Saving Money as a Student

The FINANCIAL — Students in Georgia don’t tend to find many options to save money, say experts in Georgia.

The FINANCIAL — Students in Georgia don’t tend to find many options to save money, say experts in Georgia. In general students spend money on books and their photocopies, clothing, living, eating, transportation and healthcare expenses.

“There are no services in Georgia which can help students save money,” said Irakli Galdava, analyst at ISET. “In general the system is not oriented at offering discounts or money-saving programmes to students. Now more students are thinking of how to afford the various expenses involved in their higher education, rather than how to actively reduce them.

The best practice for saving money abroad is to share housing. But this is not a common tendency in Georgia. The majority of students rent accommodation in Tbilisi, as they tend to come from rural areas and just move to the capital for their university studies. There is no campus for students in Tbilisi and this makes their situation more difficult.

“Students have less choice when it comes to saving money for living. Renting a house is becoming more and more expensive in the capital, especially in the autumn,” Galdava said. “They have to find other ways to save money. For example there are ways to manage their eating and transportation costs and get their studying materials, including books and their photocopies, more reasonably.”

Expenses for books and copies make up quite a big part of a student’s total expenses. But still students don’t tend to negotiate with friends and somehow find a way to share these expenses. Seventy percent of the students surveyed by The FINANCIAL said that they spend about GEL 300-400 annually on making copies of books.

“There is not a high quantity of the books that we need in the libraries, which is why we have to make copies of them,” said Ana Mushkudiani, Master’s student at Tbilisi State University (TSU). “This takes up quite a large share of my whole expenses as I can’t save money on books. To tell the truth, I can’t actually currently afford the things I want. But still I don’t try to somehow cut the costs of books. I could theoretically borrow them from the students which are one year above me. I’m sure they have all these copies kept somewhere at home without any further use for them anymore, whereas I do need them. But this is not a well-accepted practice here, therefore I hesitate to suggest it.”

Transportation is the only sector which has a special discount system for students. But it still adds up to quite a lot. Bicycling is very popular abroad and not just with students; there are no bicycling lines in Tbilisi. But still students who live not far from the universities can use bicycles for transportation. Buying a car is not recommended for students either because of the various costs involved.

“Bicycling is one of the best ways for students to save money,” said Giorgi Kiparoidze, lecturer of economics. “This has two advantages. One, it supports a healthy lifestyle and at the same time, it significantly saves students money. Lots of money-saving practices are not well-practised in Georgia. This is one fault of the mentality here.”

“Students can take food and coffee from home. Regardless of money, homemade meals are tastier than the ones students can buy in the streets. But still Georgian students almost never do this. They prefer to go hungry than take food from home,” he continued.

As found by students and experts alike, students really don’t have many possibilities to save money. Health problems are less common at this age, therefore the main sector students in Georgia save money in is health insurance, according to Irakli Galdava. “The insurance system is not fully formed in Georgia,” he explained. “So far only a small number of students have health insurance. Hence this is the only sector that the majority of students can save money in.”

As already discussed, there are several good ways to save money as a student, but the majority of those here refuse the possibilities for various reasons. A great deal of students told The FINANCIAL that they don’t save money on transportation, eating or making photocopies because others aren’t doing the same. Furthermore the number of students looking for jobs in Tbilisi is few.
 
The majority of students abroad try to get jobs and advise everyone else to do the same.  “Nothing is as effective in helping one’s personal finances as making some extra cash. There are lots of small jobs that rely on student hands to get done. But the best part of the job: you can’t spend any money while you’re working,” said Michael Ruderman, Stanford MBA student.