If you really want to lower your living costs there a number of things you can do. One important thing is budget and this will be discussed later in this section. Living costs can also be reduced by buying cheaper alternatives or not buying something you otherwise at all. What you need to consider is where can you buy more cheaply without compromising the quality of your life. You could never go out nd eat the cheapest food avaliable but wouldn't you want to. Instead it is better to be realistic and look at where costs can be cut..

If you have a great way to reduce your living cost Email Us and the best suggestions will go onto this page.

In this section:

Cut costs on Food and Drink Going Out Books Petrol Mobile Phones

And How To Budget.

Food and Drink

Keeping an eye on what you buy at the supermarket can lower what you spend. In fact food and drink is one of the only expenditures where students have a great deal of consumer choice, accommodation and fees are normally less optional. Next time you go to the supermarket why not look at whats in you basket and consider whether you could have bought something very similar for less. For example at Tesco:
Tesco Value Baked Beans In Tomt/Sauce 420g £0.15
Heinz Baked Bean in Tomato Sauce 415g £0.44
I'm not saying you should sacrifice flavour for a few pennies but sometimes there is little, if no difference, except for packaging. Why not have an experimental shop where you buy the cheaper alternatives and
objectively evaluate which one's as as good and which aren't. From then on you can save on all that are as good.

Another tip is to do your shopping in the evenings or close to the supermarket's closing time as you can pick up some bargains. This is because perishable items are massive reduced before they go past their sell by date. Often such items can be frozen and will last for months while others are still fine for a day or two (check details on packaging).

Going Out

Coming Soon.

Books

The easiest way to save money on books is to take advantage of your university library as much as is possible. Using the library you should be able to avoid by books almost altogether. There will, however, be some books which you will need to use constantly or are never in the library so for convenience you will want to buy them. Make sure you know what these books are as some books recommended by tutors you don't really need while others are vital. Ask someone in the year above which books were really useful. To save money ask if they would like to sell you those books. If they don't have a look for other second hand books such as sales in the union of online (such as Amazon's marketplace). When your finished with the books you do buy you can sell them to reclaim a good proportion of the money back. Try selling to someone in the year bellow you or online (see Amazon's marketplace).

Petrol

If you drive a car you certainly save some money by being a picky on who insures you and where you by petrol.
Quite often there can be up to 10p a litre between the cheapest and most expensive petrol price in your local area. If you are consuming 75 litres a month that gives you a saving of £7.50 and £90 a year. A very useful site is Petrol Prices.com who will tell you the lowest price in petrol for your area from your post code. The service is free however registration is required.

Mobile Phones

It is likely that there is currently a better deal than you have. If you make loads of calls upgrading to a contract might offer a saving or if you only occasionally phone pay as you go might be best. Shop around and you can normally find a good deal. A useful tool for comparing tarrifs is Kelkoo. If you don't want to change, tell your provider that you've seen a better offer and are thinking about leaving, they might offer you a better deal. If they don't, you can normally keep your existing number when you change networks by obtaining a PAC code. Make sure before you change contract that your new provider allows you to keep your old number.

If you have the internet where you live you can avoid using your mobile phone altogether and make telpehone calls on your computer. If you sign up to Skype you can make calls for € 0.017 (approx £0.01) per minute to a land line and free calls to anyone who is also on the internet. With Skype you can even get a phone number so people can phone your computer, which might be especially useful if you have no landline at university.

Budget

Creating a budget is one of the most useful things that can be done to keep track of your money. If you stick to a budget.

The first thing to do is to consider how much you would like to spend a month and what is the most you could spend.
Next you need to go through all the costs you think you will have and whether they are one off or ongoing.

Here are list of what we might consider to be a list of costs, although these will vary for everyone.

Accommodation £240 month
Food £200 month
Books £50 month
Going out £100 month
Phone bill £25 month
Transport £350
Tuition Fees £3,000
Luxuries (CDs, Dvds, Gifts etc.) £300
Sports and Societies memberships £75

The next step is to see the difference between what you would like to spend and what you think you will need to spend. If you will spend less than you thought, great, however it might by worth checking you are being realistic. If you will be overspending it is worth looking if there are areas you can cut your costs the two easiest ways being cutting down on luxuries and on going out. See if you can cut down enough if you can then it will probably be necessary to earn extra money.

Once you have sorted what you spend there is the hard part of sticking to it. Making a note of all your income and expenditure will make sticking to a budget much easier as you will know exactly what you have spent. Recording this in a notebook or on a spread sheet on the computer will help.

Every month you need to re-evaluate, checking if you have stuck to you budget whether you can afford to spend more or tighten the purse string. After a while doing this will become second nature. Being responsible with money is a good habit and if you learn to control your finances now the chances are you will have fewer financial problems for the rest of your life.