Budget, Scholarship and Happy Graduate Student

Yes, I know I need to do my work, but I can't help but to write this post.

In my previous post, I mentioned I am just a poor scholar here at Cambridge. I compared my currently scholarship with the Erasmus Mundus masters scholarship which I received for the past two years, which was a very handsome amount of money. I know this can't be compared. The payment system is different. I used to receive monthly scholarship allowance, plus mobility fund every start of 6-month term. I was pretty much able to spend when I needed to.

Source: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01811/cash_1811300c.jpg

As for now, my scholarship installment comes thrice a year. It means I get 4 months worth of scholarship allowance in one-go. It gets dangerous when the mind is switched to "I have tonnes of cash to spend" thought. It took me about 6 months to psycho myself back to the mindset that I am not as poor as I think I am. If I budget properly, I can stretch every penny I have for food, entertainment, transport, travels, and SAVINGS.

I find this article on "Student MoneySaving Checklist" highly useful for those who need some ideas on how to stretch every penny we have. What I do is within the checklist of 50+ items of how to save as a student.

Source: http://www.studentuniverse.com/student-blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/budgetingpiggy.jpg

Yes, I do monthly compulsory savings. And no, I don't touch the money at all. That's my emergency cash in case I need to fly back to Malaysia at any point of my graduate studies. It is still not enough to fly back, but if I start touching it habitually it, it'll never be enough. I am using Llyods Bank, and the best thing is I could have three different accounts under the same name, so I started a compulsory savings account which the money from current account is auto-debited monthly. I also have a savings account for all the accommodation money I need to pay per term. My current account is almost always out of cash, with the lowest I got to was about £10 in it (end of the month kind of situation).

It's not easy to start budgeting, but once we get the feel of it, we'll be living a happier graduate student life!

P/S: I still do get to travel a bit with the limited budget I have...

I saw Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland end of June 2014, thanks to the budgeting I made from the start of the year.