Being a student in India is often synonymous with living on a tight budget, especially when 'home' is far away from your school or college.
The first and most important step is to track your expenses. You’re going to need to spend the first month collecting the bills and receipts handed to you. Then you sit down and go over where you’re spending and how much.
Eat at home or at your mess (since you’re paying a mess fee anyway), or cook your own meals if you live alone. Take away menus may look convenient, but your wallet is going to disagree. ven if you limit yourself to ordering one ‘cheap’ meal, at ₹200 a day, that’s still roughly ₹6,000 a month!
Don’t shop cheap! It may seem like you’re getting more out of less, but multiple small little, ‘guilt-free’ purchases (stuff you get for ₹200) can build up to over ₹5,000 in one semester alone! And they’re going to be unwearable soon.
You can cut spending on your textbooks and readings by half when you buy them second-hand or off seniors. If you spend ₹900 a semester and up to ₹7,500 in four years on just texts, you can bring that down to ₹3,750. Not bad, right?
Taxi apps are useful for late night soirées and airport pick-ups, but when you can cover the length of Delhi in under ₹30, why wouldn’t you!? This is an actual option in cities that have a Metro service. Also, use the bus!