Christmas on a budget

With the UK annual inflation rate rising to 11.1% in October, students are in for challenging times especially with Christmas approaching.

Rent and food prices are increasing and there are still presents to buy and celebrations to be had.

Final year biomedical science student, Josh Nash said: “With the substantial economy changes in London now, I’m honestly not feeling the Christmas spirit. As an international student having to buy gifts and pay the cost of sending them home, because I still have assignments to complete over the holiday, this will probably be a very depressing Christmas break.” 

So how can you do Christmas on a budget?

• Managing gift-giving: An easy and obvious option is secret Santa, it’s an easy and fun way to manage the number of people that you are buying a present for.

• Food shop: splitting the cost between family and friends with who will share Christmas dinner and checking how much each person is willing to spend will help to minimise you’re spending.

• Decorations: Christmas decorations are key to fostering holiday cheer. Head to the budget store and see what you can find – tinsel, paper, card and glitter to get crafty and make your own

• Travel: Like many students planning to travel home for Christmas within the UK, you’ll most likely be using the train. Train companies tend to release their tickets about 12 weeks in advance. The earlier you book, the cheaper the tickets will be.

Tharuna Manjala, studying for her masters degree said: “Having to pay for flights and transport to the airport is just a different level of expense compared to going to university close to home. I wish I had thought about hacks that would have made the holidays easier.”

Budgeting hacks

 • Sell old university textbooks that you no longer use, for a little extra cash.

• Put aside a small amount of money every week will help create a fund to dip in when Christmas comes around.

 • Pausing monthly subscriptions you can live without will create extra spending money. Things like Netflix or Spotify you can come back to later.