Hello and welcome to the final part in our online workshop series, which focuses on Financial Wellbeing. I'm Beth and I'm a Money Mentor at King's, which is a peer support role within KCL Advice & Guidance. The Money Mentor's are students who are trained to help other students manage their money. This workshop has been created by Money Mentors, with the support and input of Money and Housing Advisers in KCL Advice & Guidance. Specialist Money Advisers can advise and support any students at King's who are in financial difficulty, or need help planning their financial journey at King's. We'll let you know how they can help and how to contact them at the end of this session. The Financial Wellbeing Series is made up of 6 parts, which includes funding, student spending, financial hardship, money management, mental health, and planning for the future. We would encourage you to watch all the workshops in this series that are relevant to you, and where possible we have created bespoke content based on your level of study, immigration status, course, health, and caring possibilities. Alongside these videos, we have developed our Financial Health Check and we also recommend Blackbullion's Money Ready for Uni series, which is free to all King's students. In this workshop, we will wrap up the series to explore what options you may have to fill the gaps in your budget and make the most of any surplus income you manage to save. Getting more money is probably what we're asked about most as Money Mentors and it does seem like the easiest way to be financially well but in truth, you need all of the aspects of money management to stay in control. We've all heard of millionaire's going bankrupt after all. If you have found that your student income is not enough to cover your basic costs, we will explore what hardship funds and welfare benefits you may be entitled to. If you have enough funding to cover your basic costs but would like to do more or plan for the future, we will look into what opportunities there are for you and how to make the most of them. Have you claimed everything you're entitled to? Not all of this funding will be relevant to everyone, book a one to one meeting if you need bespoke personal service. Statutory funding relates to government funding, funding you're legally entitled to. Family, close or extended family and friends, small contributions can go a long way to helping you out, travel - £23 per week, for example. This is something worth exploring throughout your time at King's. The Save the Student National Student Money Survey, in 2018, revealed that three quarters of students in the UK are working a part-time job of some sort to supplement their student loan. More on this later. If you have savings then we would expect you to use them to help fund your studies, either for fees or maintenance. You should use them in a planned way, so that your savings take you as far as you expect. Always plan to avoid surprises. King's Living Bursary is the most common bursary at King's but are others are related to course and background, check on Student Funding Office pages. Welfare benefits: if you already entitled to benefits, your entitlements may change as a student. If you are a student parent, please seek advice from our Specialist Advisers. Scholarships, Grants, and bursaries: It is important to maximise your income, there is a lot of funding each year that you may be entitled to a King's. There are also a lot of external Trust and Charities that support students, eligibility is wide and varied depending on what charity aims to achieve - could be where you live, what you're studying, your family background, and so on. More recently we're seeing students use sites such as Go Fund Me to raise capital to cover their studies, especially second degree or international students and other self-funded students. Try turning your academic abilities into cash. We're not suggesting that you offer to write someone else's paper, that would be plagiarism and could result in you losing your place at university! So what we mean is if you're a gifted writer or researcher, seek out opportunities to use and hone your academic skills. Check academic journals and professional websites that are engaged in debate about your area of study, there may be opportunities to submit a paper for a prize or cash. Some writers are able to turn their social media presence or blog into a source of income too but be careful on social media and the viewpoints that you are sharing, are you happy for future employers and your family to read what you are saying. If you have a natural gift for explaining the unexplainable, tutoring may be an option for you. This is potentially an area of growth in 20/21, as parents and teachers endeavor to help kids catch up after all the disruption last academic year. Tutoring online has also become more normalised, so if you're looking to limit your face-to-face interactions, this may be a good option for you. One note of warning for international students, if you set yourself up as a self-employed person, in any way, which can include signing up for tutoring sites, where you'll be responsible for your own tax return. This may be a breach of your visa requirements as you are not permitted to work as a self-employed person. Consult the Visa, an International Student Advice team if you have any concerns in this area. Finally, if you liked the idea of earning cash from writing, have a look at Save the Student's 11 ways to make money writing. We've provided a link on this slide. Do you have a creative side? If you have a natural flair for arts and crafts, this may be a way to supplement your income. Just make sure you're realistic about your abilities, and that you don't spend more materials, than you make in return! Consider what you're good at, what you take joy in making, and also how you might recycle what you already have, especially with respect to fabric. If you own or are able to access a sewing machine, at the moment you may be able to start selling your own line in making face coverings. Etsy and eBay are helpful sites for selling your goods, but also look for local pop-ups or festivals which give opportunities to set up a stall. This can be quite popular at Christmas time when people are looking for something different. Also, look for local cafes that display or sell artwork from the local community. If you sell online, you'll probably need a PayPal account. Again, international students, this can be seen as setting up a business and self employment. Time to declutter your life. You're about to go to university, resist the urge to leave your life-time of belongings at home to gather dust and have a good clear out before you leave. You never know what you might find! Swapping with friends is a good way to replace old with something new, it's not necessarily cash in, but saves cash going out. Do you have lots of personal items hanging around like clothes, CD's, games, old sports equipment that you haven't looked at  in ages and are not going to take to uni? Ask yourself why are you keeping all this stuff? There may be stuff of value in there that someone else could still make use of. You can, of course, donate this all to charity, but you could also put some choice sales towards your college fund. Look out for local car boot sales and online selling options for any treasures you find. Whilst selling you might also find some second items that you do need for university, and that will be a lot cheaper than buying new. The trick is not to spend more than you make! If you just wanted to bundle up a load of old media (phones, music, computer games, etc.) for cash you can use an app like Ziffit or MusicMagpie or sell your stuff using eBay. Try it. You never know, you might find! Your sort out may even inspire others, such as your parents. And if you're lucky, they may have a box of pristine toys from the eighties that they're finally willing to part with. Who knows what potential sources of cash there could be in there. Do you have an idea? An idea can be a very powerful thing and here at King's, The Entrepreneurship Institute love to hear about new ideas. They are on hand to help you explore your idea and give advice and guidance and mentorship to help you realise your dreams. Not all ideas make money. In fact, some may lose money. But if there was ever a time to explore it, its now. The video link is just for fun and inspiration. As I mentioned before, part-time work is very common amongst students to supplement their income. Many use King's Talent Bank, which is a temping agency available to all students with lots of different employment opportunities on there. The KCL careers fairs are a great place to find work and network with employers. Contact careers@kcl.ac.uk for more information. events and one-to-one careers advice. Many students work as an Ambassador for the university, either in departments or as a general KCL Ambassador. Opinions do differ on recommended working hours about 15 hours could have a negative impact, so just watch that. And international students, do have caps on the amounts they can work. Your advised to also listen to the Advice & Guidance working during your studies presentations. Select which is most relevant to you based on your immigration and residency rights. Discounts. As a student, you should ask for a discount everywhere you go. If they don't offer one, nothing's lost from asking. But you'll be surprised how many restaurants, shops, even bars have special deals and discounts for students, to help travel discounts, council tax exemption, the NHS low-income scene and shopping discount, as well as these discount clubs. Okay. Don't be disheartened. This isn't as hard as we've made it sound and resorting to credit really has got to be the last option. Bear in mind that every time you borrow money, it's rarely given to you interest-free. So every time you pay for something on credit, consider if the item is worth the extra costs once you've paid it back with interest on top. For example, you're with a friend, your both buying coffee and you realise you've left your wallet at home. Not a problem says your friend, I will pay for you, but I will charge you 24% interest, which is about the average for a student credit card, Your Honeycomb Latte Macchiato has suddenly gone from £2.95 to £3.66. Is it worth that much? Okay. So it's a frivolous example, but hopefully you get the idea. When you pay with credit, you're not paying the price on the label, unless you can pay it off the credit before the interest is applied. Payday loans and online money services are even worse, but of course they're very easy to apply for. Stop! Breathe! And think of the consequences! There's always another option. Of course, if you're finding it hard to pay for the basics, you may find yourself in a situation where credit seems the only viable option, at least in the short-term. But what happens when you need to pay this back? If this is your situation, please make contact with the Advice & Guidance team, who can assess your case and advise you impartially on the options. They can also support you with any applications for funding that you may be entitled to. This does not mean that credit facilities do not have their place, there are times when paying by credit card works to your advantage, especially when protecting your rights as a consumer. Just always make sure you can repay the debt before it gets any bigger. The most important investor and shareholder in your life is you. The decisions you make can impact your financial wellbeing now, but also in the future. Take on board our advice and tips in this session. Sign up to the resources we have recommended and share your experiences with others, which will let them grow too. If you invest in yourself and others, you may make your time at King's more enjoyable and hopefully free from money stress. And even if you do experience money problems, you should now have the tools to help you manage those and be able to seek assistance if you need a helping hand. It may sound like an impossible task to create savings whilst you're studying, but even small steps can make a difference in making your money stress stretch throughout the year and planning for emergencies or added extras. First things first, you can't have savings without somewhat to put it, and whilst there are lots of options out there, very few have interest worth celebrating. Mattresses and money boxes also show very little return on investment for long-term savings and money has the nasty habit of going out of date. So whatever you do, it's likely that you'll need to open a savings account. When considering what type of savings account you'll need. First, think about your goal. Are you saving for something particular that you need to pay for, by a given date? Perhaps you just want to set aside some of your student finance, so you're not tempted to spend it all before the end of term. Or to have the extra security of having it set aside in an account you do not use to make payments from. This is generally advisable, especially when funding for many of you will be paid termly. Now let's look at how to save. Generally, if you have a short-term savings goal, (something you need to buy within a year or for emergencies) you need an instant access savings account. This won't earn a lot of interest, but you won't have to pay penalties for taking money out early. If you're saving for a longer term goal, a cash ISA or investment will probably give you a better return for your money. We won't get into the ins and outs of different savings accounts here. But we do recommend you complete the saving pathway on Blackbullion and consult the Money Saving Expert for more information. But we will touch on ways to save. Firstly, rounding up your purchases to put the difference in a savings account, several banks now offer this option and there are some apps that do to. Always check if these are trusted apps through consulting, This is money, Which? or the Money Saving Expert. Another way is only paying cash and putting your change in a money box, like our money saving bean tins. Just remember to put this in account at some point, if you're not saving for a short-term goal. Switch or cancel a service you no longer use and continue to pay this bill but into your savings account. You could consider a luxury item that you buy regularly, can you reduce how often you have these and set the money saved aside? Give your self a weekly cash allowance and anything you don't spend put in your savings account. Can you think of any ways to save money? Share these with us on our Instagram page @kingsmoneymentors. Planning for the future. A holiday or new laptop might be a good short-term money goal but bear in mind a few years you may need to afford some even more expensive items. Mortgages are looking like they will need an even larger deposit in the next few years than ever before. So if you want to stop renting and own your own home, you may need to up your savings game. We've included a link to Which? how to save for a mortgage. Consider signing up to a pension scheme at work or even taking a private pension. Thanks to modern healthcare, we're living longer than ever and will need money to go on all those lovely cruises for sixties. The earlier you start, the more you'll have later. So you might be able to congratulate yourself for completing our Financial Wellbeing series, but there's always more to learn. We have recommended our favorite sources for advice and guidance in this area and will publish any new sources to our social media and website. We hope you found this video helpful. Please remember to watch the rest of the videos in the Financial Wellbeing series. The Money Mentors are current students at King's, for hints and tips throughout the year on living on a student budget. Please follow us on Instagram, @kingsmoneymentors and Facebook @kingsmoneyadvice. You can also follow our colleagues in Student Services on Twitter @kclstudent to pick up on our posts too. You may also like to complete our Financial Health Check module, which compliments this session. If you're interested in further financial education modules, all King's students can register with Blackbullion.com to complete the online pathways, in order to improve their financial capabilities. Do you have any questions? Please consult Student Services Online, which is the fastest way for students, staff and others to find the answers to the most pertinent questions they may have about studying at King's and life in London. If you'd like to learn more about the Advice & Guidance team, please consult our webpages. You can also search for our advice on Student Services Online. self-service.kcl.ac.uk. If you'd like to speak to a Specialist Adviser about your personal circumstances. Please call the Student Advice line on 02078487001. Opening hours are subject to change. So always check kcl.ac.uk/adviceline for the current time table. You can also email your inquiry or request an appointment by using the appropriate form on our website kcl.ac.uk/advice. If you have any follow-up questions or would like to join the discussion about the issues raised in this presentation. While the other advice topics we specialise in, we have scheduled a number of Q&A sessions throughout the Welcome period. Please check the Welcome To King's app for details and to book your place. If you'd like to speak in private about your personal situation, please call the Advice Line on 02078487001 Thank you for downloading this video, we hope you found the information helpful. I would like to remind you to watch the other videos in this series which compliment the information we have given you today. We also have other videos and resources on a range of other topics that you may also find useful as you settle into your new life at King's. Please consult the Welcome To King's for more information. On behalf of Advice & Guidance, we wish you well with your studies and we're here to support you should you need us at anytime. Good luck!