Grad Student Budget

Requirements:

This is a document to post on the Psychology department’s website as a resource for graduate

students looking for budgeting and/or financial planning advice.

- New graduate students with a focus on international students

- If you live here you’ll have these expenses

- Resources

- Sections: sample rents, food, utility (cost of living)

- 3 sample budgets

- Additional funding for summer?

- Student income:

- 9 month contract (can be extended by12 months), biweekly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction - Creating Your Budget

2. Costs & Expenses

2.1. Fixed Expenses

2.1.1. Yearly Fixed Expenses

2.1.2. Semester Fixed Expenses

2.1.3. Monthly Fixed Expenses

2.2. Variable Expenses

2.3. Secondary Expenses

3. Financial Aid

3.1. Grants, Loans, and Scholarships

4. Income

4.1. Biweekly income

4.2. Other forms of income - passive income

5. Savings

5.1. Savings - Emergency Fund

5.2. Taking Advantage of Student Discounts!

5.3. Rewards and Benefits of Building Credit

5.4. Long-term investments

5.5. Best Budgeting Apps

6. Resources

6.1. Helpful links

6.2. Tips from UMBC grad students

6.3. Funding (emails, bulletin/whiteboard)

7. Sample Budgets

7.1. Templates

1. CREATING YOUR BUDGET

The hardest part about creating a budget is knowing where to start. Resources and other tools

will be available and linked to help you set your financial goals.

I would recommend creating a monthly budget tracker as many of these fixed expenses occur

then. Biweekly income can be put together with the overall monthly expenses. However, you

may choose to create a budget specifically tailored to your own needs. I find the most success

with monthly tracking because biweekly is too short and a semester budget is too uncertain and

subject to many changes.

Personally, I like to overestimate my costs and expenses and underestimate any income so that

it allows me to make better decisions when it comes to managing my finances. I also like color

coding money coming in and money going out then breaking it down by time/dates. Having a

rough idea of how much you are starting with and the amount of money spent for each month or

even each quarter can help you adjust your budget as needed.

2. COSTS & EXPENSES

It is important to track fixed costs and expenses in order to budget accurately. This section will

provide you with the cost of living around UMBC as well as other fixed, recurring, and other

variable costs.

2.1 Fixed Expenses

These are expenses that do not change such as your rent, car insurance, utilities, and tuition.

The cost of living will always vary from location to location however, here is a quick chart below

to help you have a rough idea of what it may look like.

2.1.1 Yearly Fixed Expenses

This will include tuition and fees. Typically, students pay tuition and fees on a semester basis

however, this was the cost shown on the UMBC website. Additionally, direct costs are costs

billed directly to the student and indirect costs are variable estimates that are not billed.

2021-2022 Graduate Cost of Attendance

2021-2022

In-State

Per Year

Out-of-State

Per Year

Type

Tuition/Fees

$15,048

$23,994

Direct

Rent/Utilities/Food

$22,500

Indirect

Books

$800

Indirect

Transportation

$2,416

Indirect

Other

$1,684

Indirect

Direct Loan Fee

$178

Indirect

PLUS Loan Fee

$888

Indirect

Total

$43,514

$52,460

2.1.2 Semester Fixed Expenses

This will typically include any books or academic supplies. Below is an example for the ABA

program. Here is the full Handbook for HSP - ABA Program for required courses.

Required textbooks/readings/course material roughly cost $300 per semester where each

course would be given a budget of $100 for required materials which is more than enough.

Students estimate spending $100 to $300 on course materials per semester. Most courses have

professors who provide journal articles and don’t have required materials.

2.1.3 Monthly Fixed Expenses

This will include the cost of rent, utilities, insurance, car payment, groceries, and banking fees.

Average Cost of Rent & Utilities per Location (Monthly)

Type

Location

Rent

Utilities

1 Bedroom Apartment

Catonsville, MD

$1,300

unknown

1 Bedroom Apartment

Baltimore, MD

$1,500

$252.00

1 Bedroom Apartment

Columbia, MD

$1,300

$138.20

1 Bedroom Apartment

Laurel, MD

$1,700

$138.20

1 Bedroom Apartment

Arbutus, MD

$1,600

$140

1 Bedroom Apartment

Ellicott City, MD

$1,200

unknown

(around

$217?)

1 Bedroom Apartment

Elkridge, MD

$1,400

unknown

Basic utilities are gas, electricity, and water. Here is a great resource that goes into more depth

about estimating the cost of apartment utilities.

In Baltimore, MD the average electricity, gas, and water cost is $159.00, $48.56, $33.76

respectively (article last updated April 8, 2021). The total average cost being $252.00.

A garbage bill should also be taken into consideration when creating your budget. More often

than not, landlords may include trash and recycling services into your utility bill but it’s always

good to verify.

Internet services are also another utility depending on your ISP.

Here, I also assume the average college student is not paying for Cable TV services. Rather,

streaming services will be accounted for and listed under the Subscriptions category.

Cell phone services are also extremely important in this day and age. Some assumptions for

phone services will include little to no data usage, buying or leasing a device, and the ability to

text and call. Free wifi is provided on campus and UMBC has their own VPN called

GlobalProtect so data usage is really not needed in this case.

Finally, renter’s insurance is not a utility but may be factored into your budget if you’d like (it’s

only $15 to $30 a month but totally up to you).

Monthly Expenses

Type

Average Cost

Your/Personal Cost

Car Insurance (average in the U.S.)

$103.33 ($1,240/year)

Car Payment (average in the U.S. for a

used car)

$300

Gas

(average gas in MD $2.759 * average gas

tank size 12 gallons) = $33.108

(average 25 miles per gallon) = 300 mi

Catonsville = 2.7 mi

Baltimore = 9.4 mi

Columbia = 17 mi * 2 = 34mi * 20 = 680mi

Laurel = 17 mi

Arbutus = 2.2 mi * 2 = 4.4mi * 20 = 88 mi

Ellicott = 9.3 mi

Elkridge = 7.5 mi

Assume:

Student goes to campus 5x a week,

roundtrip = 20x month

Anywhere between

$33.108

and

$75.0448

(680mi / 300mi = 2.267 *

$33.108)

depending on where you

live

not accounting for leisure

activities

Transportation (if no car)

UMBC transit (unavailable until 5/20/21)

All Access College Transit Pass

UMBC ZipCar (unavailable until Spring

2021)

Free

$52.90

($25/year)

Internet - basic

$30 - $35

Phone - mint mobile

$15 - $30

Groceries (varies from location to location)

$200

Subscription Services

Netflix - Basic

Spotify Premium Student + Hulu Plan

Amazon Prime Student

$8.99

$4.99

$6.49 (OR $59/year)

2.2 Variable Expenses

They are usually subject to change depending on how much you spend. This section will be

skipped.

2.3 Secondary Expenses

These include leisure expenditures and unnecessary expenses. It’s always nice to treat yoself!

- Restaurants/food (going out to eat)

- Clothes and shoes

- Personal care items

- Salon services

- Hobbies or recreational activities

- Entertainment

I would recommend having a rough idea of your income minus total expenses for the month

then taking 10% or 20% of your paycheck and putting it into a savings account. Then the

amount leftover can be used for secondary expenses. I also typically save calculating

secondary expenses for last.

3. FINANCIAL AID

It’s also important to take financial aid into consideration. This can be in the form of

- Scholarships (by semester/year)

- Loans (by semester/year)

- Grants (by semester/year)

- Parental Support (weekly/biweekly/monthly)

4. INCOME

Any income made. It will usually be in the form of biweekly paychecks. Passive income should

also be noted however, if the difference is not largely noticeable, I would recommend keeping it

in your savings account.

Graduate students in the Psychology department are also able to sign 9 month contracts

(standard) for employment but this may be extended to 12 months (summer funding,

international students) if additional funding is needed.

Stipend

Yearly

Bi-weekly

Health

Insurance

University Fees

9-month contract

(no summer work)

$20,300

$922.73

Covered by

department

Covered for first

3 years

12-month contract

$23,990

$922.69

Covered by

department

Covered for first

3 years

5. SAVINGS

Savings - Emergency Fund

Here, I recommend a standard savings account for long-term investing and an emergency

savings account/fund. The latter should have a minimum of $100 in it to cover small expenses

but aiming for $500 is ideal.

I highly suggest implementing the 50 30 20 Rule for guidance on personal finance.

This is where 20% of your income goes towards your savings account, 50% towards your

necessities like fixed payments, and 30% to discretionary (non-essential) items. This may not be

feasible for a graduate student but it is a good rule of thumb for tracking your spending and

finances.

Student Discounts

There are many discounts available for students online. Personally, I have used

https://www.myunidays.com/ a lot for netflix and other applications/subscriptions that require

students to verify their email address. As long as you have your general student information and

a university email account, you will be able to access many of their rewards and benefits.

Other brick and mortar stores also offer student discounts if you just ask! (Vineyard vines have

student discounts, AMC theaters, etc.) All you have to do is show them your student ID.

Other membership programs include https://www.studentbeans.com/us and http://www.isic.org/

however I have not used these personally.

Some popular student discounts and freebies are

Subscriptions: apple music ($4.99 per month), youtube premium ($6.99 per month), spotify

student with Hulu and Showtime ($4.99 per month)

Some free applications to help you find the best deals:

● https://www.joinhoney.com/

● https://www.retailmenot.com/

● https://www.slugbooks.com/

Rewards and Benefits of Building Credit

Best credit cards for college students:

Discover Student IT

Long-term Investments

(This is probably the least important aspect of this guide)

I would recommend investing with https://www.acorns.com/, it is a micro-investing application

free for students. It works by automatically rounding up to every dollar spent. This means your

change will go towards your acorns account.

Best Budgeting Apps

My favorite app for personal finance is https://mint.intuit.com/ it gives you an overview on every

account in your name including loans, credit cards, bank accounts, etc. It also breaks down how

much you spend and tracks all your finances.

6. RESOURCES

6.1 Helpful Links

6.2 Tips from Other Grad Students

Will have a questionnaire or poll for graduate students to send their tips for budgeting. This may

include the best areas for renting an apartment, favorite local restaurants, or best places to save

on school materials.

6.3 Funding Opportunities

Email newsletter(?) sent out to graduate students.

Possibly have a whiteboard/bulletin board <div> box for updated opportunities.

7. SAMPLE BUDGETS

7.1 Templates

In-State

Budget Item

Academic Year

Quarter

Academic Year

Summer Quarter

12 Month

Budget

Rent

Food

Personal

Expenses

Transportation

Books and

Supplies

Campus Health

Service Fee

Cardinal Care

Health

Insurance

Total

Non-Tuition

Expenses

Item

Cost per Item/Day

Cost per Month

Cost per Year

Morning snack

(3x/week)

Library Fines

(1x/week)

Annual Costs

Tuition

Books & Supplies

Monthly Costs

Housing

Utilities

Transporta

tion

Healthcare

Debt

Groceries

and Eating

Out

Shopping

and Other

Student Budget Worksheet