Benjamin Stigsen

Optimizing My Finances as a Student

2024-06-22

This is what my monthly finances looked like a couple of months ago:

Total Expenses: 3.946 DKK/month (47.352 DKK/yr)
Total Available: 1.854 DKK/month (22.248 DKK/yr)

After expenses, I would have around 1.850 DKK every month for groceries and everything else. One thing the list above doesn't include, however, is non-fixed expenses like cigarettes. A pack was bought every 2-3 days (we'll say every 2.5 days), which ends up being around 720 DKK/month (~40% of the remaining money!). And that's not including social events where I'd buy even more. The amount I have left is much lower than before:

Total Available: 1.134 DKK/month (13.608 DKK/year)

A lot of the expenses would also go to fast-food. Let's say pizza five times a month (sometimes even more often *sigh*). With delivery (as it pretty much always is), that's 635 DKK.

Total Available: 499 DKK/month (5.988 DKK/year)

So now you may be wondering, how is that enough to buy groceries? It isn't. I had some freelance work on the side, earning me quite a good sum of money, but let me put it this way... I don't have anything saved up... like, at all. My spending habits are terrible, but that freelance work (which I barely do anymore) was almost enough to keep me going 90% of the time. But for those 10%, usually at the end of the month, I'd borrow a bit from my parents.

This is a real problem. Unable to save up for when I have to move out of student housing, and driven by my craving for simplicity, I decided to do something about it.

Here is what my expenses look like now:

Total Expenses: 3.529 DKK/month (42.348 DKK/year) (10% decrease)
Total Available: 2.271 DKK/month (27.252 DKK/year) (22% increase)

I removed expenses like mobile insurance, closed my business account that I don't use anymore, and turned off renewal for domain names except for the one currently in use. Since I don't go to the gym anymore, it seems unhelpful to keep the subscription active.

I also moved my mail account from Posteo to Migadu and the website domain from Namecheap to Porkbun, both of which are cheaper than the previous.

Right now, I'm in the middle of removing my web server, as I really only need static site hosting, which is offered for free by GitHub. This saves me around 504 DKK every year.

This is the list after those changes:

From 11 to 6 expenses.

So how much do cigarettes take up now? None! As of writing this, I'm about to reach 90 days nicotine-free.

The biggest issue currently is my relationship with fast food, and there are a couple of things I can do about it:

• Don't buy it
• Order it less
• Buy cheaper fast food
• Pick up in person (~30% cheaper)
• Make use of lunch offers (~25% cheaper)

This may be another blog post for the future.

Update: 2024-07-04

My insurance was raising its prices by 2.25x, which made a lot of people (including me) very unhappy.

Since then, I have changed my insurance to something even cheaper, but with better coverage. Instead of paying 250 DKK/month, it's now closer to 225 DKK/month, saving me 300 DKK/year.

Total Expenses: 3.462 DKK/month (41.544 DKK/year) (12% decrease)
Total Available: 2.338 DKK/month (28.056 DKK/year) (26% increase)

Update: 2024-07-09

As my internet provider also happens to be doubling its prices, I've changed to a different provider, which is even cheaper.

Instead of paying 170 DKK/month, I'll now be paying 150 DKK/month, saving me 240 DKK/year.

Total Expenses: 3.442 DKK/month (41.304 DKK/year) (13% decrease)
Total Available: 2.358 DKK/month (28.296 DKK/year) (27% increase)