Am I overspending at University?

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Ive been back at university for 3 weeks now, and Ive spend just over £1200, which is worrying me a little. The money has mostly gone towards nights out(drinks, food taxi fare etc), random trips to other cites, and also some impulse purchases like an armani dinner jacket which I was 70% off :cool:
The £1200 doesnt include any tution, or accomodation fees.

I now only have £50 left to cover me over 5 weeks :eek: ... excluding my student loan, which I dont want to touch.
I could ask my parents to bail me out, but that would mean that I would have to show them my bank statement, and they wont be too happy!



Could all to the uni students post how much they have spend so far in the SECOND semister, so I can see roughly how much I have overspent by.


Thanks
 
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After a week back at uni I got a drum kit :)

You only live once (although with no money, it wont be for long, lack of food and all :p)

Im on about the same as you so far I think.
 
Soldato
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Umm, probably 700-800, to give a brutally honest estimate. That's bearing in mind that I blew 200ish in the last seven days - Reading week - and I'm in London. It's still probably above average, but my fridge and booze shelf needed restocking and the sales were too hard to resist. Obviously too much money in clubs too.

I've got enough to get through the rest of the term though, I think.
 
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excluding your student loan, lol its there for a reason, spend it if you need it, can't even believe that not using it has cropped into your mind, why apply for the loan if you're not going to use it? oh wait yeh your're probably one of those that sticks it in a ISA for 3 yrs, with no substantial gain.

Just spend your loan mate if you need to, you're only young once.

Im in my second semester, overdraft and loan were fully maxed out last semester, so the loan this semester brought me back up to like £0 balance, but im on about £750 left of my over draft i reckon, and ive been out LOADS this semester, maybe you're just not going to right places and paying through your backside for stuff.
 
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CDj-Rossi said:
excluding your student loan, lol its there for a reason, spend it if you need it, can't even believe that not using it has cropped into your mind, why apply for the loan if you're not going to use it? oh wait yeh your're probably one of those that sticks it in a ISA for 3 yrs, with no substantial gain.

Just spend your loan mate if you need to, you're only young once.

This is the most ridiculous rubbish ive ever heard. How dare you. A few hundred pounds may not be much to you.. but i do have my loan in a high interest account and i shall be grateful for the extra few hundred pounds at the end of uni. Its better than nothing and better than owing a lot of money. You sir have angered me.

Im editing, because your post is so ludicrous. "you're only young once" is your argument to justify the spending of his student loan. Why? Being young does not justify the spending of borrowed money. If anything it justifies the approach to not spend it and be wise.
 
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Soldato
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gord said:
This is the most ridiculous rubbish ive ever heard. How dare you. A few hundred pounds may not be much to you.. but i do have my loan in a high interest account and i shall be grateful for the extra few hundred pounds at the end of uni. Its better than nothing and better than owing a lot of money. You sir have angered me.

LOL, angered you, what for voicing my opinion? At the end of the day, you get a student loan, that should be your first port of call to use it after moneys from work over summer etc if any, then your overdraft. Overdrafts are there for when you've run out of money on your loan etc, i just dont get why people take out their full loans with no intention of using it, IMO, the gain after 3 years doesnt warrent leaving the money there for me. But like you said, a couple of hundred pounds might not be much to me but who are you to say that?! If you've got enough money to support yourself through uni comfortably without the need for a loan i see no reason as to take a loan out in the first place. You sir have angered me.

EDIT || whos claiming the being 'only young once' is justification for spending the loan, if you need to use the loan do it, wouldnt get hung up about spending your loan and being worried about paying it back, to me it doesnt sound like hes used a lot of it anyway so dipping into it wont hurt him in the long run id imagine.
 
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I can not see that i have angered you in any way and it appears that you have simply used my own words to your own extent because you could think of nothing else. Nevertheless, if you were voicing your opinion you would not have advised this.

"Just spend your loan mate if you need to, you're only young once. "

This is the section of your post that particularly annoyed me. How can you honestly advise that to anyone. The OP obviously doesnt want to spend his loan and yet your comment almost seems to pressure him to spending it.
 
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thank you james, i was just going to point that out. You have angered me as you challenged the integrity of my post without ACTUALLY reading what i had put. Plus im hardly pressuring him, i dont see any way in which that could be forcing him to depart with his money unwillingly.
 
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A5H

A5H

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gord said:
I can not see that i have angered you in any way and it appears that you have simply used my own words to your own extent because you could think of nothing else. Nevertheless, if you were voicing your opinion you would not have advised this.

"Just spend your loan mate if you need to, you're only young once. "

This is the section of your post that particularly annoyed me. How can you honestly advise that to anyone. The OP obviously doesnt want to spend his loan and yet your comment almost seems to pressure him to spending it.


Anyone who thinks a message on an internet board is 'pressure' shouldn't really have large sums of money... :p
 
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Challenge the integrity of your post. Maybe if the integrity of your post was consistent it wouldnt be challenged in the first place. If you would have stopped there and not put "your only young once" it would have been fine advise. However the entire attitude from that aspect changed as it honestly seemed like you were taunting him towards spending his loan. However im now sure this was not your intention. Apologies if i have angered you by questioning your post. It was not my goal, but rather, my goal was to provide some balance for the OP to not be convinced to spend his loan immediately.
 
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I don't think he means he should spend it on junk, just don't think of your loan as 'out of bounds', you shouldn't have to struggle for money. I don't see how he's pressuring him to spend his loan, he did say 'if you need it'.

£1200 is quite a lot to be spending in such a short time, try and set yourself a budget each week. Saying that though I've spent a fair ammount in the past month, in the region of £700, and now I'm restricting myself to £50/week spending to make sure I can survive the entire year.
 
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This is one of the reason, why I dont want any goverment to get ride of student fees, you just take the ****.

You take it for granted, how funny would it be if you had to get a sponsorship to attend a universty.

50/50 said:
I could ask my parents to bail me out, but that would mean that I would have to show them my bank statement, and they wont be too happy!

You have it easy compared to your parents, do you think your parents got bailed out in the 70s.
 
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A5H said:
Anyone who thinks a message on an internet board is 'pressure' shouldn't really have large sums of money... :p

It was the way the OP's initial post was worded, and expressed, because similarly when people are worried they can take others advice very literally. Such is the similar situation with medical advise, and one of the factors as to why it is not allowed on the forums.
 
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spending student loan makes sense really as the interest you pay on it is sod all compared to commercial loans. And short of shoving it into shares/onto a nag and hoping for the best you're not gonna make a huge return through an ISA.

I usually spend around £80-100/week at uni, sometimes a lot less, sometimes a lot more. Its a ballpark figure thats worked for the past 3 years though.
 
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