I Was Irresponsible With Money and I Paid The Price

"When I got to university and banked my first student loan cheque, I felt amazingly rich, as I imagine many people do. With only a fraction of it going on my halls rent and my parents agreeing to pay my tuition fees, I think I subconsciously decided that the rest of my money was there for me to have a good time with.

I made friends with a lot of students during freshers’ week. As we’d never lived in a big city before, we wanted to try out some of the posh bars and clubs – which were inevitably very expensive to get into and then to buy drinks at. We quickly got into a routine of going out 3 or 4 times a week. But we were having such a good time, it never really occurred to us to go to cheaper places, let alone the student union.

I didn’t keep track of my spending, and when it came to December, I realised I’d almost completely spent my first loan instalment and had nothing to spend on buying food – forget Christmas shopping. I sheepishly told my parents, who bailed me out. In a way, I wished they hadn’t – I didn’t learn from the experience and repeated the same mistake the following two terms.

I’d tell myself I was on a hard course and therefore deserved to have some fun as well, and would go clubbing and spend anything up to £80 on a single night out in the city centre. But rather than admit the problem to my parents again, I took out two credit cards and used them to pay for everything. I didn’t really understand the interest rates, instead getting drawn in by clever marketing, and found myself in a mounting pile of debt at the end of only the first year of the 5-year course. I later found out that my friends, as well as being only on 3-year courses (a fact I’d conveniently ignored!), had all been getting regular handouts from their parents – something mine couldn’t afford to do!

By the end of the year I realised I had to change my lifestyle. The priority was to pay off the credit cards as soon as possible as the interest rates were horrific, so I joined a temping agency and worked the whole long summer after the first year, whilst my friends went on holiday. Through this and weekend work during the second year, I finally paid off the horrendous debt and cancelled the cards.

Now that I’ve dug myself out of the hole, I force myself to budget for food and books and so on before spending money on going out – and I’ve learned to have a good time at cheaper places!

My advice to other students would be to keep track of your account at least weekly so you know where your weaknesses lie; budget for the sensible stuff first; and stick to debit cards unless you know exactly what you’re doing."