Tackling Student Debt
As the new student year is on the horizon, many students will soon realise that university life is not cheap. Despite the increasing expense of further education, there are numerous was to stay in the black and enjoy yourself while you are at it!
If you are about to start university this autumn you could graduate with on average £30,000 in personal debt over the course of your studies. With an estimated expenditure of £10,000 per year over the course of a 3 year degree, there are numerous ways to help cut this figure and reduce your overall level of debt.
Being intelligent with your accommodation choice is just one way to save money over the course of your student career - “Consider staying in shared halls during your second year, not just your first year” suggests Amy Holt, a third year student at Birmingham University. The tendency to move into private accommodation may be somewhat appealing during your later university years, but this can often come with added costs.
It is estimated that students spend around £2,900 on accommodation in their first year of university, rising to £3,300 in second and third years. A saving of around £300 over a year may not sound like much but over a 5 year degree this can be a considerable reduction in your student debt levels - which makes the appeal of university subsidised accommodation an attractive prospect.
At some point, you may find yourself contacted by a debt collection agency, but this is not always as intimidating as it is made out to be. Keep in mind there are laws that these companies must adhere to, and they are acting on behalf of whoever your debt is owed to. If you are courteous and professional while speaking to a representative, they should return the favor.
Along with some of our other money saving tips, we will be continuing a series of student debt management ideas to keep your debt levels to a minimum during your student years.
Easy Money Management
Kublax allows you to aggregate your financial data into one place.
In my experience with everyday money management, the simplest and easiest way to make sure you don’t end up in debt is to make yourself a budget. I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before, but if you’re not budgeting, you’re not really keeping a close eye on your spending - and that’s where money problems begin. If you’ve been making excuses not to budget, I’ve found a free tool online that simplifies things.
It’s called Kublax, and it works by aggregating all your bank, credit, and building society accounts together. It’s a free to use program, and once you spend a few minutes tinkering with your settings, you’ll start to see your finances in a whole new light.
What I like about it, is that it takes the parts out of budgeting that people normally trip up on – such as calculations, missing out an expense or forgetting about a direct debit – because it does the calculations for you and categorises your spending into your budget automatically.
I’ve been road testing this financial software for the past six weeks now and have been really pleased with it. Once you’ve uploaded your details, you define your expenses into as many categories as you like. The software then plots your finances for you on an easy to read graph. After you enter in the figures for your budget, your graph will show both your actual spending and your budget visually.
Now I was happy with just those two functions alone in Kublax, and then I noticed the ‘compare me’ tab. The team at Kublax has come up with a way for you to get some perspective on all your finances by allowing you to anonymously compare your finances with others. You can then check out what areas you might be overspending in by seeing what the average amount others spend on that expense.
I’ve been waiting for a decent money management platform like this to launch in the UK for some time now, and would recommend you try it out if you’re not a fan of traditional budgeting and hate spreadsheets. There’s still some room for improvement in the software, but it definitely lives up to it’s promise - ‘Making sense of your money’. If you choose to road test Kublax or know of any other online money management tools, make sure you let us know.
