Budgeting 101: Student saving tips

Save your money without penny pinching

ELENI KOPSAFTIS

When creating a budget, ensure you factor in everything from wages to your student loans and any scholarships you may have received.CREDIT: PEXELS

There are lots of reasons why you might want to budget.

As a student, the most obvious reason is putting yourself through school, but maybe there’s something else you want to budget for. You might want to build up an emergency fund or save up for a large purchase. Maybe you want to get a headstart and build up an account that’ll eventually pay off your student debt.

Either way, budgeting isn’t about restricting yourself or spending the bare minimum amount of money. It’s about achieving specific financial objectives and being conscious about your spending. To budget effectively with that in mind, you should start with some budget goals.

If you want to budget for the upcoming year, you need to account for its expected income and expenses. You can list your expected yearly earnings by the amount you make each week or month and then add it all up.

To figure out your income, don’t just take your job wages into account. Make sure to include any funds you expect to receive from OSAP or scholarships, as well as any other sources of income during the year you’re budgeting for.

Now do the same with expenses. Usually, students need to pay for rent, internet and phone bills, groceries, gas, toiletries, and school fees. Don’t forget to set some money aside for leisurely spending too. Just because you’re budgeting doesn’t mean you can’t treat yourself now and then.

Now you can compare the numbers. Ideally, you’ll want to be making more money than you’re losing. Otherwise, it might be worth considering making some changes, like switching to a cheaper cell phone plan or finding a better-paying job.

If you’re pleased with what you see, you can proceed from planning out your budget goals to recording your real-time budget. This is the part where you go through the year making note of all your little income gains and expenses. The steps are the same as making your budget goals except that you are recording your exact earnings and expenses dayby-day instead of making assumptions for the long run.

With your real-time budget, you can record the unexpected, like when grandma gives you a $100 bill for your birthday or when you need to pay for some car repairs.

You can jot all this info down on whatever works best for you: a notebook, your laptop, a budgeting app; use whatever method you find the most reliable and easy to use. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to pull your budgeting notebook out everytime you order a coffee from Starbucks. Just make sure you keep your receipts so you can record your spending later.

If it’s available, you can also download your bank’s mobile app so you can easily check how much money you gain or spend. Some might even offer their own budgeting functions.

Tracking your money is a good way to ensure you have enough to cover all your expenses while growing your reserves where possible. If you budget right, you can build your profits, save up for something, or just get a better idea of what your earnings look like.