From Dec 1st-15th you can win great prizes, from a tablet to silver bullion, by signing up to Blackbullion, and completing a free module to help you make the most of your money.
We asked 2nd year Materials Science and Engineering student Sabrina Cheung, one of the University’s wellbeing champions, to try Blackbullion’s 21 Day Money Bootcamp and share her thoughts:
University life is always eventful; today I could be joining new societies and discovering new potential hobbies, and tonight I could be enjoying a night out with my friends at a completely new location.
They say that ‘money can’t buy happiness’, but our daily habits, from living expenses to our social lifestyle, are all related to it, and I’ve heard a lot of my friends getting stressed out about money management when they see their bank statement the morning after a night out.
Everyone understands that looking after your money and developing your own personal spending habits are essential to a well-balanced student life, but the question is how? Recently I’ve come across Blackbullion; a money-education software provided by the university through Student Support and Advice which gave me quite a head start.
The Blackbullion ‘modules’ provide information and help about student finances as well as career skills, such as starting up a business or networking. One particular course which caught my attention is called ’21 Day Money Bootcamp’. Initially, I was quite skeptical – how would a 30 minute video help with my life?
The module itself suggested 21 money hacks (one hack a day) to gradually develop your own financial habits and help your wellbeing. The module suggests where to find coupons, and even advises talking to the debt consultant in the university about debt management. I have always managed my finances carefully with budget sheets and keeping an eye on bargains, but I never took any special courses about how to manage it efficiently. So I decided to take the course and follow their advice every day to see how it could help me as a small, personal development project.
Over the course of 21 days, I am glad to say that my personal finance habits are on par with what they suggested. However, importantly, I have also gained knowledge about financial management for my future, such as learning about debt management or even how council tax works. One tip that was given on day 3 was to open another bank account and give myself a monthly allowance so I can manage and keep track of my transactions. I was also shocked at the end of the 3 weeks by how much I spent on food, and how my spending could be reduced by having a mainly vegetarian diet.
Overall I’d highly recommend Blackbullion to everyone because their courses not only give you more information about how to manage your personal finances, but also about basic financial concepts. There are other modules that I’ve gone through which give information about basic concepts like budgeting, but still have useful tips for people like me that consider ourselves ‘advanced’ in regard to finance management. It’s just a short session that would at most take 30 minutes of your day; however the advice and tips it gives you will be useful for much longer.
The moral here is: even though money can’t buy you happiness, managing it properly can.