How To Make A Tenner Last Three Days

When your student loan and grant lands in your bank account, you’ll feel as though you need your very own spot on Forbes ‘highest paid’.

But, pretty soon after all your outgoings and new term drinks, it hits that you need to gain some real student budget skills to save you scraping for pennies towards the end of the semester.

We’ve rounded up ways to make a tenner last three days so you can make it through the year without those dreaded money issues…

Food

This is by far the best cutback you can make when it comes to student living costs. You’ll be surprised how much money you spend on food. Fancy a Tesco meal deal for lunch? If you did that 5x a week, you’ll be £15 down each week (£60 a month! Yes we used a calculator for that). Supermarket meal deals might sound tempting and cheap at the time, but you can save a hell of a lot in the long run if you cut this out of your student life. Try to make use of what you already have in the cupboards. Pasta + Tomato? Whip some up for your tea and reserve some for your lunch the next day.

Planning ahead on your food game is one of the easiest ways to save some dollar. Check out how you can budget breakfast, lunch and dinner:

Shopping list

6 free range eggs: 89p
Semi-skinned 2 pint milk: 79p
1KG porridge oats: £1.10
Tesco Wholemeal Bread: 55p
Wholewheat Pasta: 56p
Italian Chopped Tomatoes: 35p
Basmati Rice: 60p
Chicken Breasts: £1.69
Avocado: 49p
Onion: 16p
Mini Tortillas: 70p
Garlic: 30p
= £8.18

Monday

Breakfast: Start off your day with porridge – perfect for keeping the snacking temptations at bay.

Lunch: Whip up some scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast

Dinner: Pasta and tomatoes with onion/garlic for dinner + make some for lunch the next day!

Tuesday

Breakfast: Poached egg on wholemeal toast

Lunch: Pasta with garlic and tomato

Dinner: Chicken and onion herb breasts with tomato and rice

Wednesday

Breakfast: Porridge

Lunch: smashed avocado, egg and wholemeal bread

Dinner: Tortilla wraps, chicken breast pieces, leftover rice, onion and smashed avocado

This simple budget plan from Tesco only costs £8.18 and could even be cheaper in some supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl. Making use of what’s in your cupboards as well as planning ahead can save you time as well as your pennies.

We can’t guarantee you’ll be able to go too wild with the money leftover but you can try anyway.

Travel

Heading home for the weekend? Or want to see some BFFs in other cities? Whether you’re 10 miles away or 100, you can always save some dollar booking your trains in advance. If you’re a spur-of-the-moment gal, then this probably isn’t for you. But any little bit of organisation will make sure you’re not breaking the bank on train fares.

Get yourself a 16-25 railcard, look out for those Virgin sales that happen every season and book ahead on your other journeys on the Trainline. We can’t guarantee it’ll be less than £10 though, soz!

Banking

In the midst of sorting out your whole life before you start uni, switching your bank account is probably last on your mind. Banks go out of the way to target students and, because of that, they have some fire deals if you join or create a student account with them. Don’t be taken in by the freebies (although a free railcard is probably a good shout). You want to be looking at the long-term deals. If you need extra help on all of the mind-boggling student finance shizzle, Money Saving Expert offers students great financial advice and tips to help you through the maze.

Part-time job

It’s a struggle, but it’s worth it. Working part-time, as well as a full-time university course, can be a task and a half. But it will eventually pay off – literally. If you don’t fancy dipping into the adult world just yet, the interest-free overdraft mentioned above will save you on those times where your budgeting hasn’t quite worked out. Don’t fancy taking the risk? There will be plenty of part-time job vacancies around your area.

Get your food shopping down to less than £10 every 3 days, make the most of student discounts and switch to a decent bank that has its student perks and you’ll be on track to making your money last longer. After all, no one wants to be right in the middle of a semester with precisely 1p to your name. Trust us.