Most students have at least once in their lifetimes been faced with the dawning fact that they have hardly any money left to survive the following month!

Excluding rent and bills, but accommodating for food, transport and basically everything else in a critical month in a year whilst looking for part time job or waiting for that student loan to be approved can one survive on £120 per month?
Here are some tips extracted from thorough research and helpful resourcefulness of senior students who had been through it and successfully survived such dry spells!

Transport: Assuming that you live near to your University, like most students do; you can obviously ditch the bus or tube and simply walk to Uni. If however, that’s impossible for you, then what about a bicycle? If you don’t own one, you can get one for free! Where from? – Visit www.gumtree.com for plenty of used free stuff people want to dispose off, you just need to go and collect it...here you can also get a free haircut, clothes, furniture, books and various other things you might find life saving!

Toiletries: Have you heard of ‘Pound shops’? Well, the name says it all...they literary sell everything there for a pound only! You’ll be amazed to find there your essentials like toilet paper, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, toothpaste, tea and coffee, cleaning products and even food.

Food: This is obviously the biggest challenge in surviving the month!
Primarily, you have to be selective in which supermarkets you shop at.  Asda, Tesco and Liddle are much cheaper than Waitrose and Marks & Spencer for example. Every supermarket has their own brand of products sold only in their supermarkets and these are in general cheaper than the other brands sold on the same shelf. However, supermarkets often have offers on certain products (3 for 2, buy one get one free, etc.) that are sometimes cheaper than their own brands.

Now, most of us shop on a weekly basis and this is probably the easiest way to keep the expenditures under control and to reduce food wastage...Obviously, during this month we have to give up on some luxuries and live on the basics only, which means that cigarettes, alcohol, sweets and treats and similar are off the menu!
So, providing we purchase the basics for 3 meals per day we can survive by spending only £3 per day on food! How do we do that?

 
Based on weekly requirements here are a few examples of the cheapest essential products available in our supermarkets:

• A weekly milk requirement for a person is an average of 2 pints, available in all major supermarkets for 86p.
• Box of cereals (Bran Flakes or Frosties for example) will cost you £1 at Asda and is going to serve your breakfast for at least one week.
• Bread: Hovis Best of Both Medium - £1 at Sainsbury’s (or 3 for £3 at Tesco, 2 for £2 at Asda).
• Potatoes: New Potatoes (2.5kg pack) on offer at Asda 2 for £3, weekly requirements only £1.50.
• Beans: Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s offer 3 for £1.
• Rice: Veete Basmati Rice on offer 2 for £2, from which one is enough for a week requirements.
• Eggs: Asda offers 15 eggs for £1.45. Recommended weekly intake of eggs is 6 per week – 60pence. 

These products will cost about £10 for the week, which means we have another £11 to spend on seasonal fruit and vegetables. Providing we spent £90 on food, £10 on toiletries, we have about £20 left for any emergencies or some even left for entertainment.
And also very important, make sure you keep all you food safe from your hungry flatmates and when that loan is approved you can hit the pubs.

Eli Markovska 7/7/09