The Truth About Uni | Relationships

The fourth instalment of the student bloggers collab is about relationships and friendships.

If you didn't know already I'm in a long term relationship with my boyfriend of seven years and four months; Connor (who I've mentioned in previous posts). We met at school when we were fourteen and we've been with each other ever since.

Originally I wasn't interested in university, but Connor persuaded me that it'd be the better route. The other option being work experience/placements/apprenticeships you get the gist. At the time I wanted to be a writer not a journalist, and I became engrossed with the idea of writing film reviews so I would continue a writing career after completing a one year film production course. But when choosing between three years of creative writing/journalism or three years of film production, film won by far.

I tried not to make my decision on which university to go to based on where Connor was going, I didn't want to be one of those girls. I wanted to be strong headed and make a decision that was best for my future career, although it terrified me to be in a long distance relationship.

We both chickened out of moving away to London, and I made my decision to stay local and go with Portsmouth. Connor was looking at Cardiff in clearing but it fell through and he decided on Portsmouth too, which was probably for the better.

He was staying at home as he's fairly local too whereas I moved into Portsmouth so it wasn't too bad, mainly he stayed round mine as it was easier to get to university...cheeky.

We both were studying film production at Portsmouth, so at least we weren't alone in our lectures, but we both quickly made our own friends as we weren't in all of the same classes. People thought it'd be weird that we were on the same course at the same university, but we'd already been on the same course at college and had developed a "work relationship" where we'd exercise our top banter as best friends and not girlfriend/boyfriend in front of everyone. As we are best friends it's been really great that he understands the stresses that I go through and vice versa.

I think the only issue was when people would refer to me as "Connor's girlfriend" on our course rather than my fairly unique name. It didn't bother me too much but I am my own person and it would've been nice to be called by name.

I'm looking forward to graduating with my boyfriend and my best friend this year. Not many people can say that, and it's been a hard three years so I can't wait to end it with Connor by my side.

I won't go too much into friendships otherwise this would be an incredibly wordy post! But as mentioned in The Truth About Uni | Accommodation it was a bit harder to make friends as I didn't live in halls or go out an awful lot. But, I'm happy with what I've had at university, and I've got my friends from school so I've never been too far away from a friend when I've needed one!

How have you found maintaining friendships and relationships, or even starting them at university?

Saffron x


Please check out these lovely ladies posts!

Jasmine from Thoughts From Jasmine (she brought us all together)

Jen from Velvet Spring

Becky from The Owlet

Annaleid from Actually Anna

Sophie from The Glamour Reel

Katherine from Millennial Rants

Tori from Legally Brunette

Connor's Social Media Links:

Website: connorcleary.co.uk

Twitter: @iamconnorcleary

Instagram: @IamConnorCleary

The Truth About Uni | Finance

This is the third instalment of a collaboration with other student bloggers. This week is all about finance at university.

Being a third year at university I have honestly been through the whole finance drama.

Firstly, before you even start university there are a few financial questions:

1. How much will my loan be?
2. Can I live off of it comfortably?
3. When do I have to pay my deposit?

To answer question one, you can get a rough estimate from the Student Finance Calculator, all you need are some basic details such as how much your tuition fees are, family income (prepare for your parents to not want to tell you this information even though you need to know it to fill out the actual finance forms), when you're starting and if you are going to university in or outside of London and any disabilities or extra help you might need.

This is a rough guide of how much you might get for that year, and keep in mind you get three payments throughout the year. We were on low income so a lot of my maintenance loan turned into a grant (grants mean you don't have to pay it back - yipee!) and I also qualified for an extra bursary each term (more free money).

For those of you starting this year, it's all unfortunately been turned into loans [insert sad face emoji].

Here is an example of the finance calculator:

You shouldn't be terrified of finance, there's lots of help around and especially at your university to guide you through the process.

The second question depends on how much you get, you will need to budget and work out how much rent you need to pay each term, if there's anything you'll need to pay for as part of your course, and a rough food budget. Notice I haven't included booze in this! First and foremost you need a roof over your head and food! There are lots of stories of students getting their first instalment of their loan and spending it all on the first Fresher's night - please do not do this. Unless you have rich parents to fall back on that is not advisable!

In my first year I didn't go out drinking much, partly because my housemates weren't party animals and I was quite happy binging Netflix and making Angel Delight. I also kept to roughly £20 per week on food as I shopped at ASDA and would raid the reduced sections as I memorised their reducing times!

If you keep to a strict budget you will be perfectly fine! I also kept my job so I had some extra income for when that loan starts to disappear, I would definitely recommend looking for a part time job even if it's just one day a week. It'll put some extra money in your pocket and also show's people you were prepared to work through university and not just party all the time.

My third point is very important, I didn't actually realise I had to pay a deposit before my loan came in. This is so that landlords can have security that they will have tenants for that year and usually they aren't refundable. I was completely broke before going to university, it was a very recent thing where I went shopping a bit too much and had to ask friends for money as I was ashamed of nearly having noughts appear in my account.

Luckily my parents saw I was hiding something and helped me cover my deposit and I paid them back with my loan. If you can save up now for your deposit I would advise it as you don't want to get into a bad habit of borrowing money (cough that's me cough cough).

As I mentioned earlier, in my first year I did ok I didn't have a lot of savings (I paid for a holiday, an iPad and lots of clothes that I never wore or didn't fit me), but then I kept getting into a bad habit of having to borrow money to see through the months. I also tried leaving my job for other jobs and it didn't work out and I ended up getting taxed a fair amount for having two jobs, and at one point they thought I had four?!

I made the mistake of getting an overdraft in my second year, as everyone had one and I thought it'd be a nice safety net and I wouldn't have to borrow from my parents anymore. I started off with just £500 as I could easily pay that back with wages. However, I could increase my overdraft online. Bad mistake. This then lead onto making an appointment at the bank to ask for an even bigger overdraft, and by this point I was in too deep.

If you saw my post earlier this year Why I'm On A Spending Ban you'll have noticed it's taken me awhile to get my finances under wraps. If you can avoid overdrafts I'd advise that! I didn't really need one and I abused it a bit too much.

I've got my last loan this month and it's terrifying. I have no savings and I still need to clear some debt and pay for driving. So you can guess where it's all going to go...

My one last piece of advice to you, whether you're about to become a university student or are a first or second year, is to save or spend your money wisely. If you need a phone, laptop, camera, decent clothes that are durable and can justify it then go ahead. But these loans won't last forever, trust me! These three years go by really fast!

Sorry for a very wordy post, but I hope it's helpful and can give you some insight!

Please check out these lovely ladies posts!

Jasmine from Thoughts From Jasmine (she brought us all together)

Jen from Velvet Spring

Becky from The Owlet

Annaleid from Actually Anna

Sophie from The Glamour Reel

Katherine from Millennial Rants

Tori from Legally Brunette

The Truth About Uni | Accommodation

This is the third instalment of the blogger collaboration I'm a part of as a student blogger.

For this post I will be talking about accommodation at university.

First Year

Even though I lived fairly close to my university (Portsmouth) I wanted to experience living on my own (and with several other people) I wanted to live in halls as it seemed like an interesting living situation. Unfortunately, either something messed up in the post or I was so busy with my college deadlines I missed the paperwork for when I should apply for halls.

I was a bit devastated as it was only two months until I started university with no where to live. I was advised to still apply for halls but that I was better off to looking into private housing. I had no clue where to start. I visited various Facebook pages with calls for housemates but I was a bit sceptic living with people I'd met through Facebook and if they looked a bit dodgy.

I worked as a sales assistant at the universities graduation photos, and one of the other assistants needed a housemate (I felt a bit more positive this time as I felt I knew her after working up to twelve hour days by her side). I had already said yes to another house at this time, but there was no contract, and apparently I couldn't move in until the first day of uni...I wan't too fond of this but at the time I had no where else to go. As there was no contract I wasn't obliged to pay anything, or find a replacement for them (I was also a bit miffed at how I was treated but oh well).

I visited this new potential house and it was the best one I'd seen, it was all inclusive so once I'd paid for my rent that also covered all the bills each month as well (bonus!) the last room available was the front downstairs one. I wasn't overly keen as I'd never had a room downstairs at the front of the house before but it was a decent sized room.

My mum helped me move in with a mediocre load of my belongings (it's worth noting how much stuff multiplies when you move in some where) and when it was time for my mum to leave we both got really emotional. I hadn't had time to actually process that I was moving out, even though I'd already spent a lot of time at my boyfriends, this was something definite. When she left I felt really alone as I didn't know if anyone else was in and I put on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shed a few tears in self pity.

After a few days I got to know my housemates and settled in, I tried to go to as many Fresher nights out as a I could and made new friends. My housemates were all third years and they didn't go out clubbing at all so it was a bit hard to make friends so I had to make some on my course.

In my first lecture I met my future housemate as we instantly got on, and you have to start looking for decent houses by October/November if you don't plan on staying in your current one. Looking for decent houses is really stressful, basically all student houses have mould, it's something really gross you have to deal with. Landlords won't really help with that you just have to clean it with mould spray yourself (I learnt this the hard way when one landlord just painted over it, that doesn't work at all). Or you end up with really tiny rooms.

Second Year

As previously mentioned I moved in with two of my course mates and a mutual friend. I became the lead tenant as I liked to organise things and had arranged all of the viewings for houses. I was really excited as this was a bigger house and I bagged the bigger room (it's noted there was some arguing and falling out over this, in retrospect I was quite stressed from my first year and wouldn't have minded one of the medium rooms).

I did get on with my housemates really well but there's always issues over bills (this time we had to pay via meter) or cleaning as you don't realise how quickly a kitchen can get messy with four people living in it...ok maybe you can.

Three of us were second years, and we lived with one third year but we all loved going out and clubbing and bonding as housemates, which made me really happy! We'd go out on a regular basis and take lots of housemate selfies.

In the middle of the year, we decided to live in the same house to save the hassle of looking for another one, we were really close to uni and the centre of Portsmouth and some of the discrepancies of the house could be overlooked.

However, our current landlords sold the house to another company who wanted to redo the house into a seven/eight bed property and charged ridiculous prices. So we were left to look for another house.

Third Year

I'm jumping to third year because after a lot of university stress and mental health problems, I'd decided to live at home to try and save my sanity. I'd realised in my current state I wasn't fit to live with other people and needed to move back home to try and get better, as I'd started receiving counselling. This meant I could save some money as I'd only have to pay a bit of rent to my mum and cover travel to and from university.

Even though the travel is a hassle when it comes to late finishes and getting stuck in traffic (I tried to take the bus because it was cheaper than the train), and with going clubbing and having to pay £15-£20 for a taxi home, I felt a lot better living back home at my base and not falling out with housemates as it's just me, my mum and our two nuisance cats.

If you're a regular on my blog you'd have read my Why I'm On A Spending Ban post, and by living at home I've been able to crawl out of my black hole of an overdraft.

I don't regret living at home at all, I feel more grounded and more me again! I have fallen out of clubbing for now, I'm not sure why but I'm going to write a post about it soon! I just wonder what it might have been like if I'd stayed at home this whole time, would I have more savings, would I be able to drive??

Even though I've learned a lot through living away from home, I already had some life skills through working and through how my parents raised me. For some moving away from home is essential for what university you go to, but if you can, I would advise living at home for at least one of the years.

So there you have it, my accommodation story! I hope it's insightful for those going to university this year, and maybe even current students who are having housemate/landlord/money issues!

I will be posting the next instalment in two weeks time!

Please check out the other lovely blogger's posts:

Jasmine from Thoughts From Jasmine (she brought us all together)

Jen from Velvet Spring

Becky from The Owlet

Annaleid from Actually Anna 

Sophie from The Glamour Reel

Katherine from Millennial Rants

Tori from Legally Brunette

Saffron x