HOW TO… start a blog
1. Introducing the concept of your blog
Every week we’re going to update this blog with a ‘How to…’ specific to our time at university, with the intention of saving you money as to never miss out on your full student experience. As self-confessed shopaholics and generally irresponsible student finance recipients, we’re hoping this blog will help us over the coming year as much as it helps you! Expect updates about ways we’ve tried to budget our weekly activities, including organising an upcoming Halloween party, decorating your university room, attending cheap gigs and experiencing everything Leeds as a city has to offer on a budget! We hope you find our suggestions useful and that they provide you with some ideas you may not have thought of for student survival! Think: even if we only save you £5 a week, that’s almost £50 by Christmas… and we will definitely have some ideas about how you can spend that!
2. Introduce yourselves
Alex: To all you fellow spenders, know that from now on you are not alone in your endeavours. Having spent the entirety of last year considering my student loan limitless (only to have maxed out my overdraft by July), I figured I’d start attempting a budget this year. Needless to say this has been quite a struggle even though it’s only October! I’m hoping that with this blog we’ll manage to crawl our way out of this black hole of debt and join ‘The Land of the Financially Secure’, whose residents are granted the ability to splash out on that new pair of platforms in Topshop. I’m hoping that we can help all of you save that little bit extra and that you find our blog as enjoyable to read as we will to write it.
Laura: Hi girls! I’m one half of the team that will be writing this blog. As second years, friends and flatmates, Alex and I are hoping we’ll make a good team… or you’ll see the online destruction of our friendship come about with the pressures of blog writing! So, basically, this is our way of moving at snail’s pace into what we’ve heard people call adulthood (denial is a wonderful place). By recording our finds here every week in photos and instructions, we want to create the ultimate guide on ‘How to Budget and Remain Fabulous at University’. Be warned – there will be an obvious weakness for all things Disney, glittery and anything which makes us feel like we could be main characters of Sex and The City one day. You love us already, right?
3. Find your Readers
We’ve written for Her Campus over the last year, so we’re hoping the site’s regular readers will enjoy our blog and, of course, anyone who has just stumbled across our attempted words of wisdom. If anyone has any suggestions for themes in the coming weeks, please comment below and we’ll definitely give it a go. Keep reading! :)
By Alex Farley-Wood and Laura Roche