Cash Flash

Aside from staying at home, never going out and locking yourself in your room... there are so many more steps you can take to prevent a lack-of-money misery. Here are just a few of them.

1. If you take a packed lunch from home, you can save about $7 a day on lunch. In a month, you'll be $120 - $154 richer!

2. Downloading music from the Internet is cost efficient. Just get yourself the right software and groove to the latest, hippiest sounds around.

3. Go for those "pay as you go" cards (prepaid cards, etc) for your mobile phone. You'll think twice before you call and it'll save you loads of money. Alternatively, ditch the mobile phone or switch to a pager!

4. Cab fares can eat up to $250 - $300 a month. Take public transport, or how about a skate-skoot?

5. Go to the library and get the books on loan. Otherwise, get them secondhand instead.

Budgeting

Everyone talks about budgeting. But how can I predict how much I may spend on what, in advance? What I spend in one month may not be the same what I may spend in the following month.

The idea behind budgeting is to understand where and how you are spending your money. Here are a few easy steps that will help you build that bank balance.

Step 1. Make a list of your regular bills - mobile phone or pager, transport, credit cards.

Step 2. Decide how much money you want to save each month, taking into account how much cash you have left after paying your bills.

Step 3. Regard the money you want to save as another bill that needs to be "paid" and leave it automatically deducted into a special savings account every month.

Step 4. Consider what your priorities will be each month, whether Christmas shopping in December, weekend away in February, or spring fashion shopping in April. Allocate a certain amount of money to cover these expenses and stick to it.

step 5. Make sure to give yourself an entertainment allowance each month to spend on fun stuff like clubbing, eating out. Saving money shouldn't mean leading a miserable life!

For more advice, check out www.enich.edu