How long did your very first student maintenance loan last you? Chances are it probably didn’t stretch all the way to November. Especially if you went down the ‘I don’t need a part time job’ route because you didn’t quite understand that lasting three months on a sum of money that barely covered your rent wasn’t the most excellent life choice you’ve ever made.
According to a new survey from Voucher Cloud, students today are fairing oh, about the same. On average, 93% of last year’s freshers didn’t manage to make their loan last for the entire first semester. In fact, for most of them, it lasted a mere 52 days which, depending on whether or not you started in the last week of September, takes you roughly midway through November.
That leaves you eating noodles for just over a month. And doing that age-old tradtion of ‘making’ your parents’ Christmas presents.
So what sort of non-essential stuff is the cash apparently going on? Well, count yourself lucky if you’re a teetotaller; 83% admitted to spending a lot of it on booze (with a quarter of that being in Freshers’ Week), 67% said takeaways (hello hangovers) and 45% said they spend large on fancy dress costumes. Because obviously. Luckily, there’ll definitely be a time you can wear that morph suit more than once.
The good news is that by seconds year you’ll be far more mature and definitely won’t spend half as much money on frivolous items. According to the poll, most students interviewed claimed they didn’t want to repeat their money mistakes of the previous year.
Although 43% were aware that it would probably be exactly the same in terms of socialising.
Better get looking for that job.
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Picture: Sophie Davidson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.