Many would agree that the oft-used “best four years of your life” line when describing college is cliché, but at the same time pretty accurate. College is an incredible time filled with new experiences and new found freedom. However, as great as college is it certainly doesn’t come without it struggles, and one of the most common and heinous of all collegiate hardships is money. College students have notoriously empty wallets. When it comes the end of the semester we often find ourselves frantically dialing home to mom and dad as they stare at their bank accounts and realize they don’t even have enough money in it to buy a 4 for $4 from Wendy’s. It is hard to balance the financial needs of textbooks, gas money, and miscellaneous educational fees like student teaching applications with what we feel are the financial wants of concert tickets, bar tabs, and the occasional shopping trip when you only hold a part-time job or, for some, no job at all. So, in order to avoid that sinking feeling in your gut when you look at your bank account and realize the only thing lower than your GPA is the amount of money you have to your name I challenge all college students reading this to create a budget for this semester. It’s really quite easy and shouldn’t take more than 20-30 mins…so just sacrifice one Netflix episode.

To begin, open a blank Excel Spreadsheet

Establish a Timeframe

If you’re a college student you’re probably going to set your budget up for the length of your semester, or quarter depending where you go to school. I set my budget from January-April and put the months at the top of my spreadsheet to make columns for each month. The dates may differ for you depending on where you go to school

List Income

Separate you income into categories; financial aid, scholarships, or your job and place these on the left side of the spreadsheet to make rows. Enter data depending on your income. For example, if in January you expect to make $200 at your part time job then enter “$200” under the “January” Column in the “Job” row.

Allocate Funds

Under you “income” table create a table for what you plan to spend. Again, create columns for the time frame of your budget, January-April. This time, instead of adding rows for sources of income add rows for expenditures. For example your rows may be: rent, groceries, gas, entertainment, food, and emergencies. Next, figure out how much you think you’ll spend for each category and allocate that amount of money. For example, you may think you’ll spend $70 per month on groceries, $60 on gas, and $50 on entertainment. Enter these figures in their appropriate cells.

Expenditures

Under your “allocated funds” table create a table for expenditures. It should be identical to the allocated funds table except for the fact that the expenditures table should be completely blank…there should be nothing in the cells. When you pay your rent, buy gas, or buy a few drinks on your night out enter that data into your table. At the end of the month the amount of money you spent according to your expenditure table should be equal to or less than the amount you allocated in your “allocated funds” table. The two should balance.

Of course, you can’t take your laptop with you when you go out to your favorite bar just to keep track of the amount of money you spent. Instead, if you pay with your debit card just check your online bank statement when you get home or the next morning and enter what you spent into your spreadsheet. If you paid with cash just make sure you know how much money you started out with so you can keep track of what you spent. Make sure you keep up with your receipts as well…especially if you pay with cash.

College should be about having fun, but it is also a time when we learn about responsibility. You should also make sure the things you need are paid for before the things you want. Don’t spend part of your rent money on a bar tab, that is just poor money management. Of course, there are apps out there like Mint and Toshl Finance that will allow you to keep up with your budget, but if you’re like me you would rather just make your own spreadsheet. I hope this will help remove some of the financial headache many of us were dreading a few months down the road and I hope ya’ll have a good semester as well.