Unihousing.co.uk: May 2022

1. Make One Day a Week a No-Spend Day

Assign one day a week where you don't spend anything. It might be hard to do, but one day a week of not spending can amount to a lot of savings.

2. Discount Hunt as Often as Possible

Before you make an online purchase, you should always shop around for better deals, vouchers, or discounts. While you may not find something for everything you buy, the money you'll save from the discounts you do find will make it worthwhile.

3. Make Money From your Loan

The student loan is a large pot of money that you should do your utmost to make the most of. By taking a portion of it that you won't need and putting it into a high-interest account, you'll be able to make even more money from it.

4. Save on Your Public Transport

If you're frequently using public transport to get to university or into town, it will be cost-effective to get a bus or rail card. Of course, you should do the calculations to make sure it's the best investment.

5. Student Deals are Your Friend

Lots of businesses offer student deals, especially when you're living in a student-focused city like Birmingham. Keep an eye out for these deals when you're going to the cinema, eating out, or on any other occasion.

6. Stop Watching TV and Ditch the Licence

A TV licence is only legally needed if you watch or record live TV programmes on any channel or watch BBC programmes on BBC iPlayer. You don't need a licence if you watch any other streaming service.

7. Try Working out at Home

Gym memberships can be very expensive, and it's hard to make the most of what you're spending. You can try working out at home using YouTube tutorials, or by going running or cycling out and about.

8. Do Your Shopping at the Cheapest Supermarket

If you have a choice of a local supermarket, try shopping at the cheapest one. Both ALDI and Lidl come out as the cheapest supermarkets for a small basket, and Asda is one of the cheapest when doing a larger shop.

9. Do Your Regular Shop at the Best Times

You can often save money by buying reduced items at the supermarket, and the best time to find them is either in the evening or early morning.

10. Try Upcycling for New Furniture

If you're looking for some new furniture for your student accommodation, the cheapest and most environmentally friendly option is to use places like Facebook Marketplace to find furniture that people are looking to get rid of. Charity shops are another good option for finding cheap furniture.

11. Leave Your Card at Home on a Night Out

Taking your card out when visiting the town can lead to you spending a lot more money than you had planned. Try taking out some cash to spend instead.

12. Make Packed Lunches

Making your own food at home and bringing packed lunches can save you lots of money, as buying meals and drinks while out and about will be much more expensive.

13. Plan all Your Meals

Food waste is an insidious culprit of lost money. Try planning all your meals so you only buy what you need, and avoid throwing away both your food and money.

14. Eat Before you Shop

Shopping when you're hungry is a very easy way of spending more money than you had bargained for. Make sure you've had a good healthy meal before shopping so your head is in the right place for making decisions.

15. Track Your Expenditure

Knowing exactly what you're spending and where can be difficult to work out, which means it becomes even more difficult to save money. By tracking all of your spending on a notepad, you can not only see where you need to cut back, but it might also give you a reality check!

16. Save on Postage by Using Click and Collect

If you tend to buy a lot of items online, the postage costs can ramp up. Try saving on postage by using click and collect. There are a lot more pickup points these days, so you should be able to find one that isn't too far away.

17. Take Cash Instead of Your Card When Shopping

Taking just cash when doing your shopping limits you to that amount of money. This will help you avoid making frivolous purchases and stay within your budget.

18. Put a Portion of Your Student Loan into Savings

Once you've worked out how much you're spending each month, you can start to put any extra money from your student loan into a savings account. Having some money set aside in savings for when you need it will be useful in the future.

19. Walk More

Catching the bus or train to university every day for lectures can start to become quite expensive. If it's possible, walking to university instead will save you a lot of money, and be good for your overall health.

20. Search for the Best Deals with Your Student Accommodation

When you're privately renting your student accommodation, you should make sure you're getting the most out of your money. At Unihousing, we include utilities and your internet into the cost of your rent so you can see exactly how much you'll be paying for your accommodation.

How Unihousing can Help Students With Accommodation

Since 1984, Unihousing has been providing accommodation as a landlord near the University of Birmingham. Because we own all of the accommodation that we provide in Selly Oak, we can provide quick response times using our own qualified maintenance team. At our property office on Bristol Road, only a short walk from our accommodation, we deal directly with all of our tenants.

Unhousing was selected as the Number 1 Student Letting Agent in Birmingham by the UK's biggest fresher community, Unifresher.

Contact Unihousing today to find out more!

Are you moving in with friends for your next year at university? Try not to worry too much about how it'll go, as long as you follow the basic rules of living with other people it'll be fine.

Having understanding, kindness, politeness, and a few basic rules and codes of respect can go a long way. This will reduce both your and your housemate's stress levels, helping all of you to enjoy your time studying at university.

That said, here are some of our top tips for being a good housemate.

Respect Your Housemate's Belongings

There's little else more annoying than having someone else eat your food without asking, or using your possessions behind your back. This goes both ways, so make sure you avoid taking anyone else's food without asking first.

This goes doubly for the most precious resource for any student; alcohol. Stealing alcohol will definitely lead to many arguments and a breach of trust that will take a long time to recover.

The biggest thing you can do to respect other people's belongings is to make sure that the front door is locked when you leave. You don't want to be responsible for someone else's stuff being stolen because you didn't take the time to properly lock the door.

Do Your Part of the Cleaning

One of the main causes of disputes in student households is in regards to cleaning. Everyone has a different definition of what is clean, and it's important to define this at the beginning of the tenancy to avoid any arguments.

A common strategy is to create a cleaning rota which is agreed on with everyone in the house. This can split up the chores into manageable amounts for everyone, so they are more likely to be done. You can also make chores easier and fun by doing them together with your friends.

Make sure you take the time to clean up after yourself. Leaving your mess for others to clean is not only rude, but it's not fair for your housemates to clean up after you.

Privacy is Important

Everyone deserves to have a private space where they can be by themselves. This can be very important for some people, who recharge by spending time alone and away from other people.

As an example, always make sure to knock when someone's bedroom door is shut. Even if you can hear them inside, respect their privacy if they don't answer you; they may just want to spend time to themselves.

Equally, make sure that everyone in the house knows when you have guests visiting. If you do have guests over for any reason, you should respect your housemate's schedules and not stay up to late making noise, as they may need to sleep to get to early lectures.

If You're Annoyed, Sleep it Over

When you're in the moment, you may get rather irritated by something your housemate has said or done, but after sleeping on it you may find that you aren't that bothered by it anymore. Tensions can get quite high, but sometimes the best thing to do is have a good night's sleep, and ask yourself in the morning if it's something you still want to raise with the household.

Try to avoid leaving passive-aggressive notes when something does annoy you. These rarely solve any issues, and often just cause more arguments when they annoy the person they're aimed at. If there is something you'd like to bring up, it's best to discuss it openly with the particular person.

Be Open to Criticism

It's just as important to be open and receptive to complaints or criticism from your friends as it is to catch them out when they aren't being good housemates. It's often much easier to simply make a small change rather than make the entire problem bigger than it has to be.

You may find that you don't click with someone after you move in with them, which is a perfectly normal thing to happen. Even so, as long as everyone acts with politeness and kindness, you should be able to make it through the year without any major problems occurring.

How Unihousing Can Help

Located next to the University of Birmingham, Unihousing is an accommodation provider and landlord since 1984. We can provide quick responses to repairs using our qualified team of tradesmen. We're able to do this because we own all of our accommodation in the student village of Selly Oak. Our office is just a short distance away on Bristol Road, which allows us to deal directly with our tenants.