Let's Talk Money

Let's Talk Money is the ultimate guide for managing your finances before, during, and after university. Join Vivi Friedgut (Founder and CEO of Blackbullion) and Rowan Artingstoll (Student and Money Mentor) as they break down everything you need to know to take total control of your money.

This episode combines three key areas: Money Management, Budgeting 101 and Future Ready Finances. Whether you're just getting started or preparing for life after graduation, this conversation covers it all.

Transcript

PART 1 

Both: I'm Rowan, and I'm Vivi. Let's talk money. 

Rowan: So in part one today, we're talking about student money management.

Vivi: So the simplest way to understand your money is to keep an eye on it. There's a lot of people who avoid opening bank statements. They avoid opening their banking app. They'll check it to make sure things have gone through, but they don't check it to see the overall picture. And so one of the things that I would always recommend is to check your spending against your budget. Make sure that you know where your money is going, so you’re not always wondering where it's been.

Vivi: It's one of the reasons we built the Blackbullion app, which you all have access to, is to help you not just budget your money, but manage your money so you know when payments are coming up, you know when subscriptions are coming up. You can see if you've got multiple subscriptions for the same things, which we've seen a few times, where people are running multiple Dropbox accounts and didn't realise and are wasting £12 a month. So the best thing for you to do is have visibility of your finances. Don't obsess over them. Money isn't something you should be spending every minute of every day worrying about, down to the penny. And use technology to help you to make your financial life easier.

Rowan: And we've all been there when you've had a weekend and you've been doing lots of social things, and then you don't want to look at your bank account on that Monday morning. But just have a look and just see, where's that money going? You want to have oversight of, say, you're spending 20% of your income on meals out or takeaway coffees. You want to know, and think, do I want to be spending 20% of my income on this? 

Vivi: Yeah. And I think that's a really important point as well, because the more we learn about money and this is true as an “adult”, as much as it is for a student, the more we see that there's other things we can do with our money that aren’t just about spending it, and we were talking before about investing and about other stuff that we can do that builds our future finances as well. So there's the now and then there's the learning about the later. And all of that stuff is important. And the beautiful thing about doing it while you're at uni is a great safety net for when things go wrong, which is not true later on. So, yeah.

Vivi: When setting financial goals, young people should look at what it is that they want to achieve in the short term, in the medium term, in the long term. The first thing that I would always recommend is to start by learning about both your financial world, as in the money that you've got coming in, the money that goes out. Whether you are a coffee addict like I am, or whether you like to go partying in Ibiza once a year, that's going to determine how you manage your money. There's a lot of ways about learning... There's a lot of ways to learn about money, and obviously that's why we're building Blackbullion.

Vivi: Different people learn differently. Some people want to sit down and they want to watch a video, and they want to have a proper explanation, which is technical and goes into the details. Other people want to practice. So if you're, like, I always bang on about investing being the big one because it's the one everyone gets excited about. Some people want to learn about it by reading, and some people want to put a little bit of money into the stock market and see how they perform in real life. So everybody learns a little bit differently, and that is really important when setting your goals, because if in the future you are going to be a high earner, you're going to have very different goals to somebody who may be in a low earning profession.

Vivi: So if you want to buy a home or you want to be going on regular holidays or you want to start your own business... Don't do that. It's crazy. Then your setting of goals is going to look very, very different. Take ten minutes, be honest with yourself and write down, what are the things that you want to be doing? How much work do you want to be doing? Do you want to be spending ten years of your career busting your gut and making a lot of money so that you can buy a home and then later on do something that you love or feel more passionate about? That's what I did. I worked with financial services for ten years, absolutely hated it, but made good money and that was important to me. And then you've got people who want to love what they're doing, and they want to be passionate about what they're doing, and they're willing to sacrifice some of the finances. And that planning is going to look very, very different. So the most important element is to really be honest with yourself. What do you think?

Rowan: Yeah, I think it's just about being realistic. There's no point setting unrealistic goals that you can't meet and you just disappoint yourself. I think it's having things that are achievable, whether that might be setting aside £50 a month. If that's achievable for you at this current moment, then that's useful. There's no point saying, I'm going to set aside £300 a month and then having to dip into it or something, you know, be realistic. I think it's really important.

Vivi: Absolutely. And also give yourself a break if you can't achieve what you want to achieve. Don't hold yourself to a standard that's going to make you upset later if you can't hit it. And also recognise that life changes. God knows we all lived through Covid. Things that you didn't expect to happen, happen. Don't bash yourself for it. You can always realign your goals and also you change over time. I never thought I was going to build a business. So you have to also just be honest with yourself about the fact that chances are you're going to change your mind a bunch of times between now and later. But if you do a personal audit every few years, what is it that I want? How do I get there? Then you can live the life that you want to live, without a huge amount of financial stress and anxiety. I completely agree.

Vivi: Something else that's really important to remember is that our goals change over time, but also that we have goals for the short term, for the medium term, for the long term, especially as a student. Your goal if you’re in first, second year is going to be very different to if you're about to graduate. It's going to be very, very different later on when you might want to have a family or you might want to buy a home or whatever it is. Keep an eye on the long term, but don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, because it's probably going to change an awful lot before that. So if you get yourself into a habit of thinking about what it is that you want to achieve over the next year, over the next two years, the Blackbullion app has been built kind of for this very purpose. So you can set yourself goals within the app, and it also helps you if you are overshooting how much you should be spending or not saving enough. So that is why we built it together with, with student input.

Vivi: But then the medium term kind of three to five years, you know, do you want to start investing when you graduate out of uni? You know, do you want to spend a year doing a gap year somewhere? There's all sorts of things that you want to be doing when you graduate university, and then you get into that “real world” that everybody gets so excited about until they have to live it, because it kinda sucks, and at that point, you might want to have a house, you might want to travel, you might want to take a year out and those things are going to be bigger amounts of money. So in the shorter term, do you want to stay out of debt? Do you want to get your credit score raised? Do you want to be saving a little bit to get into the habit? Do you want to start a micro business on campus, which happens a lot at university these days, or get a job? In the medium term, do you want to take a gap year after uni? Do you want to start a business?

Vivi: One of my teammates bought her first home at 23 years old, because she decided at uni that she really wanted to do it at graduation. So separating your short term, medium term, and long term goals, but don't hold yourself to a crazy standard that's going to make you anxious. The most important thing to remember in life in general, not just about money, is that life is about living. And what you don't want to do is be sitting under a blanket, eating baked beans out of a can and watching the BBC... when you should be living the best years of your life. So money should be powering and empowering your life. It shouldn't be something that you are stressing about every five minutes. If you are, get help like go and ask somebody for some assistance with it. But remember that money is just a tool. It's just a question of whether you use it well or less well, in order to help you build the life that you want to live.

Rowan: I completely agree. 

Vivi: Yay. Do you use any other tools? 

Rowan: Yeah, I do tend to use Excel. Love Excel. I know, I know, and they've got all those pages, so I often have my kind of my budget for that year. And I do look at that every year. And I say, okay, how much. You know, I'm a student this year, for example. What's my income, what's my loan? I get a grant from the firm that I'm going to be working at, and... how does that split across 12 months? And I do the granular, but then I also look at the kind of longer term stuff. I look at the five years and I say, okay, what are my goals? And different perspectives. So Excel has been really useful for that.

Vivi: Excel is great. Not as good as the Blackbullion app. 

Rowan: Of course! Obviously. 

Vivi: But it is really great. And also, now that Gemini's plugged into it, you can get it to do analysis. And of course, if you're about to graduate, you can also expect pay rises going forward. And that's going to help. 

Rowan: And I've actually, this is a bit organised of me, but I've mapped out and I, you know, I said this is how much I will be earning in certain years. And I've, you know, then I can have an oversight of that. And things do change in life, like you’ve been talking about. But it's nice to have an idea of where my next five years might look.

Vivi: Absolutely, have a rough idea of about 50% of it, and then the other 50% you just hope will kind of fall into place if you're kinda sort of organised. Yeah, absolutely. Agreed.

Vivi: So as young people, there are loads of options to help you be money smart. A few of the big ones, first of all, and we mentioned them before, around scholarships and funding and bursaries. One of the things that we're trying to do at Blackbullion is copy the Americans... only in this I promise... to get the largest possible scholarship and bursary scheme in the UK. We actually have far too little money available in scholarships for young people. And we are knocking on every door we can to get them to bring in more cash. And what it means is that at the moment, there's about £25 million worth of funds and scholarships available in the Blackbullion platform. It's available to everyone. Just Google Blackbullion Funding Hub. It's all in there. And some of them are corporate and some of them are from the university. So I would really encourage you to get your hands on some free money.

Vivi: One of the other things that you can do is use your time at uni to get into some really good financial habits. You can never start too early when it comes to money, it's never too late. But it's also never too early. And if you are a student, then chances are you qualify for a lifetime ISA. Not if you're an international student. If you're a home student, you can open a lifetime ISA, which has some amazing tax benefits, and the government will reward you for saving. If you don't qualify for lifetime ISA you can absolutely get a regular ISA, start saving. Start saving every month. Learn about investing, learn about growing your money, and then you can get a stocks and shares ISA. But uni is a really great time to get into really good money habits, and it'll give you a sense of pride as well. If you can graduate having saved or invested a chunk of money.

Vivi: And something that we see a lot of students doing today, which was not true, even five or six years ago, is the side-hustle culture has absolutely exploded on campus. Right? So people are building businesses online. It used to be that you worked in retail or you worked in hospitality. I worked at McDonald's the whole way through university. But today people are building AI companies in their dorm room, which is wild. I know. Wild, and universities support that as well. There's often people on campus who can help you to develop your business, and it might not be a side hustle. It can turn into something quite a lot bigger.

Rowan: I spent this weekend, I went home back to my parents house, and I had so many clothes that I just didn't know that I needed. And I was like, well, I can't bring these back up to London. So I just went on Vinted and, you know, it's not made me a huge amount of money, but a couple hundred pounds maybe. And you know, that's really useful when you're at uni. 

Vivi: Yeah, well that's your food bill for a couple of months. Yeah. You know, there's no such thing as too little money. Because when people go ‘it's only £50’ I’m like right, that's your energy bill for the month. Yeah. It's not no money. Also let's be honest. We all care about the planet. Yeah. And so if somebody else can buy it then you make a bit of cash. Circular economy. Everybody's a winner. Yeah.

Vivi: And there's eBay, obviously, which we've had a long, long time. We've had eBay. There's loads of ways of making additional money on campus and some of it can be one off, although I'm sure you've got other clothes in your wardrobe that’ll make their way to Vinted. Or it can be more of an ongoing exercise, or it can just be the fact that, you know, AWS is offering thousands of pounds of scholarships, in which case, get your hands on some of those. Which you said you were getting... 

Rowan: Yeah. I mean, that scholarship, on Blackbullion the information that’s centralised, you can see every single, you know, most of the scholarships. That sounds great. I would have loved something like that when I started my undergrad, because I remember trudging through and trying to find the details. And often you have to be super organized because the dates, you know, you might be starting uni in September, but the deadline might have been January for applying for that scholarship. So you do have to be organized, and something like that is really useful.

Vivi: Thank you for saying that. We are hoping to, before the new academic year starts, that the app will ping you if there is a scholarship that is right for you. Wow. That's good. So we can't ask people to be organized about their money and about their scholarships. So we'll try to bring everything into one place, but thanks for saying that, that’s nice.

Vivi: So my advice to anyone who's struggling with money or worried about money is, first of all, with love, you're probably not that special in your concerns. I think one of the biggest things that students struggle with is the idea that they are the only person that struggles with debt or gambling problem, or not making friends, or not liking their flatmates or anything like that. I promise you, you are one of millions of students who experiences any of these issues. So the first thing is to recognise that you're not alone, and that you're also not going through anything that's particularly unique. I'm sure you are unique, I’m sure you're fabulous, but whatever problem you have, you will not be the only one facing it. The great thing about that is that that means there is a lot of support available.

So universities... The University of Law is no different, there are student support teams, there are money advice teams. I'm sure there's money and housing... 

Rowan: There's money and housing that you can speak to, the student services that you can speak to. And also like you're saying, speak to your friends. You know, lots of people might be going through this. It is a shared problem. And, you know, it's just so useful to speak to your friends, it might not give you necessarily that advice, but it will give you the comfort that you are not alone.

Vivi: Absolutely, feeling like you're alone is often the biggest problem when you're struggling with something. So reach out to your friends, to your family. Reach out to student support. There are, of course, a myriad of external services. I mentioned gambling because there is a gambling... I don't wanna say crisis, but there's a gambling problem on certain campuses. There are a number of charities like YGam and GamCare that can help. You can Google them. They have anonymous lines. You can chat with them online. So there's plenty of external sources that you can go to. And if you're really, really struggling, there are organisations like the Samaritans that you can make an anonymous call to and just tell them that you need a little bit of help.

Vivi: Life is a difficult thing to navigate. We all struggle with that. This is not particularly a youth thing. This is not a student thing. We've got a complicated world and things are moving really quickly and things are really, really expensive. If you're struggling, ask for some help because chances are there is an awful lot of help out there. There are financial support funds if you've got a problem with money, which, by the way, you don't have when you graduate out there into the big bad world. So if you are struggling, remember you're not alone. Speak to some friends and family to make sure that you know that you're not alone, and then seek the help that you need by just asking for it. No one can help you if they don't know that you are in a little bit of distress. And don't be ashamed and don't be embarrassed about it. We all go through these moments. In fact, we go through them more than once in a lifetime. So just ask for help. The most important thing, don't try and tackle problems that you feel overwhelming. Don't try and tackle them yourself. Ask for help. Worse comes to worse, drop me a DM or LinkedIn and I will be helpful for you. 

Rowan: You might regret saying that. 

Vivi: I might, but I honestly mean it. Sometimes all you need is somebody who says to you, it's going to be okay, I've got your back. Yeah, that big sister advice, someone just saying, you've got this. Yeah, you've got this. No matter how big the problem seems, you've got this, I promise.

Vivi: One of the other things that you can do, in the Blackbullion platform which you all have access to is you can go to the Financial Wellbeing Score, which is a new tool that we've released and within that, after you've plugged in some answers to some questions, the system will analyse and do some sort of technical magic with it, and will tell you where you're strong with money and where you might be a little bit weaker with money and where you might want to spend a little bit of time learning about money. But there is also within the system the ability to ask for help or to be directed to sources of help, whether they are external sources like we've mentioned, like YGam, for gambling or the university. And a lot of times you're able to press a button and get through to the university appropriate service within the university, directly yourself. So you don't even need to do a lot, or go hunting a lot. You can just go straight through the Blackbullion platform. And of course, in the app as well, there are references to all sorts of different support systems. Also, of course, student minds who we work with or partner with, as well. So you're definitely not alone. And we've got your back as well. Yeah.

Rowan: And as someone who's used the financial wellbeing tool, it is great. And it definitely focuses you on areas that you do need to look at. And areas that you think, okay fine, I’m okay there. And yeah. So as someone who's used it, it’s great. 

Vivi: Yay! It's a really great tool. We're really proud of it. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Rowan: Vivi, are you ready? We're now going to be moving on to our Fact or Fiction game. So excited. Let’s do it. Let's go. Let's do it.

"Saving money as a student is basically impossible." Oh, fiction. You absolutely can, even if it's only £5 or £10 a month. Totally worth doing. Habits are most important. They even have on Monzo those saving challenges. You do 1p a day... Yeah, fact, fact.

"There's no point investing until I have loads of money." Fiction. There is no point investing if you can't afford to lose the money, or if you're going to need the money immediately. But again, at uni is a great time to get into good habits if you can.

"There's no point saving because interest rates are low." Fiction. Saving is about getting a stash of cash together. Interest is just bonus. But put it into an ISA and you wont pay any tax.

"Budgeting and goal setting are the same thing." Budgeting is a reflection of your goal setting. So they're not quite the same thing, but they do feed into each other.

"One financial goal at a time is better than trying to do everything." Oh definitely better to do one thing at a time than everything. But you can have goals that don't contradict each other, like you want to have an emergency fund, and you also only want to buy one coffee a month. Those two things do not contradict each other. I guess that's like the short, medium and long term stuff. Yeah, yeah. Perfect.

"Money stress is just part of student life, so there's no point asking for help." Oh, that is so not true. Money stress can be just part of student life, but you should absolutely ask for help.

"If you're struggling financially, university might not be for you." Could be true, a little bit controversial. If you are going to be struggling with money and you're always struggling for money and you can't find enough cash, and the government won't give you enough money to do your degree, and you're not set completely on going to uni, there are loads of other options for you, like apprenticeships, like colleges, like going straight to work, like taking a year out and working, you know, casually until you're ready to do it. University is not for everyone, but money also shouldn't be the primary barrier for it.

"Talking about money struggles make things easier." 100% fact. Not even going to add commentary about why.

PART 2

In part two, we’ll be talking about Budgeting 101. 

The key to making a budget that you will actually stick to is when that money comes into your account, whether that be your grant, your student loan, you know, in that three instalment payment or your salary from your part time job, budget it from that moment. Put that into pots. You might have a Monzo a Revolut account. Put that into pots, say each month might be spending £200 a month on travel, put your money into that pot. Put your money into rent. And really make sure that it’s put into those pots so that you can then make sure you have oversight across your whole budget throughout the month. 

See, I love that because everybody acts like budgeting is really difficult and really technical. And actually budgeting is just about how much money is coming in and how much money is going out, and how can you make sure that there’s more coming in than going out. And the pot, one of the greatest inventions by some of these banks. 

So as you said...put your money into the different things so that you don't overspend on the bits and pieces that suddenly sneak up on you, like you end up buying a coffee every single day. Coffees become really expensive, and we've met students who shop for things like nail polish every day or by Pokemon. 

I recently met somebody who is still buying Pokemon cards on a regular basis which is fine, we’re not judging, but if you budget for that because Pokemon is important then fantastic. Yeah, right. Because then you can spend without any kind of guilt. 

What I think happens is people, they get guilt feelings around their budgeting because it's unexpected money. 

And then I feel bad about it. I've got a real coffee problem. It's a proper addiction. It's like really bad. But I budgeted a certain amount of money, so I get my coffee every day. 

I feel absolutely no guilt over it. 

And that's important to you. So you've put that money aside. Amazing. I love getting my nails done every month, so you know that's something that I really prioritise and I put that money in at the start of the month. I say, there’s my £40, I will get that guilt free. 

Exactly. It really helps. Exactly right. 

Because you don't want to be doing is dipping into an emergency fund. Yeah. To get your nails done. Although sometimes it can be an emergency. 

And if you've got a bit of an emergency fund where things don't quite go to plan and you know what your money's going and you've got a little bit of spareat the end of it. 

That's all budgeting is. 

Yeah, I think people make it way toocomplicated. 

It's also one of the reasonswe built the app, right, is because money management,a lot of the apps out there are like, oh, you can talk to your moneyon a regular basis. 

Nobody wants to talk to their money.They just don't have enough. Yeah. 

And going from one loandrop to the next loan drop, or one salary the next salary orone, you know, scholarship receipt to another one. 

You want to know where the money is.You want to know where it's going. 

You want to know how often it's coming inand you just want to live your life. 

Yeah. So budgetingdoesn't have to be complicated. 

There's no reasonwhy people should feel overwhelmed by it. 

Use the tools that are out there, setup the different pots and treat yourself, whether it's nails or Pokemon cards or coffeeor whatever it is that floats your boat. 

If you've got a little bit of moneyleft over, put it into an emergency fund. 

So when things go wrong,because they know that they do, you've got some moneythat you can tap into. Completely, and something that I startedthis year was using sinking funds. 

I don't know if you've used them, that's been amazing for me.Tell us more. 

So for example, every yearI get really stumped around Christmas because I've got a big family and suddenlyI'm having to buy Christmas presents for everyone. 

And I started this yearputting money aside so I might put £20 a monthinto my Christmas pot. 

I have a holiday pot,so if I, you know, I might be able to go on holiday this year, it might be from that fundthat I put £50 a month into. 

And it means that I don't get stumped. 

And it's not going to meanthat I have to eat beans on toast for the for the month, because I've got to pay for a few flightsor pay for a birthday present. 

Absolutely, sinking funds are great. 

Well done you, well done you. 

I think one of the nice thingsabout the UK, which is not true in a lot of othercountries, is banking is free, right? In a lot of other countriesbanking cost you money. 

So as long as banking is free,you can have an account with Monzo which has all of your potsfor your day to day spending or Revolut or any of the other banks.Yeah, let's be careful. 

Yeah, but then you also have an accountwith Bank A where you're saving for your holidayand Bank B when you're doing Christmasand you put a little bit each month, you don't really notice the money because it's just a little bit hereand a little bit there. 

And then at the end of the year,suddenly there’s £250, which is enough to, you know, to buywhatever it is that you need. 

So lots of ways to split your money up. 

And if you've budgeted well and you've decided how much money you want to have at the end of the month, and then you put itinto all of these different places, then actually you can just get onwith living instead of worrying about every penny. Love that for you.Good for you. I love the out of sight, out of mind, because then you're not tempted, you know,if it's in that other bank or it's in another pot, you see it,you kind of forget it's there. 

Until you - yeah.Look at all this money!

See it's not impossibleto budget as a student at all. 

You just got to be a little bit organisedto set it up and then just let it do its thing. 

I think it’s that organisation yeah. 

I guess when you're thinkingabout essential outgoings, it’s kind of that questionwhether it's like a want or need, I guess and so, your needsthat is your essential outgoings, that’s your rent, your bills. 

That's your travel for example. 

And that should always be allocated first. 

Absolutely. 

When you get that paymentin whether it's your salary or student loan that should be allocatedand you should have real, a real clear idea of where that money is going,what you know, so you don't get stumped. 

So you don't think, I can't pay my rentthis month, like you have to have that... That's kind of, yeah,the starting point. 

And then from there you can then thinkabout kind of the things that you want. 

So yeah, that'sthat would be my advice on that. 

Yeah I agree,I think one of the things that that students struggle withis to know how much those things cost. 

So you, obviously, later on in your university career, so you roughly know how much you'respending on things. 

I would really urgepeople who are new to uni, to have a look at what stuff costsand try and get a handle on it, because a lot of people, especiallyinternational students, may not know that, I don't know, Tesco ischeaper than Marks and Spencers, right? So it's like, oh, the average food bill is £60.Actually, a lot of people get away with it with £30. 

And they use Too Good To Goin order to top it up. 

So having an idea of whatthose standard essential outgoings might cost is really useful. 

And we've built something into Blackbullionwhere we show the different cost of livingin different parts of the country so that you can see what it is expectedto cost in London. 

Now, of course,if you eat steak every day and live on baked beans,we're going to have different expenses. 

But we need to budget accordingly. 

But yeah, totally agree with all of that. 

Yeah. Forewarned... What do they say? Forewarned is foreknown... Yeah. Whatever the expression is. Find out before you get started. 

And budget well.And I would also say err on the side of caution with that,you know, especially with essentials maybe over estimate that andthen you might be left with a little bit extra...rather than under.Which you can put into your sinking fund. 

Absolutely love it. 

Of course we're talking forUni of Law, the university has so much available that I've actuallyhad to pull the list up, did you know that? Tell me, tell me. All right. 

So, we've got the Study Support Fund.The Digital Hardship Fund. 

The Graduation Support Fund. 

Wow. Hello. DSA Equipment Top Up Fund. 

Because we know that equipmentcan cost an absolute fortune. 

The Employability Financial Support Fund and the International StudentsEmergency Fund, which a lot of universities do not dofunding for international students. 

So huge list. 

So well done Uni of Law. 

So you can goand have a look on the websites and search for thoseor just search for funding support. 

And this is important for people to knowif they're in financial stress, or have a little bit of anxiety, there is money, genuinehard core cash out there that can help if people need it. There’s resources out there. Have a look.Absolutely. 

So from my experience, the way thatyou can make your money go further, firstly, always think about those student discounts. 

Whenever you're aboutto make that purchase. 

I know Blackbullion’s got their owndedicated page for that, right? Yep. 

And in the app as well. Yeah. 

And The University of Lawalso has a dedicated page for that. 

Yeah. On their Cost of Living page. 

They have that. 

So studentdiscount is so important. 

You might be making that purchase anyway. 

Have a lookyou might get 10% off. 

Sometimes it's even more than that. 

Sometimes it's like 20% off. 

That can be,that could be your lunch tomorrow. 

You know? I think also people forget thatwe live in some of the, biggest cities in the worldthat offer a whole lot of free stuff. 

And people forget. 

I mean, we're sitting right outin the middle of central London. 

The amount of free stuff that happensevery single weekend in this city is actually crazy. 

People don't realise. Museums are freeand a lot of gigs are free. 

And with summerhopefully coming, you know, there'll be a lot of a lot of activitiesfor that as well, there’s loads of apps. 

I mean, we've mentioned Too Good To Gothat I am personally obsessed with, I think they do phenomenal,phenomenal work. 

But Too Good To Go where you can buy,you know, goods like food and other goodsthat are about to be thrown out because of the way that our,our restaurant laws work. 

So you can go and pick up stuffat a huge discount. 

You've got eBay and Vinted that we spokeabout. Lots of cheap stuff there. 

Yeah. Learn how to cook. 

I'm, like, obsessed with people learninghow to cook. 

I'm going to just saythere are only four recipes all students need. 

What are those? Do you wanna guess? Stir fry. Yeah. Pasta bake. 

Stew. 

And a soup. Yeah. 

And if you can make those four thingsyou're fine. 

You're fine. 

And start cooking with your flatmates. 

Start cooking with your friends.It really, really helps. 

It really cuts down costs. 

It's a really nice social thing to do. 

Totally. Kills loneliness. 

Yeah. Which we're really worried about. 

Really good for your mental health. 

Much better for health. A lot cheaper. 

Hell of a lot cheaper. 

So I absolutely would agree with that. 

I think that you are only limitedby your imagination in saving money. 

And discounts on supermarkets. 

I was about to say that. 

Look for those yellow labels. 

I know we’ve spoken about Too Good To Go, but look for the yellow labelsit’s really useful. 

I mean, you can have a lookand there’s certain times that, you know, just before the stores closing, go in and if you’ve got a local shop, you might be able to work that outand go in every day and you work out...thingsgo for like 30p. 

I've been actually shocked. 

I was at the supermarket yesterdayand I looked down the shelves. 

Just because it's my eye level,because I'm so short. 

And the same rice went from £2.50to £1.50 to 80p at the bottom. 

Yeah, it's all the same stuffit’s just slightly different packaging. Yeah. 

So I think actuallyif you want to make huge savings, the supermarket is the place to go. 

And then shop in Aldi and Lidl and Tesco's and Sainsbury's beforeyou start hitting Marks and Spencers. 

So I think there's loads of waysthat people can save money and if you're living with flatmates, splitthings like washing powders and shampoos and all of those super expensive things,and when you see them bulk on discount, buy them. 100%. Because per 100 mealsor per 100g, yeah, it'll often work out much better if you buy a huge thing ofwashing machine powder... 

And you know, bulk buy those things,like you said, like we bulk buy all our toilet roll

We buy...it’s crazy how much arrives, the box is comical, but it lasts us,you know, a couple of months, and it's so much cheaperthan going to -

Toilet roll is expensive. It really is. Yeah. 

When you're getting it from a corner shop,that really adds up. Yeah. 

And I think that's one of the shocksthat students have with budgeting is that you spent your whole lifewith toilet paper just appearing. 

Yeah. Right? 

And then all of a suddenyou have to go buy it. 

And soap just appeared and washing powderjust appeared. 

And suddenlyyou need to do all of this stuff, and you don't realiseyou need to do all this stuff. 

And so you go to the local corner store where it's going to costyou three times as much money. 

Yeah. 

So as with all things,when it comes to money, a little bit of organisationcan go a huge, huge distance. 

And just as a last point,because I feel like you and I can talk about this for a long time,the expensive items will have huge differencesdepending on when you buy them. 

If you're buying holidays. 

Or you’re buying flightsor if you're buying even train tickets like London to Manchester,you can pay £400 which is insane, for last minute ticket,but you'll pay £200 if you're buying it a monthin advance. 

So just be a little bit organised,save the money in advance and then you can take advantage of thatas well. 

Being disorganised when it comes to moneycan be very, very expensive. 

Completely agree. 

So one of the reasons that we built the Blackbullion app wasn'tjust for like daily money management, but there are very distinct patternswhen it comes to student spending. 

Also, by the way, things like gamblingand missing direct debits, there are very distinct patterns for that,and they tend to align, although not completely,with the student loan drop. 

And so being able to seewhen expenses are coming up, like unusual expenses or annual expensesthat we don't always track. 

So like your mum's birthday, you can put thatinto the calendar function within the app. 

And then you know that it'sthree months away or six months awaywhen you want to buy her, I don't know, flowers or an overseas trip,whatever it is that you do for your mum. 

But you can see that in advance. 

But then you also know for example,that you need to buy new textbooks for one of your coursesa couple of times a year, or there are tripsthat you need to be taking. 

There's work experience or internshipsthat are coming up, and suddenly you need a lot more money for transport,a lot more money for for lunch. 

And so again, you can do it as a potand you can put in those, you know, those funds in there or it's just a matter of knowingthat those expenses are coming up. 

And so you have fewer manicuresor you buy less coffee or whatever it is. 

But there are definitely patternsto our spending. 

And the challengewhen you miss those is it can be really expensive eventsor really expensive expenses that all of a sudden you have to scrambleand try and find some money for. 

So if you are being intentionalwith your money, which you should be because it's your moneyand you want to make sure it does the work that you want it to do, and thenkeeping an eye on the regular patterns is really, really importantfor feeling in control. 

Yeah. No, I completely agree. 

And I definitely do thatwith the pots. 

I know I was speaking about that a few times, but pots are a life saverand I do that with my groceries actually. 

I say, you know, I might be spending £30a month on, £30 pounds a week, sorry, I know...

Are we living in the same world?

I might put those pounds a week aside,and then I have that guilt free amount that I could spend on those,on shopping that week. 

Yeah, absolutely. 

Let me ask you,how do you manage with impulse purchasing?

Because you seem super organisedwith your pots and your sinking funds and it's all really great. 

But impulse shopping has been...

Shops are designedto force us into buying that thing, just before we get to the counter.Every single online store is like, oh, did you just want this little thingjust before you go. 

What's your trick for avoiding that?

Oh God, it's hard. It's really hard. 

I was definitely,definitely worse for it when I, you know, a couple of years agowhen I started uni and it's so hard to... you always feel like you've got to, like,keep up with the trends. 

It's so hard. 

And I think maybe I'm getting better at it, but I'm still I'mstill kind of marketing's best friend. 

I think in some in some ways.I do try these days, if I want something,if I see something in the shop or I get an Instagram ad, I try and think, I'm going to leave this 24 hours, maybe,maybe even longer. 

Do I actually want that?

Like, is it going to addto my wardrobe or my life, or like, do I need this?

And I know noteverything has to be a need. 

Like you're allowed to have wants. 

You're allowed to like, buy things that you thinkthat's going to make me feel really good. 

That dress is, I'm going to lookamazing in that, and I want to buy that. 

But I think it's about doing thatpause and thinking, am I just amI feeling a little bit low right now? And I just want a bit of like a dopamine hit. 

Or do I actually want that?

And often once you sleep on it,you work out. 

Yeah. And often the answer is no. 

My biggest problem is when I'm in bedscrolling and doomscrolling and I did your really goodbecause I have no self-control when it comes to these things. 

I disconnected my PayPal. 

Yeah, and I put in the longest password for ASOS and I've got the world'sworst memory. 

So what it meant isif I wanted to buy something that I saw, I had to get out of a warm bed,go to the living room, log on to the laptop, and just the thought of that was like,I can't be bothered, I'll deal with it tomorrowand then tomorrow, because you don't want it anymore. 

Yeah, but I just think it's all of the technologyhas been built to make it so easy. 

Yeah. Everyone's like,oh it's fantastic. It's two tap. 

Yeah that's great for PayPal. 

Yeah it's actually really bad for us. 

I've had to actually put thingslike actual barriers in place for myself,like disconnecting the PayPal account. 

Has made all the difference. 

That's a great idea. 

And my password forASOS I think has like 45 characters. 

Literally, there's no way I can do itin bed. 

That obstacle just helps...Yeah. 

And one of my categorisations in the appwith Blackbullion is ASOS Spending and it's gone from like,I'm not going to say how much moneya month, down to like £0. 

And it means you don't then a monthlater end up selling it on Vinted. 

I know. Because you didn'tactually need it to begin with. 

And you know whatthat is really helped me as well, because I'm looking at allthese clothes that I bought and I think, you know, I didn't really need this. 

I just wanted it for that one event. 

Yeah. So and now I'm having to sell it. 

Or give it to charity, which,which is great too. 

I'm like,you know, I'm all about buying secondhand and giving back to charity or selling iton Vinted like, what's the saying? Like, your trashis another man’s treasure...

And you paid £80 for the treasure

And then they pay £5 for the trash right?

Yeah sure.So like, cut it at the source maybe. 

Well you can rent dresses now. 

And suits. It’s not just a girl thing. 

You can, you canrent all sorts of clothes today. 

It makes a difference. There's so many apps for that. 

And it's great. It's really great. 

So my quick wins are to let technology do the heavy lifting. 

And if you see me talking about anythingit's always about that. 

Tech these days can makean enormous difference to every element of your financial life. 

So the first thing is, if you're not using standing ordersand direct debits for stuff you are making your life just so muchmore difficult than it needs to be. Set up standing orders or direct debitsdepending on what what you need for every single one of your regular expensesand for your savings. 

So that you are never touching your money. 

You obviously need to make surethat the money is there for when the money is being taken out. 

And the Blackbullion appcalendar function can help with that. 

But certainly make sure that you are usingthe various technology elements in order to make your life easier,and plan your life accordingly. 

So if you know that it'sthe 30th of the month, you will have completely run out of money and you've been eating bakedbeans the last couple of days because the loan drop doesn'thappen until next week. 

Be careful planning huge weekendsif you don't have the money, because what tends to happenis you'll then blow all of this cash and then the studen loan will come inand a bunch of that money has to go back to the friends that you borrowed fromor whatever the case may be. 

So not saying to not enjoy your life,obviously you need to, but if you know that you've got a friend'sbirthday party on the 30th of the month and the chances are you're not gonna haveany cash, earlier on in the month, set aside some moneyso that you can have a great time. 

What you don't want while you're at uni is have to shrinkyour life all the way down. 

Uni is not the time to be going MichelinStarred or shopping on Bond Street. 

But you should absolutely be livingas much as is humanly possible, grabbing every opportunity,going to every single event. 

But a lot of those things will cost money. 

So set aside a pot,maybe with a little bit of savings so that you've got the money,there when you need it. 

And technology can really help. 

Set up a standing order for £10, £20, £30 a week, a month, whatever it is,and then spend that money guilt free. 

Yeah. 

I think it is just aboutbeing intentional about it. You can't, you might not be able to go toevery single event that you want to go to go to most I would say very muchgo to as much as you can, but you might have to make a few choicesand think, I'm going to prioritise that over this, and which one's going to give me more joy?Which one am I going to get more from,and have a think about that. 

Absolutely. 

And also remember, chances areyour friends don't want to blow all their moneyeither. Yeah. 

How many things do we go to because we think our friends want to go, and they’re goingbecause they think that we want to go and its the same with buying rounds of drinksand going out all night, chances are, actually, if you have an honest conversationwith your good friends, you discover life is a lot cheaper than you thinkit can be. 

One thing that's really useful in the Blackbullionwebsite is the Money Mindset Quiz like that was so insightful. 

I'm really glad. 

Do you remember who you were?

Oh, God, I'm trying to think who I was. 

I can't remember now, but I rememberbeing like, whoa, there's definitely. 

And it makes you look inwards a little bit, and thinkare there areas that I need to improve on and there are areas I'm doing really well in. 

Because I think it is aboutcelebrating as well where you are doing well. Yeah,absolutely. 

I think the key to financial educationis actually being able to recognise how you respond to certain thingsand how you relate to things. 

And when it comes to risk, yeah. 

People have very different opinionson that when it comes to debt, people have very different opinionsabout that. 

And so a lot of financial educationisn't about learning what debt is. 

It's about learning your attitude towardsit and then making it work for you. 

And same for savings and same for budgeting. 

It's why I left finance because the thing about finance is the assumptionis that everybody is exactly the same. 

And actually, especially now, actually,we are 65 million people as opposed to being one population, because you'lllook at money very differently to me, because you're earning differently. 

You're younger, you've got a different riskprofile, you've got different everything. 

So financial education is really for us to know ourselvesand how we relate to money. 

And if you understand yourselfand how you relate to money, you become the master of that moneyinstead of its slave. 

But that is just the absolute for me. 

That's why I'm building a company. 

Yeah, absolutely.And yeah, it's a great tool. 

And I've given it to my friendsand be like, we've, we've done it, we've all done it. 

And we've like discussed the answersoften, like, it's great, it's great. 

You make me happy. 

Yeah. 

So very much recommendwhoever wants to have a look at the Money Mindset. 

Absolutely. 

And now we're going to go into the Factand Fiction. 

Let's go. 

You should avoid budgetingbecause it restricts your fun at university. 

Budgeting helpswith the fun at university because it means you know how much money you've got,and you're not panicking at 3 o clock in the morningthat you don't have any money. 

So no budgeting makes everything better. 

It's really boring,but it makes everything better. 

Luckily, we built the Blackbullion app to make your life easier. 

Check it out, guys. 

Absolutely. Fact. 

Buying coffeesevery day will ruin your budget. 

Buying coffee every day If it's not budgetedfor will ruin your budget. 

What you can't do is have coffeeand a pint and go to the movies and travel overseasand get a brunch every single day. 

But that's whyyou need to set up a budget, so you focus on the thingsthat are important to you, and leave aside thingsthat are less important to you. 

You can never have everythingthat you want in this life. 

This is not just true for students. 

This is true for all of us.Nobody can have everything that they want. 

If you don't earn much, there's not much pointsetting up a budget. 

Absolutely not. 

The reality is thatpeople who are on the lowest salaries, or have the least amount of money,are often the best budgeters in the world. 

I have no idea how much milk costs,because I'm in a privileged position where I goand I tap my card and I buy milk. 

Somebody who's on a super low incomewill know exactly how much milk costs, and they'll know how much it coststo cross the road, and they'll know what days it's cheaper. 

So know everybody should have a budgetno matter how much money you have. 

Unplanned spending is the biggest reasonthat students are bad with money. 

I don't think it's the biggest reason,but I think that it doesn't help. 

Again, if you have a budget,you know where your money is going. 

You can be better with your money. 

But the truth is there are studentswho simply don't have enough cash and no matter howwell you budget after you paid your rent, if you only have £20left over, that's not a budgeting problem. 

That's a lack of money problem. 

So you have to figure outwhether it's a budgeting issue or whether it's a lack of money issue. 

If it's a budgeting issue,then budget better. 

If it's a lack of money issue,then you might want to go speak to the universityabout how to access more funding. 

Budgeting apps automatically fix bad money habits. 

Fiction. 

Budget is only as goodas the person who is using it. 

Just like a weight loss program. 

Just because you have the best dietin the world, it's not going to help you lose weightonce you actually follow it. 

Budgeting is exactly the same. 

So no, but the Blackbullion appis one of the best in the market for students. 

Facts. Fact. 

A budget must be super detailed to work. 

No, fiction. 

I don't think it needs to at all. 

You mentioned pots earlier what I actually dois I give myself X amount of money in a week, and I just spendwhatever I want with that money. 

But when the money, when money's at zero,I stop spending. 

So you either need to budgetfor every single thing, or you have pots to budgetfor different things, or you allow yourselfhow ever much money you have that month. 

But when you run out of cash, you stopand you have to be disciplined. 

There's multiple ways of doingor doing budgeting. 

Yeah, and it's whatever works best for you. 

As is the casewith all things to do with money. 

Absolutely. 

Fact. Once you break your budget,you’ve failed. Give up. 

No! Bunch of nonsense. 

Failure, first of all, failure is a part of life. 

Second of all, you're going to screw upon your budget every once in a while. 

That's just life. 

And also sometimes lifejust periodically will get more expensive. 

It will get cheaper. 

Or you’ll decide you're not drinking coffee anymore,or you decide you're changing courses. 

The trick is to adapt your moneyto your life. 

Not necessarily your life to your money.

PART 3

So in part three now, we're going to be talking about Future Ready Finances. The best things students can do to set themselves up financially for after they graduate is to shift mindset from uni into the so-called “real world”. The graduation world is very, very different, but some of the rules stay the same. 

So the first is the emergency fund goes from trying to get like £500 together to trying to get a couple of months worth of living expenses together, because at uni, if something goes wrong, there are loads of support funds and people that can help. And that's less true in the workplace. So if you can get a month, ideally two to three months of living expenses, that means that you have some funds to dip into if you lose your job, which is kind of a yucky thing to talk about. But in our world, we'd be foolish to pretend like it never happens. So if you've got two or three months of living expenses, then you can pay your rent for the few months while you're looking for a new job, put food on the table, and the like. So that’s the first switch: go from having a couple hundred pounds on campus to having three months worth of money in the job market. 

The other thing to do is to get a handle over your student loan. The student debt that you have, you will start to repay that. Once you graduate, it is going to be automatically deducted from your salary. As things stand right now, it's over £25,000. So if you're earning £25,001, it's only that £1 that will get taxed. But these things are subject to change, so make sure that you check the most current numbers. It will come directly out of your salary. If you are not earning or if you are earning in some other way, like you're a consultant or contractor, then make sure that you are staying on top of your obligation to the government because they absolutely will come after you for this money. So don't try—this is not one of those places to try it on. Keep an eye on your student loans. 

The other thing is, because you are all going to get awesome jobs, you're also going to get a payslip. And this is going to be the first time that you're going to look at one of these pieces of paper, and chances are, you're not going to understand what on earth is going on there. So you want to have a look at things like gross and net pay. Gross pay is the total that you are supposed to get. Net is what you actually get after you pay for your student loan, for your taxes, for your national insurance, and for any other expenses that are getting taken out at the point at which you are getting paid. So your company that employs you will deduct this money automatically, but on your payslip it'll show all of that. 

You will also be what is known as auto-enrolled into a pension. You can opt out of this, it is not compulsory, but you have to opt out—you don't opt in, so it will be automatically deducted from your salary. Don't think of it as a deduction because it is your money; it's just going into your pension. And the employer will also be contributing to your pension, and the government will be contributing to your pension. So don't think of it as an expense. Think of it as just another saving pot, but you will see it on your payslip. 

It is worth spending five minutes looking at the payslip, because companies also make mistakes and the government can make an error in what's known as your tax code, which will show on the payslip. The tax code determines how much tax you pay, or it's an indicator of how much tax you pay, so you want to make sure that that's right. Also keep a very close eye on your student loan, because that will also show up on the payslip. So those would be the big things to do right off the bat. There's a whole bunch of different things you should be doing financially once you graduate compared to while you're at university, but those would be your big three to start with. 

I completely agree, and I think it's so important to have a look at that payslip and really understand it. You can Google a lot of this stuff. You might see a tax code that you don't recognise—stick it into Google and see what it says, or email HR and see what they say as well. So it's really important to check through that payslip and understand it. 

Absolutely. This is not one of those things you want to pretend to never see. Really important to keep an eye on your money. It’s your money—make sure you know where it's coming from and how much of it is coming into your pocket. It’ll be less than you think. 

So after you graduate, there's going to be any number of changes. The first of course is that you now get a monthly income, which is awesome. But your monthly expenses are also going to probably go up, because a lot of uni life, even though it doesn't feel like it, is subsidised to a certain degree. You have those student discounts that we've spoken about that you no longer have, so a whole bunch of things that weren't that critical while you were studying suddenly become really, really important. 

Something else I'm just going to mention, too, is it's a really good time to start thinking about your credit score. You can actually start building that while you're at uni, and we're about to release a new partnership where you can do that while you're at uni. So just something to kind of bear in mind. 

But if you are now working, there's going to be this great impulse all of a sudden to go crazy on money. This is a good time to revisit your budget, reallocate your funds, reallocate your pots, rethink about your emergency fund so that, again, you're just taking that step up in your life. So instead of “earning” through the student loan 2k or 3k, you're now making 3k or 4k a month, we hope, in which case there's more money to play with. So you can put more money into an emergency fund, you could put more money into a stocks and shares ISA (which hopefully at this point you will have set up), and you can top up your pension a little bit if you want to. 

Then be really mindful of your expenses, because people do tend to go a little bit nuts on what they're spending after receiving their first payslip. Yeah, go crazy, go and buy the shoes. But remember that every single month you need to be paying a certain amount, and this is the time to start putting money away for later. 

And a good number to remember is £130. If you put away £130 every single month into your stocks and shares ISA ideally, you will have £1 million pounds at 67. So, yeah, it's not a huge amount, but you've got to have the time, so start early the second you're earning that first paycheck. 

And I guess it's all about that lifestyle creep. It's so easy to go, "Wow, I'm getting all this money and I'm just going to keep spending it." But actually, yeah, you're right—you should budget, just chill a little bit, and it comes back to what we were saying earlier about long-term planning. If you want to own a house, go travel, start a business, or start a family, then if you're earning more money, how much of that money is going to help you get to your goals that much faster? One of the biggest pitfalls is all of a sudden going, "I've got all of this money, I'm going to go and blow all of it on whatever." First paycheck: absolutely fine, treat yourself, life is for living, all that stuff is great. But the first thing you should be doing is setting up the savings account, setting up your investment account, and putting your money into your pension. 

When it comes to the student loan, don't pay off your student loan early unless you're sitting on £75k. At that point, get some advice, but before that, just consider it a little bit of an extra tax. Once you're earning at the higher end of the market, then find out whether you should be paying it back early. But that's really the things to keep an eye on as you’re going through. Yeah, absolutely. 

Once again, we're now going to do our Fact and Fiction. Excited! 

"Once you graduate, you should have all your finances figured out." 

Oh my God, it's such a fiction. At no point in anybody's life do they have their finances totally sorted out, and life changes all the time. Your money changes all the time. What you should try and do is every year, or every six months, sit down and audit your money. Where is it going? Are things correct? By the way, if you're in a couple, you should be doing this twice a year: open a bottle of wine and sort through your money together, and then six months later, do it again, because life changes all the time. And the idea that anything is static, especially money in this world, is crazy. 

"It's okay not to have a proper job immediately after university." 

Yes, it's fine. I mean, it also depends how we're classifying proper jobs, right? But earning money after university, you definitely want to be doing that because the safety net will disappear, unless you're lucky enough to have a mum and dad or somebody else that can support you. You do want to be getting into the workplace faster rather than slower. This is just the world that we're in now—it's a highly competitive world and a tough graduate market. But it's not essential-essential, though it's definitely preferable. 

And even if it's a bartending job or a waitressing job...in lots of the "proper jobs" I applied to, I spoke about all my waitressing. It’s one of the main things I speak about in interviews.

"Living at home after university can be a financially good step." 

Fact. I think not everybody is lucky enough to be able to do that. Not all families are able to support, and not all families have a good enough relationship. But certainly in those early days after graduation, the more money you can save in order to get yourself sorted, the better. But it also depends on the relationships that you have, and whether living at home means that you're living somewhere far away from the job market. There’s a lot of considerations that should be given to that, but certainly the more money you can save in those early days, the better. 

"Your first graduate salary should cover everything straightaway." 

Ideally, your job should cover your life—that should always be true, unless you've got somebody who's able to support you. I would encourage all young people to pursue financial independence. It's an important thing because it means you can make your own decisions. If you have your own money, you can go for a weekly manicure or a monthly brunch; if you're spending other people's money, then how you spend that money is no longer up to you, it's up to other people. So your first job is unlikely to pay huge amounts of money, although some professions do, but you should certainly be aiming for a job that can cover all of your expenses. That has traditionally been the point of a job. 

What about entry-level jobs in certain sectors that are paying less than £30k in London? What do we do there? 

It's not an easy thing to do. When I first moved to the UK, I lived with four flatmates. People want all of the positive stuff of being financially independent while not necessarily having all of the money. If you're not earning enough money, fact: you probably can't afford everything that you want, and that's just the reality of the world that we live in. We need to get past this idea you can have everything—that's just nonsense and not true, unless you’re Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, and even Jeff Bezos can't have everything he wants. And social media doesn't help with that. No, it does not; that's a whole other conversation. Fact. 

"Budgeting matters less once you're earning full-time income." 

No, fiction. Budgeting is a critical skill to be doing from the moment that you are able until the moment that you die. The amount of money that you are earning and spending dramatically changes, and your wealth may change because you might have more assets, but how you spend your money will always be important. I have a mentor who is worth tens of millions of dollars, and he was just talking to me about how he budgets. So no, budgeting just never ends; get good at it now. Use the Blackbullion app, but budgeting is for life—you just get better at it. 

"It's okay to say no to those after-work drinks, the Thirsty Thursdays." 

110%. Chances are a lot of people can't afford to do after-work drinks anyway. So you're going because you think I'm going, and I'm going because I think you're going, when actually both of us would be quite happy to go have a coffee instead. Talk to your friends and have honest conversations about money.