How to conquer your overdraft
Post-its: far more satisfying than a cheque. ©Kate Johnson
Students don’t have a lot of spare cash to throw around. When the student loan comes in and rent goes out, most students – myself included – are left with very little to play with for the next three months of their lives.
Uni has taught me a totally different way of handling money. I never used to have many outgoings, so what little incomings I had from working in the opticians I worked at for two years, or behind the bar in one of my local pubs kept me going swimmingly. The only times I never had money were because I had decided to buy that pair of shoes I’d seen in the window of New Look, or that dress from H & M.
But student finances are a different kettle of fish all together, and I soon found myself in my overdraft just a few weeks after I started uni in first year. I had to look for different ways to make money.
Obviously, there is the part time job, the option that a lot of students go for. Last year, I worked on the ghost tours in Liverpool as an ‘Other,’ where I dressed in a wedding dress, stood on a street corner and jumped out screaming on unsuspecting victims at the appropriate time.
I took part in another science study and got £10 for about 40 minutes of my time where I looked at a screen and clicked buttons. Easy money.
It sounds like fun, but it really wasn’t. The pay was lousy, the conditions were rubbish (one night I ended up walking through Liverpool city centre on my own late at night in the middle of winter), and after a while my throat decided it did not like all this abuse it was getting, so this year I didn’t go back.
Needless to say, I started to look for other ways to make money. I got involved with a “breakfast study” for my university. I had to eat a set breakfast every day for a week. It was either a traditional breakfast or an ‘alternative breakfast’ – a muffin.
I’m not really sure why I signed up for it, as I didn’t eat breakfast then (I have since, due to said breakfast study been annoyingly converted), but I got £30 for my troubles and free breakfasts for a week, and it seems, my life was transformed as well. I now cannot be awake for more than 20 minutes without the deep rumblings of hunger at the pit of my stomach. A blessing and a curse I suppose. I know it’s a good thing to eat breakfast, but when I do I’m hungry again by noon.
I took part in another science study, and got £10 for about 40 minutes of my time where I looked at a screen and clicked buttons. Easy money.
Just last week, I sold my old laptop for £50, and my old phone for £30.
I’ve even joined up with a company called YouGov, who send you links to surveys that pay 50p-£1 for your opinion. So far I’ve earned myself £7.50 but the problem with this is they only pay our when you get to £50, which at this rate will be when I’ve been a graduate for three years
Since becoming a student, I’ve found that there are different ways of making money, other than working, it’s just about looking in the right places. Check your psychology/science department for experiments that are going on, and see what other goodies you have lying around that might be worth something. Just think £30 – that’s a night out on the tiles, surely eating breakfast for a week is worth that?
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