Budgeting

1. Review the Off-Campus Study Budgeting Tips presentation
2. Use your bank app to help figure out your spending habits
   • Check to see if your bank offers a cost breakdown of your monthly spending
   • Look back at the past 3 or 4 months to get a sense of how much money you spend on certain categories (food, personal expenses, etc)
3. Conduct research on your destination city by pulling cost estimates from Google or your host university’s website. Search a variety of categories to be sure you understand the cost of living in that particular city.
   •   Ex: Google “average cost of groceries per week in Milan”
4. Use the information from steps two and three to fill out the budgeting template
5. Look to see how much “wiggle room” you have (if you are over budget or under budget) and make any adjustments necessary
   •   Contact or meet with financial aid or your program coordinator to find ways to help cut costs if you are over budget