Memoir of a Shopaholic

“Shopping feeds my soul but empties my purse”

Memoir of a broke girl

I’m sure many of us have heard this and lots of us are guilty of using it, the infamous “I’m broke…student budget”. The last bit, “student budget”, needs no introduction and no explaining, as chances are the person you’re speaking to is well familiar with that situation. As a student I find myself using this line more I’d like to. Sometimes I genuinely can’t make plans with someone because I’d rather spend those last cents on something that I really need instead of something that I want. And then other times, now let’s admit we’ve all done this, I use “Sorry I can’t, I’m broke, you know student budget” as an excuse to get out of a lunch date that didn’t really want to attend in the first place.

As “student budget” makes for a good excuse, the situation is quite sad. It’s heart breaking when you tag along to the mall and those shoes and bags, and well everything, that you’ve been eyeing for a while are suddenly on sale, it’s like the fashion gods have conspired to make a sad situation worse.

Like many students I too have a part time job but for some reason it’s money in, money out. Many parents love to believe that all of our money goes to shoes and what they love to call “unnecessary things you don’t need”. And, I’ll admit sometimes I do buy the odd item which I could do without, but other times most of my money goes to varsity.

How? How they ask, university fees are paid for and textbooks and novels are in your bag, what more do you need. Now here, this is where most of my money goes to. You now those lecture notes? Those things I need to study from, well they need printing, and all those essays and assignments that need handing in, well those need printing too. And because this isn’t first year, tutorial preparation and rough drafts and consultation notes all need to be printed to. And as I have not 1, not 2 or 3 modules but 6 modules my printing fees are pretty high.

What I’ve learnt, the next time your parents are moaning on and on about you not having money show them everything you’ve printed this far and add it up for them. It keeps them quiet, I guarantee.

  

Happy broke girl’ing!