If you’re a student, flying the nest to go off to uni for the first time is massively exciting, but it can also leave you feeling a little overwhelmed. Not only do you have to navigate your way around a new city, a new course and new friendship groups – it’s also probably the first time you’ll be managing all your finances on your own.
With little in the way of practical money skills taught at school, it’s no wonder that you may feel thrown in at the deep end of the financial pool. You’re expected to know how to manage the purse strings, with added pressures thrown in, like having to take on a part-time job, get good grades and squeeze in a little time (and money) for socialising. It’s a tall order – especially when you consider that traditional banking doesn’t exactly make managing your money easy.
Introducing spending analytics 📲
Unlike traditional banks that only offer you monthly statements, the Revolut app breaks down your spending by categories and then groups them into useful sections like transport, restaurants, groceries and so on. This makes it super easy to track what your money gets spent on and helps you to adjust your budget, so that you always have enough left to cover rent, books, takeaways, pints and the like.
The app also shows you your real-time balance 24/7 rather than having to wait hours for your account to update. So if you’ve got a last minute invite to a party – you’ll be able to quickly check the money you’ve got left to play with.
It’s time to learn about budgeting 💸
According to the Student Money Survey, 84% of students worry about how they’ll make ends meet, with 1 in 5 never having budgeted before.
We know that budgeting isn’t going to be one of the highlights of uni, but if you don’t have a solid understanding of your income and outgoings, you won’t be able to handle future expenses – or deal with any unexpected surprises. Urgent train ticket home perhaps? A higher electricity bill than you planned for? It might be boring, but a little financial planning will start you off on the right foot towards a healthy bank balance.
Use our budgeting tool to tell us how much you want to spend each month, then we’ll help you stick to it. With handy reminders and spending notifications, it’s a whole lot easier to stay on top of your outgoings.
Painless savings? We’ve got you covered 💰
So you’re a student and you’re thinking; sure, saving is a nice idea but not one that I could possibly afford right now! And it would seem that the stats would back that up because 40% of students have less than £100 in savings – but putting money aside doesn’t have to be hard work.
We’ve taken the sting out of stashing away a little cash and made it doable and dare we say… fun?
We created a feature called Vaults which allows you to set-up a recurring saving, make one off payments or our favourite – save the change!
Activate ‘save the change’ to any Vault and we’ll round up each payment you make to the nearest pound and stash it away in your Vault. So spend £1.30 on a beer (looking at you Liverpool Student Union) and we’ll automatically put 70p into your Vault. Slowly but surely those savings will add up, then combine that with a small weekly saving of say £20 and you’ll soon be on your way to that holiday, new pair of trainers, big night out…. You get the idea.
Split bills easily 👌🏻
It’s got to be said that one of the most irksome parts of life is chasing people for money. You loan them £30 and they promise to pay your share of the water bill – except it never happens and before you know it, you find yourself playing the tedious game of who owes who.
The good news is, we’ve made it super easy to split bills with anyone on Revolut – no account details or sort codes needed! Maybe it’s a shared grocery bill or even last night’s pizza – just select the people who you want to split the bill with and we’ll do the rest. And if someone ‘forgets’ to send you that cash, we’ll even do all the chasing for you.
Add GIFs to payments 🙈
Let’s face it, banking is pretty boring – but not with Revolut. Sending your mates money for last night’s rounds? Add a funky GIF and let the banter wars commence – social justice at its best!
Send & spend abroad without bad exchange rates 🤑
For many students home is a flight away, which means you might need to send and receive money from overseas. Whether your parents are helping you out with rent or you’ve got to send money back home – you can do it for free, in just a few taps, using the interbank exchange rate.
Or perhaps you’re making use of that student discount and Inter-railing across Europe? Having a Revolut card is the ultimate travel companion as it lets you spend abroad for free, virtually anywhere on the planet!
Set up your account in minutes 📲
What’s quite possibly the best thing for students is the fact that you can set up an account in about 3 minutes flat – wearing your pj’s eating a Domino’s if you like!
We’re not into tiresome queues, mountains of paperwork or annoying opening hours. We’re open for business 24/7 so if you decide you’ve got to have a Revolut account at 3 in the morning – we’ve got you covered.
We also don’t need a proof of address which is great when you’re a new student, in a new town – not quite sure where you’re going to live yet. Just send us a snap of your government issued ID from within the EEA and a selfie, then we’ll have you up and running in no time!
Ultimately, we know that student life isn’t always easy (despite the stereotypes,) students have to work hard and there will be highs and lows along the way. But if you’re savvy about the way you do things, get good deals and really think about your money, the ride should be as smooth as possible.
