A cure for a spendaholic

[R2DJ]

Well I'm a uni student that doesn't have work (although I really want a job and I'm planning to get a part-time during my second year in uni) and I confess that I spend too much. I know it's no surprise that most uni students are expected to go broke really quick. I am clearly aware that I'm a part of it but the feeling sucks when you are unable to even afford the cheapest things! I'm on my first year right now and it's about to end (thank god!!!) and the third instalment of my loan is about to be deposited to my bank account sometime this week. Just so you know, my student loan is almost £6,000 a year so I get £2,700 for maintenance fees. This is split up to three instalments. My expenditures with the first two instalments were not so pretty. By the time it's a week before the next instalment comes, I'll only have about £10-20 left in my account, which is not a bad thing according to most of my mates because most students start to become broke way, way earlier than me.

I've spent my loan on video games, clothes, food, travel (which costs me £80 a month and each semester is 12 weeks worth), mobile tariff. You might think that my spending habit is normal, since half of it is consumed by travel and my monthly mobile phone bills, but isn't it ugly that I almost spent £300 on video games alone? I know, I'm ashamed of this. I like the fact that I have a much bigger library though, but I haven't played most of them! The 3DS didn't help either! I don't drink that much however (unlike most uni students), as I can just stay at home as it's cheaper to get a can from the nearest corner shop and I don't go out clubbing and to pubs everyday so you can clear out "Alcohol"

So what I did is I gave my debit cards to my mum and decided that I should go back to basics for a little while. I resorted to this option because when she took care of my finances, it felt really organized and I had a lot of money left by the time summer came. Of course I'm still gonna track the statements so I can check if she's touching my money but I trust her enough. I had to choose between this and completely transferring all of my remaining student loan to my savings account, which is not gonna be touch, but I just had this inkling that this little evil greedy side of me will slowly deplete that savings account.

I know this won't eliminate my money hunger, but I'd appreciate any tips from my fellow 'tempers here. I've already surrendered my debit cards to my mum (I'll still have access to statements since it's online and it'll only be temporary) and I decided that I'll spend as little as I can over the summer holidays (really the only ones I'm planning to buy are: Zelda 3DS, Portal 2 and an amplifier for my guitar).

And yes, flame me if you want for being a loan-dependent student spending £300 on video games!

Impulse buying, FUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

 

[Ikki]

I never take money with me, that's how I don't spend it.
If I do have money on me and I see something I like, I buy it.
I'm a guy with a "why not?" mentality. So I end up spending all my munneh when I have it.


I wish I could control my rainbows. Then I would sell them fo profitz.

 

[emigre]

I'm about ot finish my second year at Uni but fortunately I haven't found myself in any kind of financial problems. A good idea would be to budget your money, set what how much should go food, bills etc and make sure you leave some spare in case of a unexpected payment. I buy a lot of games for PS3, but I allocate certain rules. For example I don't spend more than £30 on a game bar certain games I know will be hard to find like the SMT games. So for something like Final Fantasy 13, I waited until I could get it for £15 or Vanquish which I got for £18. Also I never spend money, unless I have it. It's better spending oyur own money than someone else's, it gives a reassuring feeling of knowing you aren't completly in the shit. I'd also reccomend you just cut the credit cards up. You're not working so I think a credit card is completly redundent for you, it's not a great solution to pay off the interest with your student loan. If you want to persever with the credit cards than just buy some small things which you can easily pay off becasue it would help your credit rating in the future.

 

[R2DJ]

I'm about ot finish my second year at Uni but fortunately I haven't found myself in any kind of financial problems. A good idea would be to budget your money, set what how much should go food, bills etc and make sure you leave some spare in case of a unexpected payment. I buy a lot of games for PS3, but I allocate certain rules. For example I don't spend more than £30 on a game bar certain games I know will be hard to find like the SMT games. So for something like Final Fantasy 13, I waited until I could get it for £15 or Vanquish which I got for £18. Also I never spend money, unless I have it. It's better spending oyur own money than someone else's, it gives a reassuring feeling of knowing you aren't completly in the shit. I'd also reccomend you just cut the credit cards up. You're not working so I think a credit card is completly redundent for you, it's not a great solution to pay off the interest with your student loan. If you want to persever with the credit cards than just buy some small things which you can easily pay off becasue it would help your credit rating in the future.

Sorry. I always confuse credit and debit. I have debit cards. And no, debit cards are essential for any uni student. Most important reason is that student loan is paid to my bank account.

 

[emigre]

Well I was talking about credit cards, debit cards give you access to your account and that's sorta important.

 

[NiGHtS]

Im about to go into uni next year and I'm quite good at saving money. Right now I dont even have a job but I have this thing where I 'limit' my money in my debit account. Having £500 or less is my 'danger zone'. and right now I'm on £600 so it's all good. I tend to save it up for the sales period and what not and make sure that I hack any of the video game devices I have lol. I know it's not a nice thing to do but when Im raking the moolah after I get a well paying job i'll be blowing full price on those games

When I go out I tend to only take a certain amount of CASH with me, that way I cant blow any money out of impulse. As you can imagine a classic situation for me is deciding what drinks to buy before I buy any, whilst I'm still in a good state of mind

I DO carry my debit at those times for emergency but I'm never WASTED that badly anyway so I play that safe.

General money saving tips.

 

[kiba93]

those new £9000 tuition fees must be annoying then
you are already in debt even before going to work
that's tough

 

[sonknuck23]

When I feel like I'm about to spend money, I throw my debit card in the sewer. It usually works, but then the bankers wonder why I come back every week saying "My card went missing", and start questioning me more severely every time.



No, but really, I'm able to control my spending habits pretty decently, but when I feel like I want something I leave the store, and head back the next day. If I have the money and it's there, I get it. If not, then I just go "ah well, wasn't meant for me to have."

(I think I learned that from my mom, though. Shit.)

 

[MrCooper]

I know a cure.

Get a Job!

 

[FAST6191]

@kiba93 do not get me wrong it is troubling but UK student loans are income related, have a minimum level at which you need to start paying things back and a whole raft of things that make them far nicer than more conventional loans. Not as nice as some of the stuff in mainland Europe but orders of magnitude better than the thing the US passes off as tertiary education money management.

@R2DJ - I am surprised you even opted for a credit card in the first place (despite every bank and company begging me to take one most people I hung around with point blank refused them*)

*sadly the if you have a credit card we will provide this and that thing seemed to have slowed or required actual use preventing the cut it in half crowd from plying their trade.

Also do you really truly need a contract phone? (I know you are probably tied to the 5 years and first born with rider for the second if the first does not work type of thing that seems to be the only option these days). Feel free to ignore this though as I make it a point not to have a mobile phone and this seems to colour my opinions on the matter.

As for reducing urges to spend or worse fritter cash I am afraid such things have never troubled me or mine so I can not provide much help there.

 

[R2DJ]

@FAST6191 - I remember changing credit to debit in my OP. Having a debit card for university is a great necessity for me as, like I said before in my previous reply, the student loan gets paid through my bank account. No other way for me to keep my money safe and no other way for me to get student loan.

I know a cure.

Get a Job!
QUOTE(R2DJ @ Apr 11 2011, 03:52 PM) Well I'm a uni student that doesn't have work (although I really want a job and I'm planning to get a part-time during my second year in uni) and I confess that I spend too much.

Thanks for the responses guys. From what I'm seeing, it's clear that the simplest solution: to leave my card at home and only bring a sufficient amount can be a remedy to my "illness". Guess I'm going back to how I brought money as I have been doing this before I went to the "bring my entire loan with me" option. I started doing this as I was really annoyed that whenever I pay for something and when I get change, for some reason I get more coins than notes (say you pay £20 for something worth £12. You start getting it but then kind of struggle because you "have to put away the money quick" because for some reason, the person next to you and the person behind the till will give you a bad-ish look. That might be a lame excuse for you, but I found it REALLY, REALLY annoying. Don't get me started when I specifically ask for coins/notes only and they still give me both coins + notes >_>)

The impulse really started when a friend introduced me to eBay. At first I was really staying away from eBay due to its issues with scams and stuff, but when I saw my friend demo it to me (last minute auction and he won it). I thought it was actually a cool thing so I gave it a chance. I ended up getting addicted to eBay, buying lots of games, becoming stressed out when I lose an auction. I did manage to control it when I said "meh, I don't need it right now" and I haven't used eBay for at least 2 months. Another good thing is that I didn't really spend a lot of money because most of the stuff ranged from £5 to £15.

So yeah I am still sticking to my mum holding my cards until I get back to uni. Haven't changed the PINs and I can still check the statements online though, I just figured I'd restrict myself of the easiest access to my money.

 

[doyama]

A few things you can do since you seem to have a lot of 'impulse' buying behaviors. The key is to delay those impulses enough to not want to buy it.

1) Destroy all credit cards. Anything that can 'defer' payment is bad.
2) Delete all payment methods from existing places. Delete your paypal account. Remove any 'saved' credit card entries on Amazon, eBay, etc. Make it so you have to put in something manually, which if you did step 1, you won't have.
3) Use cash only. This gives you an idea of how much real money you have and how your spending habits really impact your lifestyle.
4) If necessary create a new debit account, have your parents throw in money on a monthly basis. This ensures you aren't using your parent's debit pool to fund yourself. You can see exactly how much money you have and how long it is till you get more. Want to buy that new game, well guess what, it's 3 weeks till more money comes in. Do you want to play games, or starve. Having a separate debit account ensures that any 'over spending' gets flagged immediately and consequences are immediately apparent.

If you still have problems there are 'extreme' ways to address them

1) Freeze your debit card in a gigantic block of ice. This kinda assumes you have a safe place to do this though, which at university might be a problem.
2) Another way be to buy a safe with a key. Lock your debit card in there. Then mail the key to your parents. If you NEED the money, your parents can mail the key, but you need to wait to get it. Plus your parents probably will want to know why you need the key so that can be a deterrent.