It is every student’s curse to get through money at an alarmingly fast rate. Save all you want, the minute your hard-earned cash is safely deposited in the bank it seems to have vanished, with interest. Much like socks, you never seem to have enough of it.
This strange state of affairs, along with battels, may go some way towards explaining why you’re already into your overdraft and feeling like a bit of extra cash to fund your newly acquired drinking habit. Of course, being a student, getting a job is completely out of the question. Working the floor of Miss Selfridge is hardly a good way to unwind after an all-nighter, and whilst you’re not exactly lazy, there’s no way you’re giving up your daily 2pm wake-up call. Not to mention the University’s cruel rules about jobs in term-time.
So what on earth is a poor cash-strapped student meant to do? Starve, or worse, live off hall food all term? If scavenging the streets of Oxford isn’t quite your bag, maybe it’s time to seek some help. For the creative there are myriad ways to earn a little extra dough. In case you’re too lazy to think of them yourself, we’ve put together a guide to help you on your way. Sell your soul, sell your friends’ souls, hell, even sell their bodies. The unscrupulous are always minted. If you’re lucky, you won’t even have to get out of bed. Play the Trading Game
It may be an old trick, but there’s still an offensive amount of money to be made through ebay, and where better to start than with gig tickets? Ticket touting is a veritable industry in its own right, to the extent that the Culture Minister Tessa Jowell has hosted a series of ‘ticket touting summits’, with the aim of eradicating it entirely. Whilst Ms Jowell has branded it “the preserve of people with bulging wallets”, it’s unlikely that your average student would ever describe their own wallet in such terms. So no guilt required.
The process is, of course, undeniably tedious. For outrageously popular events it could involve hours on the phone, sampling the tinny delights of ‘XXX’, or a good forty minutes of hitting ‘refresh’ on the relevant website. But should you succeed in getting the golden tickets in question, the financial reward to be reaped could be staggering. The Spice Girls Reunion Tour in January of next year, for example, has proved highly lucrative for touts, with one cheeky ebay user demanding a starting price of £800 for a pair of tickets with a £150 face value. I’ll give you a moment while you convert that into the equivalent number of bottles of Moët/handbags/tailor made suits.
Unfortunately, this looks to be an industry in decline, with Glastonbury organisers already cracking down on the tout phenomenon by requiring photo ID and several lengthy forms in order to purchase festival tickets. It could only be a matter of time before this stringent method of buying tickets becomes widespread.
No matter though, for there are plenty of other markets to be exploited. Snapping up new games consoles, for example, or limited edition products (think speciality I-pods, Kate Moss clothes ranges, Star Wars memorabilia) is a guaranteed bread-winner. Free Stuff
More fun than actually doing anything at all to get money, is just being given it. Free money is a beautiful thing. And Oxford just happens to be full of it. OK, it’s not in note form, but you can save yourself a lot of time (which is money) by snatching up the freebies offered at some of Oxford’s many events.
You need never again buy your own pens/paper/highlighters/paperclips/USB sticks/lip balm/mugs or any number of other commodities after attending a corporate careers fair. With a little bit of luck you might walk out with a job prospect. But if all else fails you can always pick up a free stress ball for when your bank balance hits rock bottom and you realize you only have £50 to last the rest of the term. Freshers’ Fair is particularly full of goodies, which include £1 Oxford tube passes, free Blackwells’ mugs and lots of eager people who want to pay you to do things.
Of course, when times are desperate, there is one source of a guaranteed handout: parental visits. Turn up looking scruffy and forlorn, emphasise how little you’ve been eating. Perhaps throw in something about how expensive things are these days. A real professional won’t be wearing socks – you just can’t afford a new pair. Finally turn on the water-works and ask daddy for some cash… Legal Loopholes
Cheating is an unpleasant word. It implies dishonesty, corruption and deceit. Cheating the system, on the other hand, is a blow for the proletariat, and it’s bound to get you a cash bonus. Vive la revolution!
There are of course, moral issues here. Cheating is cheating and somewhere along the way someone is losing out. So remember, we in no way condone or promote cheating in any way. We are merely pointing out certain flaws in the system which some mean spirited individuals might find it convenient to exploit.
A great place to start is your college. Unversity is an expensive place and colleges rightly recognise the need to help students financially. For those in need grants are many, varied and completely legitimate. They are also means tested, and so not available to any old student who has irresponsibly stretched the limits of theirbank manager’s kindness. However, colleges also have a strange amount of money that they are are just itching to give away to anyone, so get downloading those application forms.
At Christ Church every single student is eligible for a book grant of £140. Regretting not applying there? Never fear, if in need other colleges usually have some form of bursary to help you along with your studies. Of course you’d never dream of spending this on anything other than drinks. Travel grants are equally lucrative ways of getting some cash from college. Describe the many things you think you could be given £500 to travel the world, then proceed to sit back on a beach and perhaps take a look at some of that holiday reading. Take A Chance
A risky business, it has to be said. If you have a notoriously addictive personality, or can’t predict a match result to save your life, then perhaps stay clear of this particular money-making method.
Some bookies offer a generous start-up bonus to lure in the online and real-life punters. Put in £10, for example, and a company might give you an initial bonus of £25 to bet with. Make sure you’ve perfected the art of your chosen game before embarking on a glittering gambling career and you may never make a loss. Get some practice in with the Oxford Poker Society
Should you find yourself with a few hundred pounds cluttering up your student account, you could always play it safe and bet on a match where one team is almost certain to win. Think Brazil versus Man City. Given the pitiful odds offered by the bookies, you’ll have to risk a considerable amount of money to make a profit, but after three or four big wins you could be lunching at Quod four times a week. Become a Walking Advert
Consumerism is a terrible thing. You see something, you want it, you buy it, and voila, you’re still broke. A slave to the producer, you dutifully trapse to store after store to buy useless goods you’ll never use, all because you read something, somewhere which said you had to have it. How to break this vicious cycle? A simple return to an old adage should be enlightening: ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’
If you’re tired of wasting your money buying useless stuff, flog it to your friends instead and get paid. It’s amazing how far advertisers will go to get their product noticed by the right market. Offering to advertise on your blog/facebook/body can earn you a tidy sum in as much time it takes to set up a facebook group.
Don’t feel like shamelessly exploiting your friends? Try promoting yourself. For men, sperm donation can be a quick fix to financial difficulty. £30 a pop, and you’re getting paid to do something routine. New legislation means that there’s always the danger of being tracked down by a mini you in twenty years’ time though, so use with caution. Less dangerously, exploit any talent you have, particularly a musical one. Sharing it with the world can be a beautiful, and lucrative, thing. Ever wondered how much the buskers on Cornmarket earn in a Saturday afternoon? Lots. Sometimes £20 per hour or more. It’s colder than simply getting an advertiser to pay you for some e-space, but it can be more satisfying. And of course, the greater the pain, the larger the gain. Look as young as you can to exaggerate your musical skill. All in the name of medicineIf it’s good enough for the humble guinea pig, then surely it will suffice for the penniless undergraduate. You can offer yourself up as a test subject for a range of different experiments involving different levels of risk. Comfortingly, all experiments the Psychology Department requests its students to carry out are pleasingly non-life threatening, and require relatively little effort. Adverts for these experiments frequently pop up on facebook (keep your eyes on the left hand advert bar), or are plastered on faculty and JCR noticeboards.
One recent study required all participants to take a new form of anti-depressant drug for a week, after which they were examined to see if their energy levels and general happiness had increased. Each individual was then shown a series of video clips, showing images of a sexual, violent or tear-jerking nature, and their emotional responses recorded. A bizarre experience, certainly, but hopefully not a particularly painful one. Be warned – the number of experiments you can put yourself up for per year is limited, so choose carefully.
Needless to say, experiments advertised by organisations other than Oxford University should be avoided at all costs. Whilst experiments conducted by our Department of Experimental Psychology are governed by the British Psychological Society guidelines, the same cannot necessarily be said for other sources. Horror stories about experiments gone horribly wrong are rare, but exist nevertheless. And in all honesty, allowing someone to inject you with a dodgy form of a rogue malaria virus doesn’t seem enormously sensible.
