Plan ahead
Know what your expenses are going to be and plan for them. Get yourself a small financial planning journal (any little notebook will do) and create a financial plan. Research travel costs to the University where you plan to study. Look at your list of expenses and monthly budgets. Take into account visa application fees, tuition fees, textbooks and insurance. Add all these figures up, create a projected monthly expense. Consider how many times you plan to fly back to your home country and include these travel costs. Then sit down with your financial sponsor and go over this with them.
Form a monthly budget and stick to it
We have published on this site information on living costs and have provided sample student budgets. Use the information to create your own monthly budget. When you are in your study environment record all your expenditure and add it up at the end of the month. Keeping a record helps. Lets say you went to the store to buy 500g of rice 8 times in the month. By recording this you can decide on a bulk purchase next month and save 20%. You could even speak to other friends and buy even larger quantities together and save more.
Sharing is caring, and cheaper too!
The best way to save money is to share. An apartment shared between 3 people can reduce your monthly expenses by as much as 50%. There are many benefits to sharing. Your initial startup costs will be reduced as appliances, advance rent and setup fees for telephone, Internet and cable will be shared amongst 3 people. Food expenses will reduce as you will be able to buy in bulk.
The secret about sharing your accommodation is finding the right people to share with. It’s also important for all of you who are sharing to be respectful of each other’s personal space and shared space. But that’s a topic for another article!
Live further away from the city centre
Around the world, most cities will have higher rents, the closer you get to the city centre. In Romania for example, the quality of apartments further away from the city centre is still high and public transport is really affordable. An effective way to reduce monthly expenses is to select a modest apartment away from the city centre, which will be 30-40% cheaper. Quite often what you pay €550 for close to the city centre will be available for €300 further away from the centre. Additional transport costs will not be more than €10 per month. That’s a €240 saving per month.
Make quality decisions and quality purchases.
Sometimes buying a bargain is not that cheap! It’s better to invest in quality things that will last. You’re going to be studying in this new environment for a few years. Invest in things that will last you for your full stay. It’s better to do without for a while and save up for a quality item of what you want than to settle for low quality bargains.
The Internet, your state of mind, independence. Don’t go home!
Well you’re an adult now 🙂 You’ve got a certain kind of independence and also more responsibility. Yes, it’s difficult leaving home, family and friends, but you will get used to it. Promise. Change your way of thinking and shift your state of mind. You will gain more power in your independence, becoming less needful of having to visit home often. This will save you lots of money. Going back home just for a visit costs money, especially if your home is in another continent. Use the Internet and get a webcam. You will be able to talk to friends and family as often as you like and it will feel almost like you’re at home. Maybe you can visit once a year or every second year. Imagine how pleasantly surprised your friends and family will be to see an independent, responsible and confident person return. You can do it.
Use our service!
We’ve said this a 1000 times before to clients. Using any one of our service packages will save you money, heart ache and head ache! We’ve seen students not receive acceptance letters due to mishandling of documents, postal issues, incorrectly completed applications, missing documents…the list goes on. It’s our business to get your application through successfully. We’ve also seen students loose money through badly negotiated apartment rentals, paying too high fees for services, using services of startup companies that mysteriously disappear, arriving like a tourist…this list also goes on. Our job is to save you money, heart-ache and head-ache.