By JESSICA JENSEN
As new freshmen pack up and leave the financial comfort of their parents’ homes, they quickly find out one thing: living costs money.
Between rent, utilities, food and random expenses such as makeup remover and dish soap, many new college students don’t realize the kind of expenses they will have.
Fortunately, at BYU there are many resources for students needing assistance adjusting to financial independence.
Professor Craig Israelsen teaches family finance at BYU and applies managing money to running a race.
“Money is kind of like energy,” he said. “In a marathon, for example, sometimes runners that aren’t accustomed to a race start running too fast and a few miles into it, they run out of gas. Without planning a budget people either get lucky and overspend, or, more often, they don’t get lucky because there is just so much to buy – so many toys.”
Lindsey Poch, a junior enrolled in Israelsen’s family finance class, has applied the importance of budgeting to her own life.
“It really opens your eyes to living on your own and the expense of things,” Poch said. “When you have to pay for it all, you’re more careful with your money, while when you live with your parents, you don’t really pay attention to how much things cost.”
Sometimes, students view the process of sitting down and making a budget as restricting their spontaneity, Israelsen said.
“The easiest way to do a low technical budget is to get a piece of paper and draw boxes that represent different categories of a personal budget,” he said. “Some categories you know in advance, like rent and utilities, some are surprises such as recreation and eating out. As each month begins we allocate the amount of money we have to work with on that piece of paper.”
Besides family finance, other courses helpful to planning and managing budgets include FSL 260 and Business Management 110.
Along with learning to budget, it’s also important to understand your income and taxes.
“As you’re getting ready to make a budget, you should understand how taxes work on your paycheck,” said Shannon Kelly, assistant payroll manager at BYU.
When working on campus, if you’re taking at least half the amount of credits as full time, then you are not going to have to pay for Social Security and Medicare. Also, the number of jobs you have per year and how much you make can provide different tax exemptions.
“The brethren have told us to stay out of debt,” said Shan-
non Reid, payroll manager at BYU. “Be careful with your student loans and credit cards. You have to know where your loan is at because you will have to pay that back. If you’re borrowing to go to school, try to stick within your means so you don’t get caught short.”
Another resource students have are freshman mentors. Freshman mentors can help new students adjust and develop college skills.
“My advice is to set priorities ahead of time and know if there is something you want to do,” said Amy McGreevy, a freshman mentor from Folsom, Calif. “If you’re budgeting, then you’ll be able to spend your money on more important opportunities and experiences instead of wasting it on frivolous things that seem important at the time.”
After budgets have been made and money divided out, consider Israelsen’s question to his students: Why does everything have to cost?
“I ask my students to consider Walden Pond and only spend money on crucial things for a week or a month and instead of buying things, we create our own activities,” he said. “Most people discover it’s a better week in some ways.”
