Making a Budget
Finally a Solution to Making a Budget in College – 8 Easy Tips
We all know how difficult college life can be, especially if you’re attending a school away from home. For the first time, you’re on your own and responsible for managing your money. How well you manage your money now will have an impact on your life later on. Making a budget is one of the first things you need to do, even before you actually start college.
Don’t be one of those students that thinks making a budget is dumb. There are a lot of individuals who have financial problems and are deep in debt, who say that they should have learned to manage money when they were much younger.
If you get started now and follow these money management tips, you’ll be well on your way. There are ways to pay for college expenses that can save you a lot of money. The following tips will help you:
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- Live with roommates – One of the major costs in college is living costs, and the more roommates that you have reduces the amount that you will have to pay. Just be sure to pick the right roommates.
- Keep student loans to a minimum – Borrow only what you absolutely have to. Graduating with a large amount of debt isn’t the thing to do. Attending a community college for the first two years can save a substantial sum, as can attending a state school instead of a private one. Also, don’t finance your living costs with student loans if at all possible. Do whatever you need to do to keep student loans as low as possible. You’ll be glad you did later on.
- Work and attend school – College life offers many various types of activities that can take you away from your purpose of attending. Concentrate on getting good grades and demonstrating your ability to pay your expenses. If you have to get a part time job to cover expenses and to keep student loans low, do it. Stay focused on why you came to college in the first place – getting a good education and a degree that will help you to have a successful career.
- Don’t follow money habits of others – Sometimes, you’ll have friends in college who don’t need to have a part time job because their parents are paying all of their costs including spending money. You may even have a roommate in that situation, so don’t resort to copying his money habits or lifestyle. After making a budget, you’ll know what you have to spend, so don’t blow it by following someone else’s money habits.
- If possible, shadow individual (s) in your chosen career – You might know what you want to do with your life, but it’s quite possible the lifestyle that profession offers is much different. Before you progress too far in your education, ask questions and shadow an individual in that profession. By doing that, it may prevent you from making a big financial mistake. One of the worst things that could happen to you would be paying off a large student loan debt working in a career field that you don’t like.
- Stay on your budget – By making a budget that is realistic, you will be able to stick with it and show that you are a financially responsible and successful college student. It will also help you to avoid large financial mistakes while you’re in college, and it will go a long way to assist you in having a good foundation for the rest of your life. By making a budget that you can live with will aid you in being a good money manager and not one with poor spending habits.
- Make financial goals now – When making a budget, begin to set some financial goals as well. Don’t wait until you’re older to do it. You may want to purchase a home or be debt free at a certain age, so set those goals now and begin to work towards them. Another goal is perhaps being able to retire at an earlier age. You’ll need to start saving for retirement now so that you’ll have more years for your money to grow. By starting at a younger age to meet those goals will make them much easier to attain as well as the lifestyle that you want for yourself.
- Realize that how money is used now will have an effect later in your life – It’s strange how money feels to you in college. For some reason it feels more real when you are actually earning a living in a full time job. Maybe it’s because some of the money came from your parents or even from student loans. Perhaps it’s a timing factor – like receiving a paycheck every two weeks.
Keep in mind that financial decisions that you make while in college can have an effect on your life later on after you graduate. Student loans, for one, can come back to bite you when you are repaying them for twenty years or so.
By making a budget that you can follow will help to demonstrate that you are financially mature and able to make decisions that will lead you to a successful career path.
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Gust Lenglet – Platinum Author
