Two weeks ago I had some school friends visit London and therefore, planned a fun-filled weekend with lots of activities. One evening I took them to one of my favourite bars in london. A scenic bar called Madison bar that overlooks St Pauls and the city.
Whilst browsing the menu i made an absentminded comment stating “i have no idea how my friends and i afforded to come here as a student”. Granted cost of living has us all frightened but it had me thinking well i was earning much less then than now so how did i do it?
This led to me reflecting and I wanted to share a student nursing budget as to how I budgeted my earnings and money as a nursing student in london.
I will break down my earnings and spending in this post in hope it will help current nursing students to budget their finances and live a well balanced student life.
Income
I had three “income” streams as a nursing student; student maintenance loan, Boris Fund and Employment income.
Student maintenance loan is a family income based loan available to all students in the UK. I personally received an amount just over £5000 that is because I did not qualify for any more due to my parents income – I was a self supporting mature student but regardless if you have contact with your parents this factor is still counted in. If you would like a guide on student loans let me know in the comments. I got slightly more due to London weighting, currently it is £6,485.
Student maintenance loan – £5000 per year
Boris fund – aka Nursing student grant – Was a grant brought under Boris tenure that granted nursing students a one time non repayable grant of £5000. This was a new grant greatly based on the fact health care students like nurses now pay full rate student loans, i felt very fortunate to receive this.
Boris fund – £5000 per year
Employment income – As soon as I enrolled and started my course, I ensured I signed up to the Bank scheme of my placement host trust. This is an option given to all student nurses that allows them to select ad hoc shifts working as a Band 2 health care assistant. I made it a habit of working 24 hours a week through 2 long shifts at the weekends or 2 night shifts mid week. This choice was very selective and led to the income stated below. During holidays I would work more but for consistency we shall use 24 hours a week as that pattern was the majority. If you would like a post as to why I did this please let me know in the comments below.
Employment income – 1200 per month
Total – 24,400 a year
Expenses
Major expense in London is always accommodation. As a mature nursing student I opted out of living in halls and instead found a house with 4 friends in zone 2 east london on the jubilee line. We picked zone 2 to reduce transport costs, the jubilee line as my trust host and university were both on the line making it convenient to get there and home (especially from those pesky night shifts!) and east london as the area was cheaper to live on average. We ensured that there were local amenities within walking distance, most specifically a supermarket and an underground station.
After a long search we were offered a house close to the station for 1740!! At the time we certainly did not realise our luck only in the future when speaking with others on rent pay.
Rent – £435
As we were students and sharing the house our bills were around 35-40 each month. Most being electricity and gas. We were students and therefore did not pay council tax, we did not have a TV and instead relied on Netflix so no TV licence and our wifi was very affordable. Phone bill was sim only contract for £8.00 a month and phone was a birthday gift i have kept for 7 years (the goal is to reach 10)
Bills – £43
Transport in London is also known for its expense. As we were students we had student Oysters saving 30% on monthly travel cards and off peak travel. It can be easy to assume you need a monthly travel card in London but this is often not the case. Even now as a full time employee I don’t buy a monthly travel card. As a student this is because you do not go in for lectures every day! And when in placement you only got in 3-4 times a week and often due to the early and late starts you travel during off peak. So I would access month by month whether I needed a monthly travel card. For this reason I never spent more than £100 on transport each month and most of the time if topped up this would roll into the next month (another limitation of the monthly travel card).
Transport – £100
Food was one of my fun experiments, as a house we did trial cooking together but this quickly turned to be risky based on preferences, work/study times and sharing responsibilities equally. Therefore, it returned to each to their own – respectfully. We each had a shelf in the fridge which helped limit over buying food and also carrying our own shopping by hand also helped with this. My budget was £30 a week with a “pantry – aka one cupboard” stock every other month. I always took lunch to uni/placement and maybe I ate too much pasta pesto but it worked. We mostly shopped at our local morrisons and luckily all had some basic cooking skills.
Food – £120
I loved going out as a nursing student and socialising with friends. The nursing course, especially during placement, was challenging! I remember one of my favourite places to go was ronnie scotts on a thursday – One benefit of being a student nurse was you were often allowed to go home earlier than registered nurses so i would jump on the bus to dash to ronnie’s to get free entry before 8 and squeeze one cocktails and one salsa dance. Same case with Madison we would get free entry and share a bottle of wine and talk the night away.
We held a lot of socials in our homes and friends’ homes or student halls. This obviously helped curb spending as you would bring the trusty bottle of wine you picked up at the tube station corner shop and grab chips on the way home at the tube station fish and chips (Minus the fish as my gosh was it expensive)
A hobby of mine from a young age has been charity shopping or as it’s better known as thrift shopping so I would go out for the day and find the best deals. I have owned a gorgeous side table now for over 10 years that I picked up from a charity shop for £3!!
Fun – £100
Gifts
There are lots of gifting and celebration occasions that occur such as Christmas, birthdays etc . For this I would go for Books, home made plants such as cutting of a spider plant and repotting, thrift shop finds or the trusty wine bottle. At the time I would plan in advance and use fun money towards any celebrations occuring that month.
Funnily, this is an area I struggle with now. As we earn more we feel the need to get more lavish presents for friends but at times this is not sustainable and can even make friends feel like they need to do the same to maintain a friendship! I have recently in the last few months gone back to the repotted plants gift idea.
Total 798 and my general goal would be £800
Mostly around 9/12 months I would aim to hit the 800 goal but at times I failed – and this was okay. I also was conscious I would work more in the summer and I would also socialise more so it was a give and take.
Savings
I have always been a big advocate for savings. I think this is because I dreamt of living in London for a long long time so I knew I had to be money savvy to realise that dream. I proactively worked the other way in that I set a number to save and lived on what I had left hence the £800 a month budget. I set up a direct debit that took £333 each month into a savings account. I would always save the student loan payments and instead live on my active income.
During my first year I set a goal of saving 10,000 a year which increased to 15,000 with the introduction to the Boris fund. With this I saved 14,000 a year and had £800 as an emergency saving fund. This amounted to £15,000 a year thanks to the Life Time ISA 25% Bonus.
Savings breakdown – LISA – £4000 own savings with £1000 bonus.
10,000 split into high interest savings accounts and investment accounts- Some were fixed term others i could withdraw at any time but would avoid this. Examples are the Barclays rewards account – Rainy day saver. I also would make a small monthly direct payment to Wealthify to invest some savings and also use the money box app to round up my spending and save the amount gathered.
If you would like me to delve into my savings details let me know in the comments and i can write a post on it.
£800 that stayed in my general account that I would use if needed and yes at times was used as a mini holiday fund.
Savings – £15,000 a year
Conclusion
Income – 24,400 (plus a little more extra income from summer working)
expenses – 9600
savings – 15,000
Following the outlined steps above allowed me to live a fun filled lifestyle that i desired as a nursing student in london whilst also setting me up to a great step upon graduation. ( I am very aware this may not be the high lifestyle some may be looking for). As i keep sharing my story i hope you will be inspired to go after all you goals and dreams.
Let me know your thoughts and share your journeys in the comments below.
THE MODERN NURSE 