Budgeting and Planning

Know your income

The first step to creating your budget is to establish how much money you have coming in. This can be income from a job, grants, benefits, your student loan and any other sources.

If your income fluctuates, go with the lowest figure it is likely to be. Be aware of any anticipated changes to your income and plan ahead.

Your student funding is for the whole year if you are a continuing student. We strongly advise you divide your student income by 12 months and put the surplus aside to use during the summer months when SAAS and SLC do not make payments.

Know your outgoings

Now you need to establish how much money you will be spending. There are two types of outgoings:

• Fixed outgoings like your rent and TV licence
• Non-fixed outgoings like your food shopping

While it is easy to budget for the fixed costs, setting a realistic limit on other costs will help you keep on track.

The UWS Money Magazine can help you to estimate your costs and expenses.

At this stage, it might be useful to categorise your outgoings into essential and luxury. That way, you can identify the areas to cut back on should your budget not add up.

Essential outgoings might include payments like rent, electricity and a TV licence, and common non-essential expenses include gym memberships and entertainment subscription services (Netflix, NOW TV, Spotify, etc.).

Use your budget to track when your payments are due. That way, when you look at your bank balance, it is easy to see what payments are still to be made. A great tip is to use a 2^nd bank account to move your spending money for the month so you don’t accidentally dip into your bill money.

Planning for emergencies is really important too, so try and set a small amount of your income aside each month to cover you in case of the unexpected.

If you would like more help understanding the basics of budgeting, or want some recommended in-depth resources, the websites below are good starting points:

• Money Helper: Beginners Guide to Managing Money
• Money Helper: Living on a Squeezed Income
• Money Saving Expert: How to Budget

There is no point preparing a budget if it doesn’t take everything into account. Make a note of all of the one-off costs you expect throughout the year and when these will occur. Put aside enough money each month to cover these and your budget won’t be affected.

Particular examples where this type of planning is effective are Christmas, birthdays, car costs such as MOT/servicing, and children’s school uniforms. If you look at how much these expenses cost you in previous years, you can easily work out how much to set aside to help you pro-actively meet these costs.

Coming to university is really exciting and one of the most important life choices you will make. Once you have chosen your course, you will want to be as prepared as possible. This includes planning ahead financially, making sure you understand the funding you are entitled to, applying for this appropriately, and considering how this affects your budget.

Our UWS Money Magazine features lots of helpful information, tools and resources to help you do this.

The first thing you need to do is find out what student funding you are entitled to apply for. This can differ depending on your chosen course of study, and your circumstances. 

Student Funding you’re entitled to apply for

You should also ensure you take into account any impact that being a student might have on your entitlement to benefits, so check out our Benefits webpage. It’s important to do this research so you don’t rely on funding that you may not be eligible to receive.

The next thing you need to consider is how being a student will impact your outgoings. This includes thinking about your cost of living while studying, and any financial commitments you will have.

Once you have a better understanding of how your income will change when you become a student, and what your outgoings will look like, it’s important to use this information to create a budget and see how your finances will look during your time at University. Creating a budget will allow you to identify any potential shortfall, and gives you time to readjust your spending to make your budget balance.

Here are some great resources designed to help you plan ahead financially and create an effective university budget:

Students from the UK:

UWS Budgeting Module – This is a web-based tool that takes you through the process of preparing a budget.

How Much – This tool will help you identify the costs associated with living and studying. You’ll be able to use this to work out your cost of living, and plan for one-off or irregular expenses.

Basic Budget – This basic budget template will help you create a budget, and look for areas that need to be addressed.

Students from outside the UK:

UWS Prepare to Study in the UK – This is a web-based tool designed exclusively for those students joining us from outside the UK. It will help you understand more about money and the cost of living in the UK, and will take you through the process of preparing a budget.

How Much (non-UK) – This tool will help you identify the costs associated with living and studying in the UK. You’ll be able to use this to work out your cost of living, and plan for one-off or irregular expenses.

Basic Budget (non-UK) – This basic budget template will help you create a budget, and look for areas that need to be addressed.

The course you choose to study and the government body who provides your funding will impact the scheduling of your student funding payments. It's important to make a realistic budget that considers how your student funding is distributed. This may mean you need to think about changing the dates you pay certain bills or becoming adept at holding funds back to pay for costs later.

Scottish Pre- Registration Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedic Science

Scottish Pre-Registration Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedic students are paid over a 12-month period each academic year. This comprises of 13 payments which will be detailed in your award letter. Payments are made roughly every 4 weeks and as such you should plan your budget around this schedule.

Costs to consider planning for would be placements. Whilst you can claim expenses back for placement travel and accommodation, this occurs after the event, and it may help you to build up a surplus of funds you can dip into. This reduces the impact on your overall budget and helps you to maintain your regular costs whilst you wait on your placement payments. You may also find that your ability to work part time is impacted by the placement-led nature of your course and having a pot of funds would also help you to better manage in the absence of regular shifts. Many students try to work more during the classroom-based sections of the course and set monies aside for periods of placement.

Scottish Undergraduate & Postgraduate Students

Scottish students on undergraduate courses have the option to be paid either over term time only or on a 12-month payment plan. This will result in either a lower installment over 12 months or larger installments but with a break in payments over the long summer break. The overall funding available remains the same, there are simply options about how this is distributed. Each year you make the choice on how you would like your funding to be paid.

You cannot change your preferred option part way through a year so it would be important to consider carefully, in advance, what works best for your household.  Students in the final year of study would only have the term time option so should plan around this and perhaps consider keeping funds to help with any gap between finishing studies and commencing employment.

Scottish students on postgraduate courses will have their funding split according to the course they are undertaking. If you are coming to study a full-time masters, the duration would be 1 year and so the funding would be split over 12 payments. If you were coming to study a PGDip, this is shorter, and the funding would be split into term time installments.

If you are being paid over the term time model, do remember that there may be a gap between your student funding stopping and other sources of funding such as benefits or employment starting. It's worthwhile having a small surplus built up, if you can, to help you with any gaps between payments. You may also find it is harder to find part-time work over summer than expected, so making some provision for summer can really help.

Students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland - Undergraduate and Postgraduate

Students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland are paid student support in 3 larger installments, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. These broadly fall in September, January and April.

It will be important to think about stretching these funds to make sure your regular outgoings are covered. If you can pay your accommodation costs up front, this may help you to budget if you pay a lump sum and then can budget the remaining funds for other expenses. It may also help to have a separate bank account or pot to keep funds in and pay yourself a regular maintenance payment to avoid overspending and running out of funds.

Life is full of big, expensive purchases, from holidays abroad to buying a home. No matter what you have in mind, it is never too early to start planning ahead.

You can also use your budget to work out if you can afford to take on more financial commitments, like car payments, repayments of debts or mortgage payments. 

If your budget indicates that you won’t be able to afford adding on a new regular expense or setting money aside for a one-off buy, you should carefully consider whether you should go ahead with your purchase and should think about the impact this might have on your budget for the future.

Remember that having funds available on credit cards is not the same as having money in savings.

Starting a family is exciting, daunting and can be very costly. Careful planning and research can help you to manage your finances when you are expecting the patter of tiny feet. With such a change to your circumstances it is important to refresh your budget, taking into account both the new income you might be able to receive as a result of a new baby, and the new expenses that this will incur.

A great resource to make lots of savings in your baby's 1st year is the Money Saving Expert – Baby Checklist.

You should also check out our Benefits, and Discretionary & Childcare Funds webpages for further information on the potential sources of support to help you with the costs of having a family.