saliences.com : University Finances

A pretty accuarte picture of the money I spent and earned during my five years at University. I started University with around $1000 in my bank account, a $4000 interest free loan from my parents, and a $5700 loan from OSAP. This essentially gave me $10600 to start off. Below is a table showing my costs and income over an 8 month period.

From the table you can see that everything roughly works out to a break even point. At the start of every 8 month period, I would have roughly $11000 in my bank account, and by the end of the study period, I would have less than $500. The numbers listed in the table are reflective of me always being able to purchase whatever I wanted, getting the apartments that I wanted and generally not having to think about money too much during a study term. The catch is that, if there was ever a major purchase that needed to occur, then I was in a tight bind. This happened twice. One of my work terms was in Vancouver and the cost of the airplane ticket and the deposit for the apartment put me in significant debt for a while. The take away should be that I needed around $10000 every 8 months to be able to feed and clothe myself, and at the same time have an awesome University experience.