One thing which every student doesn't need to know about money? Joint blog post by Emma Davies, Rachael Phillips and Jeremy Segrott

17/08/2012

View the story "One thing which every student doesn't need to know about money? Joint blog post by Emma Davies, Rachael Phillips and..." on StorifyOne thing which every student doesn't need to know about money? Joint blog post by Emma Davies, Rachael Phillips and...Our response to the Guardian's advice for students on pre-loadingStorified by Dr Jeremy Segrott · Fri, Aug 17 2012 09:30:38DrugfreeFriday's UK Guardian Newspaper carried a story entitled '10 things every student should know about money':
10 things every student should know about money10 things every student should know about money. The start of university is the first step to financial independence for many. So what do...Its ten financial tips for new students included advice on dealing with banks, budgeting, cars, mobile phones, travel, debt, goal setting, employment, and ... boozing. To be precise, pre-loading - the practice of drinking at home before going out to a pub or club.

Under the sub-title 'Pre-loading to save on bar costs', this seemed a rather awkward and ill-judged recommendation, given the harms associated with binge drinking and drunkeness.

The article seemed to acknowledge its ambivalence about the wisdom of encouraging new students to engage in pre-loading, and avoided recommending or reaffirming pre-loading but then described it because lots of students do it: "We're not endorsing this, but we can't ignore what hundreds of thousands of young adults do to cut the cost of going out." We think they could have ignored it, and just left out the tip on pre-loading.

It goes on to state that "It can be a cost-effective way of boozing - but health campaigners warn of the dangers", and provides details of what these dangers might be.

This all seemed a bit confused - describing pre-loading as one of the ten things student should know about money, whilst holding back from recommending it, but then describing it anyway because lots of students do it, even though there are significant risks. And presumably, either students will either heed the health warnings in the article and not pre-load (so why mention it at all?) or ignore them, in which case the warnings might as well have been left out.

There are lots of other ways in which students could save money - substituting packed lunches for expensive shop sandwiches, and swapping the latte habbit for the humble thermos flask, spring to mind. And if alcohol is being discussed, we perhaps need to be more sophisticated with how we engage with young people, especially as many are already aware of price differentials between the on and off licence sectors. How about suggesting cutting costs by replacing alternate alcoholic drinks with water (or even soft drinks), or not buying drinks in 'rounds' which typically means you drink and spend more?

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21/08/2012 12:57am

Thanks for the informative post regarding the student life and the advice for them.I like the blog post to read.Thanks a lot.

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One thing which every student doesn't need to know about money? Joint blog post by Emma Davies, Rachael Phillips and Jeremy Segrott

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