College Student Budget Calculator

The minute you become a college student and leave your parents' nest, the childhood ends and the adult life begins. You become increasingly responsible for many financial aspects of your life. Soon you start to realize that knowing how to handle money and how to make it last longer is essential.

Spreadsheet123's college student budget can come in handy to help you plan ahead and survive college without running out of money or getting yourself into unnecessary debt.

A simple, but a thorough college budget plan can help you set a strategy for making the most out of your available funds by giving you a tool to plan your monthly spending, as well as your expenses for a semester and a year.

Description

The college student budget, just like any other budget spreadsheet is only useful if the information you entered is accurate. To do just that, you will need to shop around and gather as much information as possible before creating your budget plan to make it more realistic.

Work out your income and available funds

Before you can create your spending structure and expenses plan, you should determine your revenue and all other funding options available to you. These may include income from college savings, grants, scholarships, student loans, part-time jobs or parents. It is essential to base your expenses only on the guaranteed income, leaving occasional income, such as future awards, gifts, random payments, aside.

Planning your Expenses

The majority of your college expenses are usually known upfront, such as accommodations, tuition, textbooks and so on. Other expenses may not be so easy to predetermine. The recommended method, as always, is to dig up your old bills and base your assumptions on those. Of course, it might not be the most accurate way to go about the financial planning, but at the very least, you can get a more realistic picture of your financial environment.

Savings and Credit Cards

Savings are a must for every budget and the college budget is not an exception. In the process of planning your expenses you will realize that there are quite a few things that you can survive without, so why not save? Methods of establishing savings can be different for everyone. Still, the basic idea remains the same, you can always try searching for cheaper alternatives or get better deals on various things, such as your cell phone or internet. Bargain hunting can help you save and send funds aside for a rainy day.

As a student you will obtain your first credit card, which is one of the great financial tools that can help to build up your credit score. By the same token it can also have a devastating effect on your financial health if you are not careful or do not know how to handle your credit card responsibly. Try to avoid using your credit card as much as possible, but if it is unavoidable, we advise you to download this credit card debt pay-off calculator, which will help you keep an eye on your credit card charges and account balances.