Settling in to student life can be exhilarating and daunting all at once, one of the biggest challenges you may have to face is dealing with all your own finances and making your money last for the year. You need to know how to make money go as far as possible on everything from nights out to books, food, and well, everything else really. Here’s our guide on how to do this.

Books
Don’t just go out and buy everything new. Start off by seeing if you can borrow books from the library at your university or in town. Look at book swapping sites like readitswapit, and bookmooch. Failing that, try the notice boards and see if anyone’s selling them off cheaply, look on ebay, amazon market place, abebooks.co.uk, stellstudentstuff.com and second hand book shops around town.

Computers
Question deals that offer you a ‘free’ laptop – they’re not always what they seem, and the strings that are attached can make them seriously unviable. Instead, shop around and find the best price you can, then use a cashback site to earn money back when you make your purchase.

Entertainment
We all need down time, time to chill out, relax and let our hair down, so do budget this into your plan, otherwise you might find yourself blowing way too much money in frustration. Take advantage of free and cheap entertainment such as cinema tickets through SeeFilmFirst.com and MomentumScreenings.co.uk where you can get free tickets to new movies. Share a dvd and some snacks with friends, look for special student discount entry prices too.

Food & Shopping
We all need to eat, but the cost of food has gone up so choosing takeaways, and convenience foods will make a big hole in your finances. If you haven’t already learnt to cook, then start learning now as a priority, and check out sites such as TheStudentCookbook.co.uk and YumYum.com for recipes that are aimed at students and are simple and use cheaper ingredients.

When you do your shopping, always write a shopping list, and set your budget for the week avoiding impulse purchases. If you struggle to do this, then look at ordering online instead so you can’t be tempted so easily.

Check sites such as studentbeans.com and NUS.org for information on some places that definitely offer discounts, and remember, never buy something JUST because it’s discounted. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it!

Travel
Plan ahead – book tickets in advance and they’re often cheaper. Remember students can often get discounts on public transport in the form of season tickets. If you’re a student you can get a railcard which will reduce travel costs by around one third too.