How to Stay on Top of & Track Your College Finances

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Finances are difficult to keep track of and maintain when you’re in college. It feels like as soon as you make money, it leaves your bank account again. To minimize this feeling, it’s helpful to stay on top of and track your college finances. This way, you know what to expect and can plan for where your money is going and when.

First and foremost, you need to make a realistic budget. You know yourself and your spending habits better than everyone. It’s very easy to lose track of your college expenses when you don’t have an idea or plan of where your money goes each month or each week. It sometimes gives the illusion that you have more money to spend than you actually do. You might look in your bank account and see $1,000, but before you know it, automatic payments pull out money for your rent, internet, and renters’ insurance, leaving you with not enough money for the night out.

Hopefully, you’re at least using GradGuard for your renter’s insurance and your tuition insurance! This way, your other bills will be mostly to blame for leaving you with less spending money. Not only are their policies specifically made for college students like you, but they also have prices that are much less expensive than others to help you with your budgeting! Protect your investments and home with GradGuard without stretching your money too thin.

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Bookkeeping

In order to properly stay on track with all your finances, you need to do some bookkeeping. The term itself might sound a little daunting if you’re not an accounting major, but it’s imperative that you physically see what money you have and where it’s going. It’s not too complex, but you do need to stay on top of things. There are a couple of different methods you can use for bookkeeping, based on what works best for you and your learning style.

Use a Planner

Just like writing notes by hand in classes can help you memorize or study better for a test, using a weekly or monthly planner can help you physically see where your money is going and how much you’re spending each week. Write down incoming money from your paycheck and plan for recurring purchases like your ongoing bills. Every day you spend money, write down how much it was and where you spent it. Add everything up at the end of each week to see if you are within or over your budget.

If you find that you’re spending too many weeks in the negative, a planner allows you to look back at everything and where that money is going, and how you can cut back. While some things can’t change immediately, like your rent, you can take action to limit your takeout spending, for example.

You may consider color-coding your entries so that you can see at a glance how you are doing per month, such as green for incoming money, yellow for essential spending, and red for splurges.

Use Budgeting Apps

If you want something a little less analog, a budgeting app may be the best for you. These do the math for you every month and show you your average spending based on category. You should keep in mind that in order to use budgeting apps to their full potential, many require a subscription to use some premium features. They still provide a lot of great use in the free version and are extremely helpful, so you don’t have to do bookkeeping yourself.

If you spend a lot of cash, budgeting apps connect directly to your bank and credit card accounts, and there are not always options to manually log cash transactions.

Spend Cash

Speaking of cash transactions, some college students find it easier to solely rely on cash. This way, you can physically see and touch the money you spend. It makes it a more tangible product rather than something you just tap a card for.

You can withdraw a certain amount each week or month and only spend that out of your wallet or put it into separate envelopes for specific categories. Put your budgeted amounts into envelopes for dining out, groceries, and shopping. You’ll be able to easily view how much money you have left per category when grabbing that.

Staying on top of and tracking your college finances doesn’t have to be difficult or scary. You can use the method that works best for you to keep an eye on all of your spending and finances. With budgeting and some determination to continuously work on your bookkeeping, you’ll find that number in your bank account and about what you expect.

It’s no secret that college costs a lot of money. Make sure your investment in higher education is protected with GradGuard. Our affordable tuition insurance and renters insurance plans are specifically designed for college students. Customizable plans make it easy to protect your tuition, room and board, laptop, bike, and so much more.