Budget 2015: How to budget for a PhD student with no money left

posted by donna. , on , No Comments


It sort of snuck up on me - but not really - that my scholarship is close to ending (life of a phD student :().
On top of that, I've realised that I need to save a little bit extra for my epic post-thesis trip, so that I can still have a little bit of money leftover in my "future fund".
So instead of thinking about all that money I should have saved, I'm going to take the approach of what can I do going forward to maximise my funds and the answer is of course to start budgeting and expense tracking.

Now these are both things I've dabbled with in the past, but as more of a fun side project than a ZOMG IF I DON'T BUDGET I'M GOING TO BE BROKE kind of thing.
So I took a couple of hours to think about what kind of cash I'd likely have coming in and going out and did it all up in a good ol' excel spreadsheet.
I found IHeart Organising printables pretty helpful in setting it all up (see link)
And I'm currently using the Wally iPhone app to track expenses. So far so good :)

I did my budget for the next 6 months on a month by month basis - simply because my income is going to change on a month by month basis (sadface).

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Incoming
  • Calculating this was pretty easy since I'm pretty certain I'll be getting the rest of my scholarship until the end of February, and I know I'll be taking at least one two-hour tutorial.
  • I've been a bit more conservative here and didn't add in any money for marking (just in case I don't get any :P) 
  • There's also the possibility of red pocket money and end-of-phD money, but i'm going to pretend they're bonuses

Outgoing 
So my major expense categories include:
  • Fixed expenses 
    • Utilities: mobile phone bills, and the household bills I currently pay for (because it would be mean to stop paying them) 
    • Transportation: fuel and bus tickets (this isn't really fixed for me, but I calculated it as such; thankfully car rego and insurance isn't in this half year)
    • Savings: I thought it better to set aside a predetermined savings goal to make sure I could have a more flexible trip budget 
    • Occupation-related: university fees, registration fees (this is really what's killing me)
  • Variable expenses 
    • Food: Groceries and going out - I've allocated myself around $20 per week for groceries, and $25 per week for going out (we'll see how this goes :P)
    • Household items: Haven't really budgeted for this...I probably should 
    • Gifts: A few birthdays coming up so I've budgeted for those, just in case 
    • Entertainment: see note for household items 
    • Medical/health: most of these have been taken care of pre-budget, fingers crossed nothing major comes up ;P
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So with the current budget, as it stands I still have a little flexibility for those items I didn't account for. 
It starts 29th January and I'm kind of excited to see if I can actually stick to it.
I hope posting this will keep me in check :P



&
donna.