How students spend their money
Students at North-West University (NWU), just like students everywhere, often struggle to balance their budgets and should learn financial literacy skills early in life, according to financial experts.
Students often struggle to differentiate between essential and non-essential goods, which then leads to reckless spending.
We created an open question on Instagram to invite comments from students on the importance of a student budget. Most students said that budgets are a waste of time because they are hard to manage, especially when they need to split their money between non-essential and essential things.
We also created an Instagram poll to find out what students spend their money on. A total of 80 students participated in the poll. The results are shown in the table below, it shows the percentage of participants who spend their money on each of the different categories. Judging by the poll results, it is clear that students like to spend money on items that are not always essential, such as alcohol and cigarettes (66%), takeout food (79%) and going out (63%). Almost all students who participated in the poll (98%) spend money on groceries, which is an essential purchase.
Letago Nkobo (22), studying towards her bachelor’s degree in law, a student who receives NSFAS funding, said: “I find time to plan my monthly budget, which changes all the time depending on the things I will need for the month, however, I find it hard to stick to it. This is because I spend most of my money on non-essential expenses such as nights out and sometimes having to attend events with friends.”
Reabetswe Moema (21), who is studying towards a BSc honours in environmental science, said, “I do plan what I need to buy for the month, including all the things I need to do, I try to be strict with my budget, but I find myself failing. I end up doing other things with my money, like going out.”
It seems that the challenge for university students is not making a budget, but sticking to it. Students should keep in mind that the basic principle of budgeting is to never to spend more money than they make.
One student who understands the concept of a student budget is Mothusi Mere (29), who is currently studying towards a BCom honours in marketing management.
“I am very disciplined when it comes to my budget and I never exceed it. I spend most of my money on groceries because I only want to stress about my studies, not running out of food. Back when my undergraduate programme was funded by NSFAS, I would receive R1500 per month. I would spend R1000 on food and use R500 as pocket money. On the side, my parents would send me R750 or R1000, so I would use R200 for gym, R250 to cut my hair and the rest would be for leisure. Now that I am no longer on NSFAS, my budget has changed. With the money I get from my parents, I use it strictly for groceries, making sure that I buy a supply of items that would last me six months,” Mere said.
