Browse all cards
Thousands of students will be heading off to university this September. But with average living costs of £807 per month, 79% of students worry about making ends meet at university says the 2019 National Student Money Survey. There’s plenty you can do to help though, including packing your student off with a Town and City Gift Card.
For most students, university is their first experience of budgeting and it can be tough. 1 in 6 students have never budgeted before. The average maintenance loan in the UK is £540, meaning most students need to find an extra £267 each month just to live. Over half of their monthly living allowance each month goes on rent.
Scottish students tend to fare a little better as their living costs tend to be lower at £774, whilst Welsh students get by on £650 per month. As you might expect, the most expensive place to be a student is London, with monthly living costs of £900.
And when funds are dipping low, it seems that students save money on the one thing they think they can do without; food. Respondents to the survey admitted to feeling down about having a limited budget for food and to knowing people that don’t eat properly. Over half said money worries affected their mental health.
Whilst cash can easily be frittered away, a Town and City Gift Card can be spent with local businesses in the student’s university town. It’s like a rainy day back up, ready and waiting for when they need it.
You can buy a Town and City Gift Card for most of the UK’s biggest and best university towns, including Glasgow, Cardiff, Sheffield, Cambridge, Bath, Edinburgh, Exeter, York, Bournemouth, St. Andrews, Wolverhampton, Chichester, Bournemouth, Belfast, Gloucester and Leicester.
Best of all though, the Town and City Gift Card can be used on a wide range of services, from those you’d expect like cafes and restaurants, to clothes, supplies for university, leisure equipment, even a night at the cinema! The businesses registered vary in each town, so just take a look at your chosen gift card programme to see what your student could spend their card on.
In most cases, there’s a good mix between major retailers and small independents. In Cambridge for example, your student can nip to Topshop for new jeans and to Signorelli’s Deli for some freshly baked bread, to Cambridge University Press Bookshop for course books and to Costa for a restorative coffee. Cards can be used across multiple retailers like a debit card until the amount loaded runs out.
There’s a lot you can do to help prepare your student for university life. Talking about budgeting, setting them up with the living from home essentials like bed linen, towels, laundry and kitchen items. And for anything they’ve forgotten, they can rely on their Town and City Gift Card.
