Leon Isaacs, Marketing Director of international money transfer service MoneyGram® offers financial advice to students who are planning to study abroad.
Working out a budget to suit your finances and sticking to it is the key to survival. Financial independence is all about being accountable for your spending and it is easy to slip up when using a different currency. Most of your budget can be sketched out at home and finalised after several weeks abroad. Firstly, check out the exchange rate and see how far the pound will stretch.
Work out your total funds available through student loans, parental contribution or your own savings. Decide whether you are staying for a year or returning home at the end of each term – you can either have one budget or three.
Calculate the costs for:
• College fees;
• Travelling to and from your destination, such as flights, ferries and trains;
• Accommodation – if it has yet to be finalised, get an estimate;
• Other significant expenses such as holidays or course materials.
Add at least 10 per cent to the total for the unexpected.
Whatever funds remain will have to cover food, clothes, going out, daily transport costs, fuel and phone bills so work out a daily budget.The hard part is sticking to your budget. Studying abroad is a tremendous opportunity and most people think they shouldn’t miss out on anything. However one of the challenges of living abroad is dealing with the unexpected. No matter how well life is planned, there are times when cash is needed in a hurry. MoneyGram® helps a lot of students when the unexpected occurs. Sometimes a wallet has been lost or stolen, or someone gets an unexpected bill. Often, it’s for happier reasons, like a ski pass or a weekend away.”
The MoneyGram® service
MoneyGram is an instant money transfer service that enables individuals to send and receive cash either domestically or internationally in just 10 minutes, without the need for a bank account or credit card. The service is available in over 150 countries world wide including numerous destinations in Europe and North America. Charges for the service are scaled according to the amount being sent.
The transfer is easy. Senders take cash into a MoneyGram® agent – in the UK these are the Post Office and Thomas Cook. ID such as a passport is required for all transfers via Thomas Cook and when sending over £500 via the Post Office. The sender will be given a reference number to give to the receiver. They can also provide a test question (eg what is your mother’s maiden name?) so the receiver can be identified. The receiver then goes to their nearest MoneyGram® agent, usually a bank or bureau d’exchange and collects the cash after providing the reference number and answering the test question.
