By: Daniella Centeno
Budgeting is essential when learning how to manage money in college and away from home.
Every student at Dixie State University is in a different financial situation whether they are married with a double income and a house payment, or are single and living on their own working through the school year. Budgeting skills are a necessity that students can acquire while being either full-time or part-time students.
Kaplan Sanders, assistant professor of finance, said: “We’re flying in the dark unless we have a budget. You know what I mean, we don’t really know what we’re spending money on so it’s hard to make decisions on how we want to spend our money.”
Budgeting is important to learn because it helps you keep track of spending, learn how to be disciplined, and how to plan and manage your money.
Testing Center Director Tamron Lee said: “Early on, you do sometimes have to be flexible and adjust it [budget]. Sometimes an unexpected expense will come up and you’ll have to find a way to rearrange your budget so that they just can’t be rigid.”
Being prepared for the unexpected means one must plan for every possible scenario that can happen. You never know what financial surprises you will run into in college whether it be personal or academic wise.
“Yes, budgeting helps me a lot,” said Ibrahim Bah, a junior business major from Conakry, Guinea. “Having a monthly and yearly budget helps me know how to spend my money wisely. It puts me at ease knowing I am not going to spend all my money in one semester and makes me aware of what I spend my money on.”
Keeping track of a budget in college is essential to learning how to spend money on personal items as well as school items. More importantly, it is an essential skill in your life that you can carry on with later on in life. Budgeting helps with maintaining discipline money-wise and makes us more aware of how you spend your money. Falling into debt is one of the big nuances a student can get trapped into.
“Finance 1750 is a great class, that’s a class where we spend a lot of time budgeting [as] a part of it,” Sanders said. “It’s how you get to that trip that you’re wanting to go on or to eating out or to that concert. A budget gets you there, it’s a plan, it’s a spending plan.”
If any students are interested in learning more about how to manage their finances and budget effectively then they are encouraged to join finance 1750 with Kaplan Sanders next semester. Students will benefit from taking this class as a way to help them get a head start on their budget planning.
