When you’re a uni student, you’re surrounded by fun temptations – gigs, nights out with mates, astonishing feats of culinary brilliance (looking at you, ice cream that glows in the dark!). So sometimes the last thing on your mind is managing your money so you can afford the boring stuff too – your petrol, food, electricity. Yaaaawn.

But as semester kicks off for 2018, it’s time to start caring about your budget so you can balance out the yin and yang of your spending habits: you can still do fun stuff, but you won’t have to resort to eating mi goreng for every meal if you plan out your spending right.

Set Up A Budget

Budgets can seem daunting, but they’re actually pretty easy to set up.

First up, calculate how much money you have. What are you making week to week? Do some quick maths, calculating your hours and your rate, deduct some tax, and arrive at a solid, honest number. Don’t round up – it’s time to be ruthless with ya coins.

Next, figure out what you usually spend your cash on. If you rent, put that at the top of the list, along with your electricity, internet and phone bills. Now that you’re going back to uni, you also have to factor in transport, cost of books and stationery essentials, perhaps miscellaneous stuff like coffee, gym memberships, and other things like that.

Then decide how you’re going to keep track of money coming in and money going out. Are you on top of your bank app game? Do you have multiple accounts, multiple banks, and no idea? Try to find a simple system that allows you to check exactly what you have stashed – rather than criss-crossing apps and systems to determine it. You might use a spreadsheet, an app or a notebook — whatever you choose, just stick to it.

And then comes the fun part. Decide exactly how you are going to divide your earnings to achieve the best, most fun, and least hungry outcome. Try to divide your budget into clear sections: for necessities (like rent and groceries), fun money (for going out or buying new clothes) and savings.

Allocate your funds accurately and honestly: do you need to buy lunch every day? No, make a sandwich. Do you need to put money aside this early, if you want to travel next year? Probably. Do you need to go to that concert/sporting match/museum? You absolutely CAN go, but look at it in the wider context of how it will affect your pocket and your savings, which, in turn, can affect your wellbeing.

Then Stick To It

Now you’ve drawn up your budget, you’re up to the hard part: sticking to it. Here are some tips and tricks to help you do just that.

First, set $$ aside specifically for having a good time! A good time can be having a smashed avo out, or a new book, or some new shoes. It means something different for everyone, but it is necessary to reward yourself for all the hard work that you put in, juggling uni and work. You still need to have fun – it just needs to fit within the parameters of the rest of your adult life. It pains me to say but gone are the days of shouting the gang a large McChicken meal every day after high school. It’s over, folks.

Figure out what to reward: you don’t need to treat yo’self for every damn thing. Okay, you put your shoes on. That is great – but you don’t need to buy frozen yoghurt. Figure out where the line is for self-celebration.

You will stuff up, and that is okay! One week, you may inevitably overspend. There could be a friend’s birthday, clashing with that weekend away that you booked months ago AND you need to buy that textbook. Oops. But don’t beat yourself up – use and manage your apps to update your situation in real time, and then apply that to next week, and rein it in a little more. Yeah, you might be eating peanut butter on wholemeal for a while – but you are still making your rent, and putting a little aside. You’re doing well!

University life is a lot of fun – but it’s time now to strike that balance between having a #lit time, all the time, and keeping an eye toward the future. Setting yourself up now, through saving and budgeting, will only serve to make you less stressed and better at handling your money.

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(Lead image: Dear White People/Netflix)

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