How to Create a College-Friendly Budget 

Budgets are an easy - and necessary - way to track how you are earning and spending money. By keeping a record of your income and expenses, you can learn about your money management habits and adjust your budget to fit your goals! Here are examples of potential income and expenses during college:

Smart About Money (SAM) offers a helpful overview of college-friendly budgeting in their How Not to Go Broke in College presentation that you can watch here! To create your budget, SAM recommends going old-school with Excel, using the free Mint budgeting app or the free tools offered by your bank.

Finally, when setting financial goals, it’s important they SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely. This will help ensure that you are setting yourself up for success! For example, “I am going to save at least $5 every week to build up my emergency savings to at least $260 over the next 12 months.”