The Founder Volume 5 Issue 4

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24 The Founder | Thursday 4 November 2010 Features How to Survive on a Student Budget Felicity King after an epiphany, looks at how to save crucial pounds on a tight student budget Last week, I found myself scanning the pavements of Windsor for a 20p piece. I wasn’t doing it for fun. Obviously. Scanning the pavement for 20p is hardly fun – it’s actually quite embarrassing. I was doing it because I didn’t have enough money to buy a postcard. I don’t know if any of you have ever scanned the pavements of Windsor for 20p. I wouldn’t advise it. You tend to walk into things a lot, and considering that Windsor is where the Queen lives, there really isn’t very much loose change lying around. I gained nothing but a bruised head, and returned home postcard-less and pissed off. I suppose you could call my 20pscanning-experience an epiphany. I realised I was skint. I don’t mean ‘skint’ as in ‘I don’t want to lend you a few quid to get some pizza because I don’t really like you’. I don’t mean ‘skint’ as in ‘darn it, I’ll have to buy my unicorn with gold plated bridle next month because I’m a few thousand short’. I mean ‘skint’ as in ‘I’m going to totally humiliate myself by scanning the streets of Windsor for 20p because I can’t even afford a postcard’. Skint skint, that is. In fact, I did some very complicated long division and worked out that I had only 30p a day to live on. After screaming, there are only two things a girl can do in this situation – it was a choice between prostitution or ringing the parents. Thankfully, I had my Checking the bank balance can be a terrifying ordeal phone. Now, there are many occasions in this life on which you will curse yourself for being bad at maths; it becomes quite an issue, for example, when taking a maths exam. Today, however, was not one of those occasions. I was thrilled to learn from my parents that I was an absolute failure at maths, and in fact had more like £18 a week at my disposal. This was definitely an improvement, but it would hardly fund tea at the Ritz. I realised I needed to start saving. It is interesting to note the sort of changes we go through when we realise we haven’t got any money. Eating, for example starts to become a mildly irritating biological flaw. We start to realise how much easier it would be if we didn’t need regular food – money could then be spent on more important things, like alcohol or clothes. The best way of dealing with this is to learn to distinguish between what you want and what you need. For example, the cute dog umbrella in Tesco is probably not necessary to you being alive, despite the fact that it looks cute. Before buying such an item, ask yourself: do you even have a dog? And does it really need an umbrella? Even if you answer yes to both those questions, is a period in your life in which you’re living off £18 a week really the best time to buy it? In order to defeat this temptation, make a shopping list before you go, and stick to it. Otherwise you’ll end up like me: the cateredfor vegetarian with nothing but a microwave at her disposal, who ended up buying a ready-to-roast chicken with accompanying vegetables just because it had 50% off and came with a really cool free pen. The next threat to your bank balance is going out. I’m not going to suggest the best money-saving technique, which is of course, not going out at all, because it’s a stupid idea. But when you do go out, apply the same principle: what do you need when going out and what do you just want? Fun as it is, you do not need to buy yourself, your mates, and everybody else in the club – who, in your drunkenness, you have claimed as your new best friends – lots of drinks. Similarly, once you stagger out of the club, you do not need to buy chips – it’s just another two or three pounds you will never get back. Except possibly in weight, if you do this too regularly. Another effective money-saving scheme is to have themed nights out. Instead of the usual ‘ridiculously overpriced outfit that I can only wear once’ theme, which requires you buying a new ridiculously overpriced outfit that you can only wear once every week, try such themes as the trampy ‘I can’t afford to wash my clothes’ theme, the ‘this is what I wore last week’ theme, the ‘this is what my friend wore last week’ theme, and finally, if you’re really desperate, the ‘stark naked’ theme. This last one is doubly cheap because most clubs won’t let you in dressed in such attire and therefore, you save money on the entry fee because, well, you never get to enter. Basically, learn to distinguish between what you want and what you need and act accordingly. If your acting accordingly involves you buying only what you want, and not the boring stuff you probably need, then that’s fine too. Just don’t die of starvation, alcohol poisoning or from the fact that your room hasn’t been cleaned since the French Revolution simply because you can’t be bothered to buy a mop. Above all, remember that if you can’t eat it, clean with it or drown your sorrows in it, it is probably not worth buying – however cute it may look on the dog.
The Founder | Thursday 4 November 2010 25 Features Experiments with retro technology Kate Brook Features Editor At a certain point in the worryingly recent past, my fashion sense ceased its journey through a series of short-lived phases that had previously led me to consider the Sum 41 hoodie, the hot pink cords, the tie-dye maxi-skirt and other similar horrors to be uncontested wardrobe staples and therefore suitable for wearing in public. After that point, my taste became more refined. I started to appreciate old things. I developed a penchant for rummaging in flea markets and antiques shops; I lusted after silk shirts and pearl earrings, pencil skirts and old-fashioned suitcases. Above all, I lusted after an old bike. I longed to sit atop a leather saddle, belongings tossed into a wicker basket protruding from charmingly curved handlebars, and I began to harbour a fantasy in which I pedalled down the uneven streets of an anonymous but picturesque town on a gleaming Pashley Princess, dressed in a decadent ensemble involving red lipstick, a high waistline and a patent snap-clasp handbag. A naïve attempt to realise this fantasy ended in me making a whimsical Ebay purchase one day last year. Before I knew it, I was in possession of my very own 1960s 3-speed Triumph bicycle which, though burdened with a number of less-than-desirable retro features including absent-minded brakes and a chronic rust problem, melted my tender little heart. Oh, but she was beautiful – battered, but exquisite. I was enchanted. After a test run or five, I armed myself with some wire wool and a can of WD40 and set about restoring her to her former glory. I was forced to accept the impossibility of this task after several days and approximately thirty-seven old toothbrushes, but my enthusiasm was nonetheless not to be dampened, and I remained hopelessly in love. Regular use, however, soon began to put our relationship under strain. My daily route took me through the tired council estates and uninspiring alleys of Englefield Green – a far cry from the shady boulevards and cobbled back streets I considered to be this bike’s natural home. Out of context, she seemed pretentious and showy, a sad misfit among the BMX monstrosities and skinny racing bikes that frequently overtook us. Nor was the general ensemble quite so romantic as I had previously envisaged. No kid gloves ever graced my darling’s handlebars; no silk scarves ever fluttered in her wake. The leather on the saddle was forlorn and peeling, and the role of wicker basket was filled, I am sad to say, by a practical but somewhat less fetching green rucksack. Then there was the Sturmey Archer gear box, which offered but three choices: easy, medium and hard. Easy sent the pedals spinning so fast that my legs blurred out of all recognition. Medium made for a pleasant ride until the road sloped upwards by more than three degrees, and hard was like trying to pedal five bikes at once. In the end, I concluded that walking would be easier on both parties, and my poor dear bicycle was consigned – momentarily, I promised myself – to the garden shed. But my experiments with retro technology were far from over. My next acquisition was a 30-year old film camera – nothing fancy, you understand, but still pretty enough to double most conveniently as a fashion accessory. Whenever I lifted it to my eye, I was struck by its simple charm. How quaint it was to peer through a view finder! How delightful to wind on the film! Those poor fools with their ‘retro camera’ apps, I thought. I’ve got the real thing! I happened, at this time, to be on a year abroad in Paris, which seemed to me very appropriate (more so, certainly, than Englefield Green). I prowled street, park and quay à la Cartier-Bresson, the camera slung casually around my neck, in search of starry-eyed lovers, old pétanque players, elegant espresso-sippers and jovial waiters, and other, touching moments of cultural significance crying out to be immortalised in 35mm. A few weeks later, after paying a princely sum to have the film developed, I awaited the finished pieces with baited breath. They would need naming, for sure; titles such as ‘Lost in thought’, ‘Little boy laughing’ and ‘Hannah, caught unawares’ were perhaps to be considered. But when they arrived, the pictures were not quite everything that I had hoped. In some, the subjects were blurred out of all recognition. In others, they were obscured by shadow, or by large patches of pink I took to be stray fingers. Some were even missing bits of their person. It was very disappointing, and brought a short-lived hobby to an abrupt end. These days, the camera sits filmless and forgotten in a bottom drawer and the bike awaits its pending re-sale on Ebay. The story is not over, for a typewriter may be my next purchase, or perhaps, when I have learned to drive, a Citroen 2CV. But in the meantime, I am learning to accept that soulless modernity is perhaps no bad thing after all. Image Courtesy of: tomazstolfa/Flickr Features Needs You Features is everything! No subject to ‘out there’ or subject to ‘strange’ Simply write and article of 400 - 700 words and send it into features@thefounder.co.uk before midday Monday 8th November
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The Founder Volume 5 Issue 4

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