Best Financial Move At University
April 24th, 2008 No Comments » | POSTED BY ROB
Plonkee recently replied to a meme on her best financial move in college – I chimed in in her comments, but I thought it was something worth expanding on here.
I was pretty fortunate that I was in one of the last university years who did not have to pay tuition fees, plus I also received a grant each year which helped pay for accomodation and food, so I avoided havng to find a job and was allowed to concentrate on my studies (or indeed, watching a lot of daytime TV).
I guess if I had taken a job, it might have meant I could have avoided taking out student loans, but as they didn’t need immediate repayment, and the loan rate was so low, they seemed like a good idea at the time (and to be honest, still does), so I left university with around £5,000 in student loans to repay.
But possibly my biggest financial move at university was not getting into any “proper” debt -that’s to say, I hardly ever used the credit card I was gleefully given by my bank, and I think that really helped when I came away from university and started job hunting.
Although the student loan was sitting around, not having a large credit card balance was, in retrospect, very important. I guess the reason I never used my credit card was because I simply didn’t understand the concept of credit cards at that point in my life. It’s not because I’m stupid, probably more to do with the fact that I’d never had much experience with them back then. And as it worked out, that naievity probably did me good.
Photo by beckzaiden
