7 Day Student Meal Plan

Uhh its that time of the day again, when you've gotta cook. It can be tricky and boring to cook for one, and often as a student you want dishes that won't take long. We have put together seven dinners perfect for the busy student on the go, who wants a healthy, low cost meal plan. 

We are sharing some of our all time favourite recipes that are both healthy and great for on a budget. You might notice that some of quantities are quite small on the shopping list. We advise you buy loose vegetables (not pre-packaged) and for meat either buy loose from the counter or buy in a larger pack and freeze the rest. 

• The dinners all take 30 minutes or less to cook so you don't have to worry about slaving away in the kitchen all day. 
• The recipes are designed for one portions (great for busy students) but for families/couples multiply up the quantities depending on your needs.  
• The meal plan has a self contained shopping list of everything you need for the week plus all the recipes. So you only need to print of one document to take with you to the store. 

Our favourite tools for meal planning

We love to keep all the meal plans we create in one easy to use binder. Plus, by keeping the meal plans in sheet protecters means we can re-use them time and time again and saving us printing out several copies. 

  

Click on the image of the meal plan below to be taken to the Google Drive where a PDF of the plan is available for you to download and print off. We hope you enjoy the meals as much as we do.

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If you are new to our blog, we are all about finding new ways for students and millennials to make and save money. Here are some of our favourite sites and products to help you out:

• Start a blog. Blogging is our side-hustle just over a year ago we didn't think I would bring us any income . You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.49 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
• Save money with gift cards Whether its for buying clothes, your weekly shop or dining out use Zeek to buy discounted gift cards to get more bang for your buck. 
• Use Swagbucks for your online searches. Swagbucks is a passive way to earn gift cards. Over the course of a year you could earn $500.  Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded “points called SB” for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough Swagbucks, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. Receive $5 for signing up today.
• Try matched betting. Matched betting is a great way to may easy money online. Despite the name it is not gambling and could see you earn £500-£1000 a month for only a couple of hours work a day see here and here. For your free trial head to profit accumulator or join the Facebook 'getting started' group.  
• Sign up for a cashback site like Quidco. where you can earn CASH BACK for just spending like how you normally would online. The service is free too! Plus, when you sign up through my link, you also receive a free £10 bonus!

*This post contains affiliate links, all opinions are our own*

Earn money with academic writing

Students are constantly looking for help with their studies, we've already talked about how you can earn money tutoring. In this post we will talk about how you can earn money through freelance academic writing.  

How does academic writing work?
I am a freelance writer with Academic Knowledge for their law students department. There is a mixture of different writing tasks that are available including essays, skeleton arguments, revision notes, and problem questions. They require you to have at least a 2:1 undergraduate degree in the subject you wish to write for, if you choose to undertake postgraduate studies, you will be able to take on higher level briefs (which are paid more).  There are other academic writing companies, however, what drew me to apply to academic knowledge was that they are a large, well established company. This means that there is a good steady supply of briefs which is essential to the flexibility of freelance work. 

Is it not plagiarism?
It might feel at first that you are simply doing other people's work for them (and therefore allowing cheating). However, that is not what the work you produce is for. The work you submit is intended to be used as guidance by the client to help them to produce their own work whilst being able to achieve the grade they are aiming for. Ultimately the license of the work remains with you, the writer and as such the client should not hand it in as their own work. 

How much could I earn?
How much you earn per brief depends on both the word length and the duration you have to complete the brief. As an example a 1000 word essay with 10 days to complete would pay approx £50. The plus with academic writing is that it pays well, provided you are able to turn out work quickly (i.e you get paid the same no matter how long you spend on it). The downside is, due to the work being freelance, there is limited consistency in income. However, academic knowledge do have a guide on their site to help you guesstimate how much you could earn depending on how much work you do. 
As a freelance writer you are responsible for declaring your own income for tax purposes. Though remember the government have now introduced a £1000 allowance for online earnings that you don't have to declare, but if you plan on earning more than that per tax year (and you easily could) it is important to declare you earnings even if you don't have to pay any tax.

How do I start academic writing?
I choose to work through academic knowledge, and would highly recommend them. Their application process is super simple, you just need to fill out some basic details and upload copies of your transcript/degree certificate. They will then, if you are successful phone you to have a brief chat with you and explain how the practice brief works. You are then given a list of questions to choose from for which you complete a short brief (approximately 1750 words) which you will be paid for (about £75). To see if they are currently hiring for your subject click here. 


This article is not sponsored or endorsed by academic knowledge. 


I’m taking part in the Money Making Madness Linky hosted by Charlotte Burns from Lotty Earns, Emma Bradley from Mum’s Savvy Savings, Emma Drew from EmmaDrew.Info and Lynn from Mrs Mummy Penny.

Should I get a Lifetime ISA?

The new tax year is now upon us and so too is the launch of yet another ISA - the lifetime ISA.  First things to remember is that this tax year the ISA limit (cumulatively for what you contribute to all kinds of ISA in 17/18) is now £20,000.

If you are new here, or not quite sure what an ISA is, essentially it is a tax-free savings account. ISA stands for Individual Savings Account and are available to both children (in the form of junior ISAs) and adults.  The amount you are able to save each year is called the ISA limit. It is important to understand that it is how much you contribute per year and that withdrawals are not taken into consideration. For example if you contributed £20,000, withdrew £4000 before the year was up, you could not re-contribute the £4000 in the same tax year as you are seen to have contributed £20,000 (the current ISA limit).

Chris and I have contributed to our Help to Buy ISAs ever since they launched in December 2015. We were lucky to have a great interest rate when we first open (4%), but sadly it has since been reduced. With a new product on the market we've been deciding whether it is worth switching from a Help to Buy to a Lifetime ISA.

They are two similar, but distinct products so it is important to consider who you are as a saver and which better fits your needs and financial goals. To help you better make this assessment we have made a table comparing the two ISAs. 

So which is the better account. Well that depends on a few things if you are looking to buy in the very near future and not go over the property value limits then Help to buy is your friend. The same goes if you are an older first-time buyer again Help to buy is for you. 

However, if your a young millennial just starting to save for a house then the Lifetime ISA is for you, you can save more, gain more bonus and have the flexibility of lump sums rather than rigid monthly payments. You also have the option of stocks and shares which should only be considered if you are looking to invest for at least 5 years (in order to mitigate any fluctuations in the market impacting short-term value). 

However, there is one key issue with the Lifetime ISA though is that so far very few providers are confirmed to be offering it. 

The following are the list of confirmed providers: 

- Hargreaves Landsdown.

- Fidelity

- Nutmeg

- The share centre

In addition all of those who have said they will are only offering it as a stocks and shares option. We were both initially pretty put off by this but after doing some further reading into the topic it seems that the reason why the big banks are slow on the band-wagon is because the Government was so late in giving them the final rules and details on the account (they only finalised the details in mid-March)

*UPDATE* 

Skipton Building Society now offer the very first cash lifetime ISA !! While this is certainly more appealing than the stocks and shares versions previously available. The interest rate is 0.5% so leaves a lot to be desired. We are still going to hold out for a bit, whilst many of the big banks have said they are not interested in offering the product there are a few including Barclays, HSBC, Virgin and, first direct are still considering it. We are waiting until they provide more information as if they do launch the product they are likely to provide better rates of return than Skipton's 0.5%. 

Though if the money you plan on putting into the Lifetime ISA is currently in an account with a lower interest rate, then it may be worthwhile opening the account contributing your annual allowance, and then if another providers open with better rates transferring to the new provider (which incurs no penalties). 

It is for that reason it may be worth waiting a little while, seeing what the big banks do (don't forget if you have it in cash you get the £75,000 FCSC backing that stocks and shares don't get). It is likely that banks and building societies will start offering the Lifetime ISA later in the summer. Plus as lifetime ISAs are not dependent on monthly contributions if you think that is the direction you want to go in you won't be limited in how much you can contribute this tax year (like you would with help to buy if you missed the monthly contributions). If you choose to make the switch from Help to Buy to lifetime you are able to transfer you Help to Buy balance without it counting towards your annual contribution limit. 

For Chris and I our plan is to wait out with the thought that the big banks will be offering a Lifetime ISA in cash form later this year. We then intend to contribute the £4,000 limit in a lump sum. In the mean time we will not contribute anything to our Help to Buy ISA during this tax year. If it looks like the banks are not going to open lifetime ISAs this tax year, in order to not miss out on the bonus we would open it with one of the stocks and shares providers and opt for a cash fund for example fidelity have a cash park which allows you to hold money in a stocks and shares ISA in cash form (though presently it pays no interest, the bonus makes it still worth switching for us). 

Are you planning on getting a LISA or are you going to stick to a H2B, or perhaps neither. Let us know you plans for saving for a house deposit. 

20 ways to earn money online in 2017

Looking to earn some extra money this year? Finding the time to pick up a part-time job doesn't alway work for the busy schedules of millennials and university students. But do not fear, that doesn't have to mean you hopes of increasing your income have to be put on the sideline. There are increasing number of legitimate ways to earn money online (often more easily than traditional earning methods). 

• Enter sweepstakes / competitions. In the past couple of years we have won close to £6,000 in prizes so it really can be a great way to earn online. We normally just enter competitions whist we are watching T.V in the evening. Our favourites search site to use is competition database because there are no spammy competitions on there allowing you to make better use of your time. Best of all the prizes are tax free. 
• Share your university experience with prospective students with UniBuddy and earn approximately £35 per applicant you help, plus be entered into their regular prizes for writing posts and articles. 
• Teaching English to Chinese children is a super flexible way to utilities your language skills. Got a bachelors?  try this company instead for better pay.
• Write mock essays, exam notes or mark papers.  [requires a bachelors degree] Academic knowledge hire graduates to work as freelance writers. The pay depends on the length of the project and the time to be completed in and you are paid either by BACS or Paypal. 
• Start a blog and earn through affiliate marketing, sponsored posts and advertisements. Whilst blogging is not a get rich quick scheme there are plenty of bloggers our there who earn impressive salaries online. 
• Use Swagbucks to earn £100s in gift cards by doing simple surveys, browsing the internet and shopping online. The easiest way to earn is to install their search engine browser and earn Swagbucks simply by searching the internet like normal. 
• Play the bookies at their own game and take advantage of betting offers with matched betting (and not its not gambling) to earn up to £1000 a month !!! Check out of post on how you can make your first matched betting earning of £45 in 60 minutes. Plus matched betting is entirely tax free !! 
• Get paid to read your emails with Inbox Pounds. They send you emails. you click that you've read the email at the bottom of the email text and earn money. It really is that simple. You can cash out every time your earnings total £20. 
• Create an Etsy store.  Selling digital downloads is probably the most passive way of earning an income through Etsy, but it can also be used to sell physical items too. We sell a single item on our etsy store (cash envelope printables) and we get a nice little side-income that is almost entirely passive. 
• Get cashback on your shopping with Quidco (use this link to get £10 free with Quidco), TopCashback or Swagbucks. Over the year you'll see the savings add up for next to no effort. 
• Sell your photos to photo stock companies. Blogs and websites are in high demand of stock photos. If you have high quality photos you can sell them through companies such as Crewstock Don't have a fancy camera? You can sell photos taken on your smart phone through Clashot. 
• Publish an e-book on amazon and keep 70% of the profits from the book. If your not sure where to start Disease called Debt have an brilliant guide to publishing an E-Book  perfect for the first time e-book publisher. 
• Become an Audio Typist. If you've got access to good speed internet, can type at 65 wpm accurately and have at least a C grade in GCSE English (though its probably helpful to be a bit more proficient) then working as a transcriptionist for TakeNote could be a great option. 
• 20 Cogs is an tasks and offers rewards site. Whilst you won't get rich from completing 20 Cogs offers you could also easily earn a couple of hundred pounds as you can see from their earnings leaderboard. 
• Write online reviews with Dooyoo. They are probably the best known review site in the U.K. The site is easy to use, you can write reviews on tons of products and you can be paid in cash or amazon vouchers. 
• Fiverr is somewhat similar to Etsy. It is an online marketplace where you offer freelance services such as graphic design or translations work for $5. If you have a creative freelance skill this can be a great platform to find work online. 
• Sell your used toilet roll holders as craft supplies on online auction sites such as eBay. Whilst you won't earn thousands this way, its a simple way to earn a little extra cash for something you are going to buy and use up. For more information check out SkintDad's post on selling used toilet roll holders.
• Reselling on gumtree or eBay. Picking up bargains and reselling them for a higher price. Often the safest option when starting is to pick up free items (or super low price) from gumtree or charity shops, this means your unlikely to make a loss. You might also find using sites such as LatestDeals or Extreme Coupling and Deals UK useful to pick up bargains and then sell them on for a profit online. 
• Create a course. Have you got a skill or knowledge you could share with others? Then why not create a course to teach that skill. Maybe your awesome at coding or an ace at exams. Through Udemy you can create and sell your very own course. 
• Earn money losing weight with DietBet. DietBet is a social dieting site which runs challenges where you receive rewards for losing weight. There is a 30 day challenge to lose 4% of your body weight or  a 6 month challenge to lose 10% of your body weight. Those in your group who achieve the goal, the pot of money is divided up and equally distributed to the winners. 

With so many ways to earn extra money online your sure to be able to find something to meet your talents, needs and schedule.  

*This post contains affiliate links, all opinions are our own*

I’m taking part in the Money Making Madness Linky hosted by Charlotte Burns from Lotty Earns, Emma Bradley from Mum’s Savvy Savings, Emma Drew from EmmaDrew.Info and Lynn from Mrs Mummy Penny.

Valentines Day on a Budget

Valentines day can be expensive... too expensive for a student. It can really feel like its a corporate gimmick to suck your wallet dry. It can be easy to lose sight of the day's real objective to show your unyielding love to another when you are inundated with financial expectations associated with the day. 
But valentine's day does not have to cost the earth, today we will share some great ideas we have found to enjoy valentines's day on a student budget. 

Have a treat dinner at home. 
Not going out for dinner doesn't have to make the evening any less special. Get dressed up like you would for going out, set your dining space up for the meal, light a few candles. It can be a fun opportunity to cook together. We like to use Great British Chef's recipes for treat dinners, they have high quality restaurant recipes that almost anyone could cook and even have a section on valentine's day recipes. 

If your not feeling overly ambitious about cooking then the big supermarkets are back with their at-home valentines dinner sets that usually fall around the £15-£20 mark. Waitrose offer a dinner for 2 for £20 which includes three courses, sides and drink (and the food looks delicious). While Marks and Spencer offer a "2 dine in for £10" including drinks. 

You can get a free takeaway (up to the value of £15) with lots of big brand takeaway companies including Just Eat and Pizza Hut through Quidco. Or order through Deliveroo and get £10 off your first spend. 

Dine out for Less
Whilst lots of chains are offering discount vouchers at the moment many of them are not valid on valentines day. These will only work to your advantage if you plan on celebrating on a different day. 
We've found a hack to get you 48% off pizza express (without any discount vouchers).  
Other ideas for eating out on a budget include using Lastminute.com who have a great feature called 'cheap eats' where you can set your price point i.e. eat of for £20. Or why not consider going out for brunch for the better deals earlier in the day or just for dessert in the evening. 

Entertainment 
Going to the Cinema for a couple could cost £20+ in tickets plus any snacks you buy. This year valentine's day falls on a Tuesday so if you are thinking about going out to the cinema its the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the trick we have found to save 65% off Cineworld. To learn more click here. 

Perhaps you want to have a movie night from the comfort of your own home. Local libraries and often university libraries allow you to rent DVDs for free. Plus Amazon Prime have tons of movies available free for 6 months for students. 

Gifts
Flowers are crazy expensive (and die so quickly) you can easily be looking close at £40-£50 for roses. Luckily a number of florists at the moment are running special offers. Prestige flowers are offering 30% off 12 red roses. Bunches have 10% off with the promo code BUN10  and a free box of chocolates if you order online. Bouqs have 20% off with the code VDAY20.

O2 priority are currently giving away a free valentines day card with Choosy. Which you can order online. While new customers with TopCashback can get a free moonpig card after cashback or a free box of Thontons chocolates. 

More ideas? 
It is often the small more sentimental touches that make the big difference. The Dating Divas is a great site for help organising date nights that are big on sentimentality and not on budget. They have over 100 ideas for valentines dates (many you can do from your own home). Most of their ideas are inexpensive or entirely free making them perfect for any budget. 



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If you are new to our blog, we are all about finding new ways for students and millennials to make and save money. Here are some of our favourite sites and products to help you out:

• Start a blog. Blogging is our side-hustle just over a year ago we didn't think I would bring us any income . You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.49 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
• Save money with gift cards Whether its for buying clothes, your weekly shop or dining out use Zeek to buy discounted gift cards to get more bang for your buck and get £5 free when you make your first purchase through our link. 
• Use Swagbucks for your online searches. Swagbucks is a passive way to earn gift cards. Over the course of a year you could earn $500.  Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded “points called SB” for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough Swagbucks, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. Receive $5 for signing up today.
• Try matched betting. Matched betting is a great way to may easy money online. Despite the name it is not gambling and could see you earn £500-£1000 a month for only a couple of hours work a day see here and here. For your free trial head to profit accumulator or join the Facebook 'getting started' group.  
• Sign up for a cashback site like Quidco. where you can earn CASH BACK for just spending like how you normally would online. The service is free too! Plus, when you sign up through my link, you also receive a free £10 bonus!

*This post contains affiliate links, all opinions are our own*