About 70 countries around the world practice Daylight Saving Time. Find out who came up with the concept of Daylight Saving Time, where the time change was first enacted nationwide, and how some countries are attempting to eliminate it.
This time I decided to take it to the streets and interview students hanging around University of Edinburgh. I dragged my good friend Alvar along and we just stopped random students and asked them the same 11 questions. It was very interesting and quite a bit of fun! I also handed them an amateur (but still cute) Financially Mint business card so they would check out their answers.
I also recorded their answers, but won’t be putting them all up since that day was very windy and the sound wasn’t always great.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s see what our great interviewee Tom has got to say!
(I will probably hit the streets again, so if you have any ideas of other questions to ask them feel free to reblog with ideas!)
1. Name and university
Tom from the University of Edinburgh
2. Did you take out a student loan? If so, how much are you getting?
Since we’re in Scotland, most students have free tuition (unless you’re international or English). Tom gets a maintenance loan of around £300/month.
3. Is the loan enough? How else do you support yourself?
Tom’s parents aren’t too hard off, so it’s understandable that his loan is low. However, from what he says it seems that his parents don’t send him that much money either.
His savings from working over the summer paid for the rent this year.
4. Do you budget? How?
He tries to not spend more than £300-400 a month. Although that might not be considered full on budgeting, it still shows he is conscious about his spending and puts some restrictions. Good Tom.
As mentioned before, Tom took a summer job working in a restaurant. All the money went to rent and now he’s applied for a job in a pub.
It’s crazy to think how many hours we can work in a summer, and then how quickly it disappears with big expenses like rent or textbooks. That’s why I encourage students to take a job that builds skills, so you can get something else out of the job as well.
7. Do you make money in any other ways?
Currently applied for a pub job.
8. How do you find student deals and which ones do you use?
He does use the NUS card and simply tries shopping in cheap places, but apart from that not much else. This is because of his mentality of ‘yes discounts are great, but I would still have to buy it in the first place’.
I love this because Tom understands that discounts are a marketing and sales tactic for companies to attract more customers. That’s great, but it still doesn’t mean we actually need to buy said thing.
Discounts and offers are great, but ask yourself the Tom question before even using it: Do I really need this? You’ll save much more money buy simply not buying
9. Ever thought of getting started with investing? What’s holding you back?
I was always laughing when I asked this question, simply because investing is mostly unheard of in the student world, and most students would look at me like ‘investing? I don’t want to lose all my money thanks’.
Tom told us he knew a bit about stocks and had seen Wolf of Wall Street, but like many other people, did not know enough to get started.
But I’m adamant on investing for a reason: investing in your early twenties means having a savings pot of £121,000 at the age of 50, versus just saving £36,000. Cue my favourite graph:
But of course, no one tells us how to get started. So here are some Financially Mint articles for ya:
If you’re very nervous about getting started and want a bit more advice, contact me or send me a message on Instagram – I’m always happy to help
10. What’s the hardest part of being a student?
Tom had a few replies:
Getting used to the independence – from student accommodation to a flat
Loneliness
Balancing work and study, managing your time efficiently.
Other students had similar answers (check out Victoria‘s). It’s hard to try to have a social life, earn money and get good grades at the same time. The key is scheduling. Google Calendar is my life. More in this in a post to follow.
11. Is university worth it, for you?
Tom was a bit hesitant on this question, admitting that sometimes when he finishes the summer he does wish he could get into a full time job immediately.
His answer was: ask me after I’ve graduated. He hopes it will be worth it, but it was visible he wasn’t sure.
It’s not an easy question to answer; we’ve been programmed to think: school, university, job. Most people go to university because this is what is expected, this is what society tells us is the path of life. So it’s interesting to hear what students themselves think of it.
Notably, I decided to take a different path and do an online university instead. Whatever works best for you.
Takeaways
Tom was a great guy to interview, and I hope he checks out the blog and reads his answers!
The key takeaways I got from interviewing Tom were:
Before buying something ask yourself: ‘Do I really need this?’
Discounts are great, but not buying is still cheaper than buying on a discount
Simply being conscious about what you’re spending is an easy way to get started with budgeting
What did you think? Is university worth it for you? Let me know in the comments!
Our favourite kinda Sale - The Reverse Auction - is here! (nearly!)
Designed to give you the best bargains possible with added excitement - how long do you dare hold out for, until you snap up the item you’ve had your eye on for ages?
Everything in the sale section will be reduced by 10% everyday by 11am - meaning the items get cheaper and cheaper - but hold out too long and they maybe snapped up by someone else -eeek! Once they’re gone they’re gone - ohhh the suspense! ;)
With some amazing brands included in the Sale , such as Hell Bunny, Bordello, Red Queens Black Legion and T.U.K Footwear, there’s bound to be something that takes your fancy, at a steal of the price too!
We expect there to be an absolute frenzy when the sale hits, so we’re giving you a heads up now, so you can get a head start as we’re nice like that!
Find all the items available in the reverse auction here:
❓❓QUESTION❓❓ Millennials!!! Do you or anyone you know feel trapped and confused when it comes to “saving money” and how to “live comfortably”??? If so, what’s your biggest confusion or pain point? . . #blackgirlmagic #blackgirlsrock #model #cosplay #costume #halloween #clown #clowncostume #halloweencostume #naturalhair #motivation #inspiration #fear #gettingoverfear #goals #model #cosplayer #truth #success #mindset #boss #accountability #money #saving (at Scottish Highlands) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bor8rHDB6vL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=jbytkbb6pdn6
I once had a neighbor who was thoroughly convinced their indoor/outdoor cat never strayed further than a couple houses around. As proof, she put a GPS tracker and little camera on her cat. 24 hours later she had the proof she didn’t want. Her cat went as far as a mile away, into the nearby woods where their were coyotes and other predators that would a snack of her cat. Her cat crossed the interstate several times, went to a construction site, and various other places that had me surprised her cat was still alive.
The following week was full of them building a catio and enriching their home. The cat became an indoor cat and chilled out very happily in the catio. They spent the summer harness and leash training their cat as well.
Oh, and the cat killed over a dozen birds and didn’t eat any of them in the single day my owner tracked them with the camera and GPS. They had been going out daily for over a year. Imagine a cat killing 12 birds a day, everyday, for just a year. That devastates the local bird population and leads to the extinction of entire species.
Enrich your home, install a catio, get a few cat trees/towers, play with your cat, and they’ll live long healthy lives. No worries about some random person killing them with poison or shooting them, no worries about them getting hit by a car, no worries about destroying the local ecosystem. My cats are 17 and 15 years old, 100% indoors their entire lives, and they’re happy.
Oh and since avian flu aka bird flu is spreading, please remember that it kills animals that eat the contaminated meat. That means if a cat kills an infected bird and eats it, they will get sick and die.
This is my attempt on making Blackbeards knee brace. All is leather, the braces themselves are hardened with beeswax. All is put together with buckles and rivets.
Functionality wise i was surprised how actually really great it is to wear. I have a problematic knee myself and it got to bend so much lighter and easier and at the same time its greatly supported. The middle strap is very important for it all to work well too tho and its not that visible on the show so thats an important bit. Overall 12/10 ☠️✨
If you want to see the whole making process, you can head over to my Twitter
