Your bank balance is dramatically reducing before your very eyes and you have absolutely no idea why (all those nights out and impulse shopping purchases didn’t cost that much surely?) After frantic googling, you’ve tried all the normal money saving tips and you’re still struggling. You have rent to pay, carnage is next month and you were supposed to head home for a mates birthday. What are you gonna do? Read this blog, check out our top sneaky money saving tips – ones that you might not necessarily have thought of!

Starting with the Slightly Obvious…Get a Travel Card

If you’re travelling regularly, be it train or tube then you need to really maximise your discount. Natwest offer a free railcard for those under 25 with an account with them, which ensures a third off all train tickets! The card also provides you with opportunities to enter a variety of competitions and access loads of different offers, including West-End theatre discounts and holiday.

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The weather may suck, but the spring sales are still going ahead! Grab yourself some bargains at a broad selection of shops, both online and in-store.

While most clothes companies will have sales on, it’s always good to know what to look out for and when. Here are a few examples of spring sales for you to keep track of:

• Gym Prices:

While they rocket in January to help people get rid of the holiday season pounds, they drop significantly at this time of the year. University gyms will also now be offering cheap prices for their term 3 memberships, which often run from now until the end of the summer holidays.

• Winter Clothing:

Coats, cosy pyjamas, boots, hats, scarves, gloves, to name but a few, all plummet in price, ready for the warmer weather. Stock up on next winter’s garments at a fraction of the cost. (Or, with the current awful weather, wear them right away!)

• DIY Products and Home Furnishings:

This season is well known for spring-cleaning. It’s a fresh start, so make the most of the slashed prices to purchase lovely pieces for your new home and handy tools for decorating, if your landlord will allow it. It can really help you to concentrate while studying and to have a good night’s sleep if your bedroom is clutter-free and homely. Plus, more often than not, if you’re making an improvement to your student home, your landlord should be keen to say yes as you’re doing them a favour too. Just make sure you get their approval before you make any changes first.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had a free Krispy Kreme doughnut, free Millie’s Cookies, a free hot chocolate from Cafe Nero, a half-price breakfast at Carluccio’s and free prosecco and doughsticks at Zizzi.

I also narrowly missed out on free mini eggs at WH Smith and free miso soup from YO!Sushi (which I don’t like anyway, but it’s still free!), as well as a whole host of other free or discounted things which weren’t as appealing as doughnuts or booze.

As students with no money and huge loans to pay off, it’s important that we take advantage of any deals we can get, which is one of the reasons I’m with O2. Their Priority Moments app (which provided me with all of the free/discounted things I’ve just mentioned) locates O2 customer-only deals in your area and alerts you to any new freebies you’re entitled to. If you’re already on O2, it’s as simple as going into the app store and hitting download. However, if you’re not on O2 don’t despair! Here is my run-down of the top deals available on some of the UK’s biggest mobile phone networks:
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