Showing posts with label money making. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money making. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Tutoring
This is an effective way to earn money and works really well if you are excellent in (a) certain school subject(s) and you are able to translate your thoughts into words in a way students can understand.
Starting your tutoring business for £ 5 per hour in order to get as many students as possible with your special price.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Host a Tournament
Hosting a tournament will seem like a daunting task but it really doesn't have to be, and it is a simple way of earning some money and having some fun too!
Here are all the things you need to consider:
The type of tournament
So what are your interests? By having a level of personal knowledge first, it makes acquiring resources much easier. It basically gives you a place to start. It will hopefully also give you a group of potential participants if you know people with similar interests. A tournament can be based on anything competitive. If it isn't competitive, make it competitive. Here are a few ideas to get the creative spark flowing, ridiculousness included:
Fifa 13 on PS3
Mathletics (yep - not a spelling error!)
Pool
Mortal Kombat on XBox 360
Scarf Knitting
Football or 5-a-side
Pie eating
Basketball
Super Smash Bros Brawl on Wii
Table Tennis
For each idea you have to think:
What do I need?
How can I get it? (& What do I already have?)
How many other people will be interested?
What other tournaments are hosted?
If your answers are "Not a lot, quite easily, most people," and "not many", then it's likely that this is a tournament worth hosting. Obviously this won't be the case every time, but you have to think about what time you want to give to this project and how much money can be made at the end of it!
Venue and equipment costs
It is likely that these two issues are going to cause you the most problems. Firstly, what equipment is directly needed and where can you either find it, or put it. Think about everything! even a clipboard and a pen and paper for the day when you are running the tournament. Even a spare pen. Even a second spare pen! Don't let anything be missed out as this will spoil the day, upset a lot of people and dampen any future efforts at hosting a tournament.
And what venue will you use? Free venues will obviously reduce your costs but with paid-for venues, the quality of your event will shoot up dramatically. I suggest the best venue is one you can be sponsored for. Free but quality. Think also about what you want to achieve. If this is a competitive football match with serious participants, maybe try the local courts or sports hall. If this is a fun Call of Duty competition disguising a social mixer, why not try a local pub or cafe.
Try and think about:
What equipment should you be providing?
What equipment will participants bring?
What equipment might the venue have to offer?
Will you cover a shortfall?
Do you need 1 court/table/console/pitch and participants will take it in turns or will you need more and allow multiple games at once?
What is it that determines the score? How will you measure the winner? Sometimes this is fine to note down on paper if the winner is determined easily but think about the nature of the tournament!
Is anything likely to get broken/lost? Should spares be brought?
Try and leave as little as possible to chance.
The prize
Here you have 2 real options; money or an actual prize of some sort. The best option is again the more difficult; something more than just cash. The reasons for this is that you might be able to negotiate a trade with a sponsor which gives you a prize of a higher value than a cash prize you would be able to afford. This doesn't have to be your main sponsor but anyone who is willing to donate something, or sell you something at a discounted price so that you might be able to give it out to the winners. Do remember that in essence, you are then selling this product, so it has to be something people want. An easy way of ensuring this is having prizes related to the cause, though this can often be difficult!
If you only want to give away money, you might want to do a bit of research into what people would expect as a prize after going through the tournament and when considering their entry costs. If it seems like too much work for too little reward, people won't be interested. Here you can think of it as a wage. If the tournament will take a total of 5 hours per finalist and they win £50 on a £5 entry fee, that's £9 per hour; not too bad.
You also want to think about the amount of prizes. It's not always as simple as offering just one thing! How many times have you thought "Oh, I would enter the tournament but I know for a fact that if he/she enters, I have no way of winning"? Well, by offering 2nd and 3rd place prizes, you add the clause "but maybe I can try for the 2nd place prize."
Ticket prices and amount of participants
This is basically your income. I suggest calculating your costs first and putting in every effort to reduce them where possible so you know what amount you have to make more than to break even and start seeing profits.
For a normal knock-out tournament, it is usual to have 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc. participants. This works perfectly and for simplicity's sake, it is best to not tamper with it. Then you need to set your ticket price based on a.) the prize fund b.) the length and type of tournament and c.) what you think is just and fair, compared to what is expected of participants and what others are doing. It is likely that your ticket price will be less than £5 unless you are aiming to host a professional tournament with a very worthwhile prize.
As an example, let's say you're planning to charge £3 for entry and your costs come to £100. By having a 64-man tournament, you will receive a net profit of £92! This sounds great, but you have to evaluate whether you think this will work. a 64-man tournament means there are 6 rounds including the final - will participants think this is worth it? This is a stage where you will need to keep going back over what you have planned so far and adjusting little bits and bobs until you are happy with the final result and are sure that potential participants are happy with it too!
Extra incomes or outgoings
Do always think about the extra costs involved. In particular - what is your marketing budget and how is it allocated? I'm mainly directing you towards printing costs here. They might be minimal but it is important to keep track else you might be very disappointed when calculating how much money you are making.
Another idea is charitable causes. An obvious reason for this is simply because it's a nice thing to do. Let's face it, there's always room for improvement when it comes to your own charity work and this is effortless and effective. It can sometimes also help the ulterior motive of getting more people involved! Think - how many people will get involved if they think they are being ripped off with their entry costs and how many of these won't mind because it's a good cause.
Note: If this is your tactic, you may wish to have all *profits* go to the charitable cause. By doing this you will need to count yourself as a cost, by working out your wage (let's say the tournament is going to get £100 in profit and you have worked 5 hours @ £7ph - £35 to you, £65 to charity).
The best and therefore most difficult method of getting an extra income for your tournament is sponsorship. It may take a long time and a lot of phonecalls, emails and rejections to gain sponsorship but if you manage it, you will see the benefits immediately. Once you have come up with a plan for your tournament, be sure to take it to all the local shops, bars, restaurants (its more likely that the independently owned places are more willing to help) and ask for their help. Show them why it is mutually beneficial and why they should help. This is really only going to work if you are honest and are able to communicate to them how you are helping them, so think carefully about what you require and what you can give. Here are some ideas:
What you can give:
Free advertising
Customer influx (if venue based)
What you can get:
A location
Help promoting the event
Equipment
Funds
A prize
Here are all the things you need to consider:
The type of tournament
So what are your interests? By having a level of personal knowledge first, it makes acquiring resources much easier. It basically gives you a place to start. It will hopefully also give you a group of potential participants if you know people with similar interests. A tournament can be based on anything competitive. If it isn't competitive, make it competitive. Here are a few ideas to get the creative spark flowing, ridiculousness included:
Fifa 13 on PS3
Mathletics (yep - not a spelling error!)
Pool
Mortal Kombat on XBox 360
Scarf Knitting
Football or 5-a-side
Pie eating
Basketball
Super Smash Bros Brawl on Wii
Table Tennis
For each idea you have to think:
What do I need?
How can I get it? (& What do I already have?)
How many other people will be interested?
What other tournaments are hosted?
If your answers are "Not a lot, quite easily, most people," and "not many", then it's likely that this is a tournament worth hosting. Obviously this won't be the case every time, but you have to think about what time you want to give to this project and how much money can be made at the end of it!
Venue and equipment costs
It is likely that these two issues are going to cause you the most problems. Firstly, what equipment is directly needed and where can you either find it, or put it. Think about everything! even a clipboard and a pen and paper for the day when you are running the tournament. Even a spare pen. Even a second spare pen! Don't let anything be missed out as this will spoil the day, upset a lot of people and dampen any future efforts at hosting a tournament.
And what venue will you use? Free venues will obviously reduce your costs but with paid-for venues, the quality of your event will shoot up dramatically. I suggest the best venue is one you can be sponsored for. Free but quality. Think also about what you want to achieve. If this is a competitive football match with serious participants, maybe try the local courts or sports hall. If this is a fun Call of Duty competition disguising a social mixer, why not try a local pub or cafe.
Try and think about:
What equipment should you be providing?
What equipment will participants bring?
What equipment might the venue have to offer?
Will you cover a shortfall?
Do you need 1 court/table/console/pitch and participants will take it in turns or will you need more and allow multiple games at once?
What is it that determines the score? How will you measure the winner? Sometimes this is fine to note down on paper if the winner is determined easily but think about the nature of the tournament!
Is anything likely to get broken/lost? Should spares be brought?
Try and leave as little as possible to chance.
The prize
Here you have 2 real options; money or an actual prize of some sort. The best option is again the more difficult; something more than just cash. The reasons for this is that you might be able to negotiate a trade with a sponsor which gives you a prize of a higher value than a cash prize you would be able to afford. This doesn't have to be your main sponsor but anyone who is willing to donate something, or sell you something at a discounted price so that you might be able to give it out to the winners. Do remember that in essence, you are then selling this product, so it has to be something people want. An easy way of ensuring this is having prizes related to the cause, though this can often be difficult!
If you only want to give away money, you might want to do a bit of research into what people would expect as a prize after going through the tournament and when considering their entry costs. If it seems like too much work for too little reward, people won't be interested. Here you can think of it as a wage. If the tournament will take a total of 5 hours per finalist and they win £50 on a £5 entry fee, that's £9 per hour; not too bad.
You also want to think about the amount of prizes. It's not always as simple as offering just one thing! How many times have you thought "Oh, I would enter the tournament but I know for a fact that if he/she enters, I have no way of winning"? Well, by offering 2nd and 3rd place prizes, you add the clause "but maybe I can try for the 2nd place prize."
Ticket prices and amount of participants
This is basically your income. I suggest calculating your costs first and putting in every effort to reduce them where possible so you know what amount you have to make more than to break even and start seeing profits.
For a normal knock-out tournament, it is usual to have 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc. participants. This works perfectly and for simplicity's sake, it is best to not tamper with it. Then you need to set your ticket price based on a.) the prize fund b.) the length and type of tournament and c.) what you think is just and fair, compared to what is expected of participants and what others are doing. It is likely that your ticket price will be less than £5 unless you are aiming to host a professional tournament with a very worthwhile prize.
As an example, let's say you're planning to charge £3 for entry and your costs come to £100. By having a 64-man tournament, you will receive a net profit of £92! This sounds great, but you have to evaluate whether you think this will work. a 64-man tournament means there are 6 rounds including the final - will participants think this is worth it? This is a stage where you will need to keep going back over what you have planned so far and adjusting little bits and bobs until you are happy with the final result and are sure that potential participants are happy with it too!
Extra incomes or outgoings
Do always think about the extra costs involved. In particular - what is your marketing budget and how is it allocated? I'm mainly directing you towards printing costs here. They might be minimal but it is important to keep track else you might be very disappointed when calculating how much money you are making.
Another idea is charitable causes. An obvious reason for this is simply because it's a nice thing to do. Let's face it, there's always room for improvement when it comes to your own charity work and this is effortless and effective. It can sometimes also help the ulterior motive of getting more people involved! Think - how many people will get involved if they think they are being ripped off with their entry costs and how many of these won't mind because it's a good cause.
Note: If this is your tactic, you may wish to have all *profits* go to the charitable cause. By doing this you will need to count yourself as a cost, by working out your wage (let's say the tournament is going to get £100 in profit and you have worked 5 hours @ £7ph - £35 to you, £65 to charity).
The best and therefore most difficult method of getting an extra income for your tournament is sponsorship. It may take a long time and a lot of phonecalls, emails and rejections to gain sponsorship but if you manage it, you will see the benefits immediately. Once you have come up with a plan for your tournament, be sure to take it to all the local shops, bars, restaurants (its more likely that the independently owned places are more willing to help) and ask for their help. Show them why it is mutually beneficial and why they should help. This is really only going to work if you are honest and are able to communicate to them how you are helping them, so think carefully about what you require and what you can give. Here are some ideas:
What you can give:
Free advertising
Customer influx (if venue based)
What you can get:
A location
Help promoting the event
Equipment
Funds
A prize
This has been an introduction to creating your own tournament event. The rest is up to you. Remember, the key ingredient to a successful event is planning! If you have any luck or further tips for creating tournament events, we'd love to hear your comments :)
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Cover Your Car with Advertisements
Have
you been driving down the road and suddenly seen a car driven by plastered in
ads for potato chips or an
energy drink? Maybe you thought the car belonged to an employee with the
company. But a number of advertising firms will actually pay drivers to have
their own cars covered with ads.
Depending on the firm, the length of the promotion and your
region, you can be paid between $400 and $900 per month to serve as a moving
billboard. Some companies will even provide you with a car to drive, free of
charge. All you have to do is sign up on the company's Web site, filling in
basic demographic information. Then, if a specific advertiser decides they want
to target your particular demographic, they'll select you for a promotion.
Promotions last from a few months to years, so the extra income could add up to
a nice sum.
You'll be required to drive a certain number of miles per month
to fulfill your contract, and you'll have to set aside four to eight hours for
your car to be wrapped at the beginning of each promotion. Once the ads are
removed, your car will be undamaged by the process.
Follow these links for more information
Follow these links for more information
How to make 3-D cards in 5 minutes
Students
can take advantage of seasonal occasions such as: birthdays, Easter, Christmas,
Valentine’s Day and New Years to create amazing handmade cards which can be
priced lower than the market. Cards can be 2-D, 3-D, colored with different
sizes.
Monday, 18 February 2013
Thursday, 14 February 2013
How to sell your photographs?
If you are an (amateur) photographer you could sell your photographs offline or on the Internet. Even if you have an iPhone with you, you earn some money by selling your pictures.
Today I will talk about the possibilities to sell your photos. If you don't know how to take good photograph, then have a look at this website: Lifehacker - The Basics of Photography
The most common websites are iStockphoto and Shutterstock. Different publishing companies use these websites to discover interesting photographs. Imagine that you see your photograph in a (famous) book. Wouldn't that be great?
On iStockphoto you earn a base royalty rating of 15% for each file download. But you have to apply to be a contributor. With Photoboxgallery you can choose your own price. The amount that you earn per print sale is dependant upon the mark-up that you put on your prints above the Photobox cost price.
Useful links:
- Shutterstock: www.shutterstock.com
- iStockphoto: www.istockphoto.com
- 500px: www.500px.com
- Foap: www.foap.com
- Photoboxgallery: www.photoboxgallery.com
Today I will talk about the possibilities to sell your photos. If you don't know how to take good photograph, then have a look at this website: Lifehacker - The Basics of Photography
- iPhone pictures
- Digital camera
The most common websites are iStockphoto and Shutterstock. Different publishing companies use these websites to discover interesting photographs. Imagine that you see your photograph in a (famous) book. Wouldn't that be great?
On iStockphoto you earn a base royalty rating of 15% for each file download. But you have to apply to be a contributor. With Photoboxgallery you can choose your own price. The amount that you earn per print sale is dependant upon the mark-up that you put on your prints above the Photobox cost price.
Useful links:
- Shutterstock: www.shutterstock.com
- iStockphoto: www.istockphoto.com
- 500px: www.500px.com
- Foap: www.foap.com
- Photoboxgallery: www.photoboxgallery.com
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Create and Sell your own Accessories
MONEY MONEY MONEY! Students are always concerned
about money, how to allocate their money on their daily activities? How to earn
extra income? How much to invest? What about a part time job? All these
questions are rolling your life in a coaster. Let us direct you towards the
easiest ways of making money.
In many cultures handcrafts are considered the main
source of income and living. It is perceived by those who have this ability as
a relaxing, enjoyable, pleasant lifestyle that requires them to have patience
and creative characteristics.
If you are interested in making extra pocket money
and have the skills to make handmade accessories, we will provide you with the
easiest ways to do this. Handmade accessories have a wide range of products
such as bracelets, earrings, key chains and many others.
The most common handmade accessories are bracelets.
They are the simplest type to be done, they don’t need as much time, effort and
even raw materials. Usually bracelets are made of threads and each 10 meter
thread costs you approximately £7.
Let us say that you
have bought three threads with three different colors with £21, and from a
personal experience these three threads easily make 50 bracelets. So your total
cost is £21 and the time taken to make three of them is one hour. If each bracelet is sold for £ 3 then your
profit is £ 129. Any additional beads can be added off course the higher the
price of the bracelet become.
Moreover, Fimo is a kind of clay that it’s widely used; you can shape
it in any form then after it dries it can be colored as desired. What is unique
about Fimo is the low price where you can get each package for £ 3. With the
fimo you can create earrings, brooches, rings and other “jewels”.
Furthermore, each one of us has unwanted T-shirts and
trousers in his/her closet. Those not any more used clothes can be used to make
bags and additional accessories for the clothes we usually wear. Technically,
those cost NOTHING.
Last but not least, every house has numerous numbers of
buttons with different sizes, shapes and colors. Have you ever thought of using
them? Yes, they can be used as accessories on bags, T-shirts, trousers and even shoes. There
are specialty stores who can provide you with larger variety with very cheap
prices.
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
Cook for your Accommodation Mates
Many students are concerned about how to
secure their pocket money or get some extra cash while studying abroad without
being committed to part/full time job that requires them long duties (e.g.
4h/day).
There are many ways to generate cash while
studying abroad without being committed to another party and this can happen
simply while being at home. Instead of dressing up and walk or take a bus to go
to your workplace and spend at least 4 hours there and then doing the same
thing to go back home take a shower and have some rest, we are talking about at
least 6 hours that are wasted of your time. You can get the same amount of
money in one hour while staying at home and having your pj’s on. The question
here is how is this even possible???
Usually foreign students live in
accommodations with many other students and they get to know each other and be
friends. Further, it is out of discussion that almost 80% of those students
depend heavily on fast food, take aways and meal deals to save time or even
because they do not know how to cook. So if you are a good cook and if you
enjoy your time cooking, you can make good amount of money in doing that.
We
all know that a proper launch meal at any fast food restaurant may cost at
least £5, so as start if you cook for 4 persons a day
and you sell your meal for £3.5,
we are talking about almost £400/month that easily have 60% PROFIT for your
POCKET.
We
will provide you with an example to make the mentioned numbers REAL. If you buy
a 6kg bag of rice that easily last for 15 days for £5, 600g of chopped chicken
breast for £2.5, some mushrooms and onions for £1.5 and two jars of sauces for £2.
So
now we have:
£2.5 chicken breast
£1.5 vegetables
£2 sauces
£0.40 rice/day
So if you sell your food for 4 persons with
a £3.5/meal, your net profit per
one day is £7.60 in one hour cooking at your home.
Now
it is your turn to start cooking and promote yourself to get more customers!!!
Monday, 11 February 2013
Become a Human Intelligence Provider
Even in the age of computerised this and robotic that, there
is no denying that certain tasks are still best left to the good old fashioned
human brain. These tasks are known as Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) and
include little jobs that computers and programmes simply can’t do. This
includes things like writing product descriptions, identifying elements within
a video or answering FAQs.
These HITs are very simple, easy and quick, and you can get
paid a good enough amount once you have gotten used to doing them. There are
basically no requirements needed to fulfil a HIT as long as you read the
request and do the job properly as described. You can easily do multiple tasks
at a time if it makes it easier and turnaround time is extremely quick. Perhaps
the most attractive thing about HITs is the ease of fitting it into your
schedule. You can do them at any time and many of them take only a couple of
minutes. You can do them when you wake up, before bed, or even at 4:30am when
you’re having difficulty sleeping! It really is up to you. What you lose in
steady income, you make up in complete freedom. Then, the money goes into your
account after an allotted time (dependent on the organisation subscribed to)
for you to spend as you wish!
Although a fair amount of money can be made after some time
of getting used to how it works, and managing yourself in regards to working
efficiently, initially it can seem like you are working very hard for next to
nothing. It is very important to remember that the requesters (who offer the
HITs) aren’t looking for masterpieces. Simply do what is asked and then quickly
move on and forget about it!
We recommend Amazon’s Mechanical Turk as the most reputable
marketplace for finding HITs. You can sign up at www.mturk.com and get straight
to work!
Start an Ebay Shop
Ebay is an amazing platform for people who want to start to
manage their own e-shop but don’t have the time, finances or skills to create a
website from scratch with big orders on products they want to sell. If planned
properly, the risk of losing any initial investment is seriously low. All you
need is an Ebay account (and a Paypal account is recommended) as well as
something to sell! Initially, this can even just be things cluttering up your
room that you want to get rid of.
Our main advice as we mentioned is to plan. You don’t have
to have a plan to make some money, but if you want this to be a source of real
income without wasting hours and hours making pennies, it is important to have
a think about what you want to do and how you’re going to do it.
First, you might want to decide on a product category you’re
quite familiar with. This is so you know when to spot a good deal when it comes
to buying your stock! Next comes the acquisition stage. Basically, you need to
get things to sell. There are lots of ways to source products. Websites like
Freecycle and Craigslist or the local newspaper will have classified ads put up
by people getting rid of things. Sometimes this will include things you’re
looking for so it’s important to keep looking. Another great source of products
are charity shops and second hand shops but it is important to always think
what sort of profit you’ll be able to make on it, if any at all.
Apart from the costs of the items you wish to sell, you also
need to remember other hidden costs, in particular Ebay’s listing fees which
vary item to item but must be acknowledged if you’re sure to make a profit.
Also, the postage costs must be thought about! You can either let that eat into
your profits a bit more or let the buyer take them on, but that may put them
off slightly. Both of these will be very dependent on the size of the product.
Things like books and DVDs are the easiest to sell (but that is why there are
so many people selling these too!) But always remember – persevere! Someone
will always buy what you’re selling sooner or later. Think about who will buy
it and when and plan, plan, plan.
Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping is the perfect solution for students who
force themselves to shy away from the city centre for fear of spending money
they haven’t got. In fact, even if you simply love to shop and want to earn
money doing it, this is for you. As the Joker says; if you’re good at something,
never do it for free!
A mystery shopper’s job is to go under cover into a
predetermined shop, restaurant, bar, hotel etc. and act like a normal customer.
Afterwards, it will be your job to write a report on the experience; whether it
was positive or negative and why (reporting on things like staff friendliness and
cleanliness of the building.)
It is great if you don’t mind writing reports and even if
you do, is good practice to get into the swing of it to help your academic work
to improve. Tasks are usually very
simple such as go into a fast food restaurant, and order a burger and a
milkshake. Even better, you get to choose what tasks you do and the benefits of
the task are usually free! So, if you fancy a free pizza, look out for tasks
requiring you to go into a pizza restaurant. If pampering is more your thing,
look out for any spa related tasks!
However do bear in mind that the report writing can be time
consuming, especially if English is not your first language. Also, many
websites require you to pass their own English language test before you can
sign up. It is very casual and you may be able to retake the test but it can be
daunting at first. Another thing to consider is the time. The best paying tasks
take a lot more time and can require 2 or 3 days, especially hotel stays which
can be difficult to plan alongside coursework (though if you have the time – free
hotel stay!)
To become a mystery shopper, it is very simple to start
doing. Just sign up to a mystery shopping company’s website and the tasks will
be available online. We recommend the following sites as reputable mystery
shopper firms:
www.retaileyes.co.uk
www.tern.co.uk/
www.grassrootsmysteryshopping.com/
Saturday, 9 February 2013
5 things that students should know about money
Before we start discussing how to earn some money,
probably we should mention ways of how to save money or in other words how to
not lose money. Since the start of university is the first step to financial
independence, here are five things that one new student need to know about
money.
1. Banks are not your friends
Don`t waste money for nothing – if you've already got a smartphone, or can get hold of one from a sibling who is upgrading, you can save by switching to a sim-only tariff. You can get free call minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data for less than £20 a month from almost any mobile company.
4. …and travel bills also
One of the biggest surprises students report is how much they have to pay on trains, buses and tubes. So get a 16-25 Railcard – it costs £28 for one year, or £65 for three, and gives you a third off UK rail fares. Sadly, NatWest has made it harder to get one for free on its student account… or take the bus – check Megabus for low-cost deals.
5. Pre-loading to save on a bar cost
1. Banks are not your friends
Often bank
staffs’ primary aim is to sell you their products,
and they will only do it from their own, usually poor range. Often the person
you're talking to is paid based on how many things they can tie you into. Ask
yourself: do you want to be the loyal customer whose business is taken for
granted, or the customer whose business is hard won with better deals? Do your
own research before getting any financial product. Ask yourself whether you
need it, is it worth it, and have you checked whether it's the best deal on the
market.
2. Be boring - stick with the monthly budget
2. Be boring - stick with the monthly budget
Yes, it's boring, but if you're going to live on the money you've got, and
afford a social life too, you need to learn to budget. Make a weekly or monthly
budget and stick to it. Try using an online student budget calculator, such as
the one on the Ucas website, which allows you to key in all your income and
outgoings. Other tips:
- Try not to use your debit card to pay for things. It's easier to keep track if you pay cash. When going out drinking, only take with you the amount you're happy to spend that night, and no plastic cards.
- Before you buy something, ask yourself: Do I really need it? Can I afford it? Can I get it cheaper elsewhere? If any one answer is no, think again.
- Don't use cash machines that charge for withdrawals. Find out which ATMs charge and which don't.
Don`t waste money for nothing – if you've already got a smartphone, or can get hold of one from a sibling who is upgrading, you can save by switching to a sim-only tariff. You can get free call minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data for less than £20 a month from almost any mobile company.
4. …and travel bills also
One of the biggest surprises students report is how much they have to pay on trains, buses and tubes. So get a 16-25 Railcard – it costs £28 for one year, or £65 for three, and gives you a third off UK rail fares. Sadly, NatWest has made it harder to get one for free on its student account… or take the bus – check Megabus for low-cost deals.
5. Pre-loading to save on a bar cost
We're not endorsing this, but we can't deny that it`s “profitable”. Pre-loading
is about buying cheap alcohol from the supermarket or off-licence and drinking
it at home before you hit the pub/club. "Drinking while getting ready with
your mates might seem normal, but drinking a lot of alcohol before you go out
could make your night take a different direction from what you've all got
planned..you might be
too ill to get in the taxi or even
worse – in the club!
source: The Guardian
source: The Guardian
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)