Finding the balance between a budget and a social life

It has happened to all of us at one point or another. You walk what seems like miles in the cold only to find yourself at the doorstep of the Ronald Tutor Campus Center. You get your knockoff Chipotle, grab a fork from Panda Express because Taco-Taco didn’t give you one and walk home. Once inside, you find your roommates sitting at the table laughing over a CAVA bowl with tongues dyed Dulce matcha green. They look at you, then at the brown sack, and ask, “Don’t you ever get sick of that?” You lie to yourself, say you like it and eat.

If this sounds familiar, I sympathize. College itself is already expensive enough, but add in the average lifestyle of a USC student, and your bank account is drained by week five (not personal experience or anything). Most of the time, it feels impossible to stick to a budget as a student. At the beginning of every semester, I sit down and add up all the money in my bank account and the little cash I have. I then divide it by the number of weeks in the semester (about 16.5) and that gives me my weekly budget. 

I start every semester pretty confident, thinking “How could I even spend all of this in a week?” I am quickly brought back to reality. Suddenly, the super fun party I “just have to go to” has a $7 entry fee, no meal in the USC Village is under $15, the Lyft to the concert I already shouldn’t have bought tickets to is $35 each way and don’t even get me started on the effect Handle and Duffl have had on my bank account. 

In a 2020 New York Times article, Ann Carrns explains how the “indirect costs” while living in college affect students who only really looked at tuition when budgeting. These indirect costs include food outside of a meal plan, off-campus housing, transportation and more. This heavily affects first-generation students and those who come from lower-income families who may be caught off guard because they weren’t expecting the costs, which can sometimes “make up half or more of the cost of attending some colleges.”

Although I could be better at following my budget, I do feel like I have a pretty good system set up. I make mine in a Google Sheet, with every type of purchase (like food, going out and groceries) being a different color. It’s pretty easy to figure out and a super fun activity to do every week. I can procrastinate doing my actual work by setting up something that needs to be done anyway. One thing that I have found super helpful is restarting my weekly budget on Fridays instead of Sundays. That way I can adjust my weekday plans based on how much I spent over the weekend, instead of the other way around. It allows me to still do everything I want on the weekends, and then eat the gross homemade meals on the weekdays instead. 

It can be pretty awkward and annoying to turn down plans with your friends because it doesn’t fit into your budget. Literally, as I’m writing this, my friends are Fryfting to Pot of Cha, which I can’t afford because I got a haircut over the weekend. It takes sacrifices to stay on top of and stick to a budget. It may give you extreme FOMO at the moment, but the reality is your real friends will find a way to hang out with you without having to spend a crazy amount of money. Sometimes, going to Trader Joe’s as a group, cooking together and having a movie night is just as fun as going off campus and watching your bank account slowly drop.

So, next time you or your friend walk in from the Tutor Campus Center or a dining hall, don’t ask them how they manage to eat the food — tell them you’re jealous of their ability to save money (because I know I am).