Budgeting on a Student Income Without Tracking Every Coffee

Most student budgets fail because they’re too detailed to maintain. A simpler approach is to budget by category totals rather than individual purchases, and to check in weekly instead of daily.

Start with your fixed costs: rent, transit pass, phone, and tuition instalments. Whatever remains gets split into groceries, social spending, and savings. If the savings number is zero some months, that’s still information worth having.

Automate what you can. Moving a small amount to a separate account on the day your OSAP or paycheque lands removes the decision entirely, and small automatic transfers beat large intentions almost every time.