If you are a student, then returning to your parents’ home after the end of an academic year can feel like a mixed blessing. Sure, you no longer have to spend hours typing out hugely lengthy essays or panicking about fast-approaching exams. However, shortly after attempting to let your hair down again, you could be reminded of many of the drawbacks of pre-university life.
So, yes, you can now hand the laundry responsibilities back over to your mother, while spending hours binge-watching Game of Thrones is a possibility at last. However, you could also stumble across a lot of nasty expenses that, naturally, wouldn’t be entirely welcome if, as is likely, you are already chronically short of cash. Here are some tips that can help relieve the financial sting.
Apply for a council tax discount if it is available
MoneySavingExpert.com details various options for cutting households’ council tax obligations. While discounts and benefits for council tax payers can vary between areas of different local authorities, here are some basic rules that are applicable anywhere in the UK…
If you are a full-time student living with at least two other students, there’s no need for you to pay council tax. Live with one non-student? Then you can be disregarded; the other resident can apply for a potential discount of 25% like they live alone.
Save big money on a Mac or iPad
Apple products can be very expensive, yet you might need – or, at least, benefit from – one for your future studies. Fortunately, for university students, the Apple website offers big discounts on Macs and iPads. At the time of writing, you can save as much as £434 when you buy a new Mac with an AppleCare insurance package and a maximum of £59 when purchasing a new iPad.
Macs tend to be favoured over Windows PCs for particular creative tasks such as graphic design and video-editing. Meanwhile, if your course is in illustration, you could be excited by the prospect of using the Apple Pencil to draw right onto the display of an iPad Pro.
Get Microsoft Office for free
Another productive task you can engage in on a Mac or iPad – or, for that matter, Windows device – is using Microsoft Office. This is still commonly seen as the gold standard in productivity software suites; Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all part of Microsoft Office, which you could get for free.
That can be a real boon for writing essay after essay. To start benefitting, head to the relevant page of the Microsoft website, enter your academic email address, log in via your institution’s online portal, and then – assuming you are genuinely eligible – you can soon start downloading the software for free.
Enjoy a 50% discount on ad-free music streaming
Being back home is a great opportunity to start binging on music – and, these days, streaming is often the preferred method of accessing music. You can register with Spotify, the market leader in streaming music, for free; however, you will have to hear occasional adverts between tracks.
Thankfully, students can enjoy a £5 reduction on Spotify’s usual monthly charge of £9.99 for ad-free streaming. This same discount is available for student users of Apple Music, another major streaming service that, unlike Spotify, does not offer a free tier.
Need car insurance? Consider short term or temporary cover
For young people with little driving experience, car insurance costs can be extortionate. However, if you don’t genuinely need a car right through the summer, occasionally taking out short term or temporary car insurance from the broker Call Wiser may suffice.