Student budget planner
Enter your monthly income and costs to see whether the month balances. Divide your termly loan into a monthly figure first, then adjust the social line to fit what is left.
How the planner works
The planner adds up everything coming in each month and subtracts everything going out, leaving a surplus or a shortfall. The single trap is the maintenance loan. It arrives in three lump sums, one a term, so entering the full instalment as a monthly figure overstates your income badly. Divide the yearly loan across the months it must cover first, then enter that.
Rent is almost always the largest line, and it is fixed, so the room to balance a budget sits in the smaller costs and in income. If the month does not balance, the result names your biggest cost so you can see where the pressure is. Raising the part-time job figure or lowering rent moves the surplus far more than trimming the social line, which is worth remembering before cutting social spending from the budget.
Worked example
Take a student with £700 a month of loan, £250 from a part-time job and £150 from parents, so £1,100 coming in. Against that, rent of £620, food £180, bills £90 and social £120 add up to £1,010. That leaves about £90 spare each month. Rent alone absorbs most of the loan, which is why the job and family support make up the difference.
Common questions
How do I turn my maintenance loan into a monthly figure?
The loan is paid in three termly instalments, not monthly, so divide the year total by the number of months it needs to cover. Spread across roughly nine months of term that is loan divided by nine, or divide by twelve if it has to stretch over the summer too. Enter that monthly figure here.
Why is my loan not enough to cover rent?
This is common, especially outside the lowest household incomes. The maintenance loan is not designed to cover everything, and the taper means higher earning households get less, on the assumption they contribute. A part-time job or family support usually fills the gap, which is why both are inputs here.
What should I put under bills?
Anything regular that is not rent, food or going out: phone contract, gym, subscriptions, course materials, travel and, if not included in your rent, energy and broadband. Grouping them stops the small regular costs from quietly undermining the budget.
What is a realistic social budget?
It varies widely by city and lifestyle, so there is no single right number. The point of the planner is to see what is left after the fixed costs, then set the social figure to fit that surplus rather than the other way round.
What if I end up with a shortfall?
A shortfall means the plan does not balance yet. The usual levers are more hours in a part-time job, cheaper rent, or trimming the social and bills lines. Seeing which cost is largest, shown in the result, is the quickest way to find where to cut.