The Frugal Student

Image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

Ever since I was a kid I have had a habit of saving money. Sometimes I would be saving up for something specific that I wanted to buy and sometimes I’d just save money for when I wanted to get something special. My first ‘big’ purchase was probably my Gameboy colour when I was about 10. It probably only cost about £40 at the time, and I got the Tetris game to go with it; I remember taking it to school and connecting up with my friend’s Gameboy using the infrared panel so that we could have a contest against each other... ah, those were the days!

Anyway, whilst I still have my Gameboy colour in a drawer somewhere, I have also bought many things during my lifetime which I used once and then never touched again – I’m talking about clothes, games, DVDs and other random stuff, things which I didn’t really want or need but bought anyway because... well, just because! I must have liked them at the time, and especially after I had saved some money from working at Sainsbury’s I suppose I didn’t really think very much about the cost.

But (and this is a big but), having started university last year, I have had to make some huge changes to the way in which I spend my money. All of a sudden I am in control of my own budget – I’m not just talking about a weekly allowance but all the money I need to live on. You get to uni and suddenly realise all the little things that you have to think about in life – not only accommodation and tuition fees but money for the washing machine, for all the food and drink that you eat, for clothes, for electricity, for books... even for paper to go in the printer! It’s a big responsibility, but it’s something that everyone has to learn at some point, and you definitely learn quickly when you’re in control of your money.

So, what is my point? My point is that learning to live frugally is a really fantastic thing to do and will be an incredibly useful skill for the future, especially if you are thinking about going to uni at some point in the future. A lot of people think that being frugal is the same as being tight and not buying anything new. However, Wikipedia defines frugality as the practice of “acquiring goods and services in a restrained manner” and “resourcefully using already owned economic goods and services.” So, whilst it is good to watch what you spend, being frugal is also about using what you already have. To me, it isn’t about missing out on things or punishing yourself with a strict no-spend policy. I think it’s more about spending the money that you have wisely, so that you can get the most out of it. This might mean deciding not to buy some things, or it might mean searching around to find vouchers or a better deal. If I see something that I like whilst I’m shopping, I rarely buy it straight away – instead, I think about it for a day or two and if I’m sure that I still want and need it, I’ll buy it then.

Of course, if you don’t have a lot of money, frugal living means that you will be able to get the most out of what you do have. But I think it’s still worthwhile even if you have more money than you know what to do with. In the Bible we are told that God gives us all things, and this includes our money – so it’s not really our money, it’s God’s – and he wants us to use it wisely. I once heard somebody say that we shouldn’t think about how much of our money we can afford to give back to God, but we should think about how much of God’s money we can afford to spend on ourselves. That doesn’t mean that we can’t spend anything ourselves, but it means that we should think carefully about how we spend what God has given us.

Why not see how much money you can save this month by living frugally, and donate whatever you save to a good cause? By watching what we spend, we can buy the things that we need and leave out the things that we don’t – this means that we will have more money left over to spend on other people, on enjoying life and ultimately, to give back to God.

You can read more of The Frugal Student on her blog