$200!!!!!!! I'm so upset. Mainly at myself. My sister kept warning me to buy them and I should've jumped at the chance when they were only $608 but I waited like a fool. I don't have a card so until I get one I have to go through my mom or sister to buy anything online (other than Amazon). I'm upset that I didn't urge my mom to sit down with me and buy them right there... I told her they flew up and she said it's probably because of cookies on my laptop. I've been searching for tickets for the past few weeks and I guess cookies somewhat affect prices. I don't know about that but what I do know is that I am buying tickets tomorrow night for sure but on a different laptop. I can't take the risk of prices going up any further.
In all honesty this makes me want to apply to even more scholarships. What I tell myself when I think about how expensive my study abroad experience will be is usually 'Don't worry about it. Scholarships will cover it'. Yeah ok.
Today also inspired me to start a 'Study Abroad Spending Diary'. It's pretty much exactly what you imagine it to be. I made a nifty little spread sheet on Excel that will help me keep track of how much I'm spending and what I'm spending it on through out the week.
Like many people, it's usually the little things that get me. I think 'Oh, I'll just buy this lipstick, it's only a couple bucks.' Then say 'Ah, I'll just get a few things off the dollar menu. No big deal'. And before I know it, I've spent $50 on random things and I can't even say what they are. The little things most definitely add up and I really want to avoid that while I'm studying abroad.
I threw some random numbers in there but as you can tell I am doing it weekly. I decided to start on Wednesday January 7th (which is my intended departure date) and continue for 20 weeks. With this budget sheet I can track how much I spend per day or see how much of a certain area I spend weekly (for example, I spent 5e on Tea/Coffee in the first week. On January 9th, I spent 14e total)
Every week I'll clear out the numbers and change the start date (I set it so that the rest of the dates automatically change as well).
I hope you do something similar as well when you study abroad. Always ask for and keep your receipts so you can keep an eye on your finances. I used this study abroad budget sheet as a guide to create my own. You can use that one as it is very helpful or feel free to download mine here.
-SX
0 comments:
Post a Comment