student and the best student budgeting tips.
According to Save the Student’s National Student Money Survey, the average student living cost per month is £810 (or £187 per week). We’ve outlined some of this figure’s biggest components below:
Some of the other expenses that made up £810 total included clothes and other shopping (£34), course materials (£17), phone bills (£15), health and wellbeing (£15), holidays and events (£14) and gifts/charity (£13).
There’s no set answer to this, given that the cost of food varies from city to city (and will also vary slightly from student to student, depending on specific dietary requirements and personal tastes).
With that being said, the most recent Student Money Survey estimates that UK students spend an average of £101 on food shopping each month. This doesn’t include takeaway and eating out, which add on a further £41 to the bill.
Listed below are a handful of UK universities and the average amount that their students spend on food shopping each month:
University of Birmingham – £106
University of Cardiff – £102
University of East London – £112
University of Edinburgh – £132
University of Leeds – £107
University of Manchester – £82
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