Groceries on a Grant, Lunches on a Loan, erm, Breakfasts on a Bursary? – I’ll get my coat…

Trolleys

Fresher Food – There are loads of cookbooks that persuade students that they can make wonderful and cheap meals every day. Sometimes the recipes might sound pretty quick to make. Sometimes. But for many students, they still want to grab the fast(er) food and speed up the whole process so they can spend time on other things. So how can you buy whatever you want, including ready meals (but easy does it!), when you’re on a budget? Well, it’s not always simple, but if you’re willing to put in the initial effort, there are plenty ways you can batter down the bills:

1. Become a Freegan! – Guardian / Guardian Blog / Aimhigher / Freegan Girl / David Rowan / BBC News / Times Online

2. Supermarket loyalty can BOGOF – If you are close enough to several supermarkets, use them all for their special offers. The more shops you can check, the better. Check out most supermarket offers online at Mad About Bargains. It’s great when you see how much is there at half price, Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF), and similar. If you’re a very picky eater this might not work. But if you’re willing to sacrifice a very particular shopping list, you’ll get a lot more for your money if you only look at special offers. There are even offers on alcohol, so try to grab those instead. In fact, try buying nothing but offers in each of the supermarkets. That’s how I did it. With so many BOGOFs, I’d sometimes walk out with double the shopping of my housemates, but had spent the same amount of money. Carrying it all back home was a hassle, mind you!

3. If you can’t beat ’em, list ’em – If you really must write a shopping list with specific products (or if you only want to use one supermarket per shop), check where the product is cheapest (I found a lot of things were always on offer in at least one of the supermarkets). Also, buy the cheapest brand there. Unless you’re an academic food snob who wishes to max out on the credit card from day 1, don’t worry. Sometimes you’re getting exactly the same food as the more expensive product, just with crappier packaging. And if it doesn’t taste quite as good as the brand you’re used to, is the slightly better taste REALLY worth two or three times the price?

4. Coupon collecting – You’ve probably seen various food product coupons in magazines and completely ignored them. If it’s for some brand of butter that you couldn’t care less about, for instance, you’d just turn the page. But what some of the supermarkets do is take the money-off vouchers and coupons, even if you haven’t purchased the product. They don’t all do it, plus it depends on who is serving you sometimes, but if you’re happy to try it each time, it’s worth a go. It might only mean a 60p here and a 40p there, but it’s still money better in your pocket. It all adds up.

5. Meals with housemates – Now this one depends on your circumstances. It might be super easy or it could be nigh on impossible. But you’re sure to get a good selection of meals if you can gang together with some of your housemates to take turns making meals. That way, you’d be able to have some of your meals cooked for you and you’d only need to take one turn ever week or so to do the cooking. AND…it’s usually a lot cheaper! If you can pull this one off, it’s a fantastic thing to do.

If you spend, say, £25 a week on your shopping, you’d be surprised just how much you’d get if four or five of you contributed £20 each and did one big shop for all your meals together.

6. Think BIG – If you can’t do the clubbing together thing for whatever reason, how about making a meal to last you three or four portions? That way, you can still look to cheaper grub, but divide it into fridge/freezer portions for yourself. Only thing is, you might get bored with the same food over several days. But sometimes when you’re trying to save money for better things…

7. DON’T IMPULSE BUY! – Just don’t. Yes, the sweets and goodies are by the till for a reason. No, you don’t have to succumb to it.

8. Go down the market – Find out if there’s a market that comes to town on a regular basis and make the most of their (usually) cheaper prices on fruit and veg. Similarly, if there is a farm shop nearby, they might have decent prices on fruit and veg, especially if you buy in bulk and combine some of the tips above. If you like a bit of a sweet snack sometimes, a load of different fruits might be a cheaper and healthier way to eat, rather than fatty and sugary snacks. I know that’s boring and you’ve probably heard that advice time and time again, but it’s true. And you know it!

9. Do your main weekly shopping AFTER you’ve had a good meal – You won’t be tempted to pick up half the amount of stuff you might have done on an empty stomach.

10. Buy fruit and veg loose, not packed – You pay loads extra for packaging, and excess packaging is getting a hard time in the press anyway at the moment. If you buy loose, you can save money AND tell people you’re doing it for the love of the environment!

Edulinks – Random Links of Note: Re-Learning to Read

Reading Special. Lots of links to help you read efficiently. Universities and books…you can’t have one without the other.

BBC News – Hidden method of reading revealed [Now let’s use the science to learn how to read better than ever…]

Getting Things Done In Academia – How much is enough? Climbing the reprint pile [“How do you find time to read?”]

On Boundaries – Are students allergic to libraries? [“Hey, my library is bigger than yours.” “So?”]

Matt’s Idea Blog – How to read a lot of books in a short time

Life Optimizer – How to get the most out of your books

Lifehack.org – Efficient Reading

Students’ Union: SU. About U, Supporting U, 4U.

Young Happy People

One thing I wish I had more understanding of in hindsight = What my Students’ Union was all about.

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to try and give a bit more info to you about the role of your SU, the officers, the councils, the committees, the representatives. This should be useful for a number of reasons, such as:

– You’ll realise you can do more than just moan about a lack of entertainments and societies that interest you.

– There is a great source of support for students in various predicaments and needs.

– It’s a resource to help achieve all sorts of things that you wouldn’t necessarily have realised.

– Involving yourself is a lot of fun and could prove beneficial to your future too.

I wish I had understood that I could turn the SU…sorry, my SU to my advantage. So that you don’t make the same mistake/oversight with your SU, I thought it only fair to go into some detail now. At least you’ve got the choice that way!

In this first blog post, I will try to deal with the basics that I wish I’d understood when I first started uni. What is a Students’ Union all about?

Well, the closest a lot of students get to it is having a few pints down the Union and maybe joining a club and possibly voting for a student rep of some sort. I’m sure some people don’t want to look any closer than that. But for those who do, there’s a hell of a lot more to sink your teeth into.

Every student is automatically a member of their Students’ Union, unless they resign their membership (it doesn’t generally happen). So all the students are members and it is the job of the Union to represent the interests of the members.

Team

So far, so simple. It states in Wikipedia that a handful of unis call their ‘union’ a Guild of Students, but generally the same information applies.

A Students’ Union will get an allocation of money, although it doesn’t stop there. A lot of fundraising for the Union will go on too, mainly through product and venue sales and marketing. The money is used to support further entertainments, societies, sports, advice, lobbying, and numerous student events.

As I mention, lobbying is a part of the work involved for officers elected to their SU. After all, in representing the interests of the members, it’s not surprising that they want to be heard on matters of student loans, student fees, student welfare, and so on. However, the remit only goes as far as campaigning on anything within the scope of students as…well, students.

Something I didn’t find out until only recently is that the SU will have at least one full-time officer who is either taking a year out from study, or who had finished study in the previous year. To be honest, it makes sense, I’d just never thought about that aspect. Other than the full-time members, there are a number of other studying and unpaid officers and reps who are elected by the student body in order to work toward what their fellow students want. If you want to have your say about possible future entertainments then you could chat with your Ents Rep, for example.

That’s the general idea of what a Students’ Union does. Over the next few weeks, I’ll go a bit more in depth, plus I’ll speak to some of those newly elected people in various institutions around the country so that you can get an insight into the real nitty gritty.

EduLinks – Random Links of Note

Lifehack – Advice for Students: Taking Notes that Work [Just after I post about effective lecture notes, I find this beauty of a blog article. It goes into much more detail than I did, but mentions similar points, like only writing down what you didn’t already know. A worthwhile read.]

Independent – Harry to go digital with the magic of Amazon’s eBook [Digital book readers, ahoy! Will they finally take off mainstream in the near future? I especially like the suggestion that “students will be able to slip several bookshelves’ worth of textbooks into a jacket pocket. ”  It’s happened with music, after all. Reminds me that in the early 1990s, less than a decade before MP3 players were available, the Saturday morning children’s show ‘Going Live’ had an April Fool where they had a tiny music player that could fit every single song from the Top40 loaded on it. Naturally, everybody (including myself) wanted this and were very disappointed when we were told it was an April Fool. Still, it wasn’t long before it became a reality…and a better one at that!]

Wired Magazine – What’s Inside Red Bull [If you’re not drinking it down the Union with a double vodka, maybe you’re drinking it while writing essays or revising. It’s about time you learned a little bit more about the drink that gives you wiiings.]

Observer – The Times of Our Lives [Different writers at different points in their lives discuss what it’s like at their particular age. From teenagers, to those in their 80s.]

Teens / 20s / 30s / 40s / 50s / 60s / 70s / 80s

YouTube – Look at the horse [A presenter on a home shopping channel starts talking about a strange looking horse. If you’ve not seen it before, it’s a treat.]