A message from our scars: Is it so hard to love us?

By Rachel Garvey

As someone who deals with anxiety and depression, my scars are mainly on the inside. I won’t take you step by step through my complicated past, but I will take you through the steps of how I learned to love my scars. I would say I’d take you by the hand, but social distancing guidelines must be adhered to, so reading this will have to suffice for the time being.

Anxiety and depression or any type of mental illness is a type of illness that is hard to explain to others who have never suffered from it before. We can try our best to explain, but one will never truly know how others feel unless they are in someone’s shoes.

I hated that I was too nice; I always felt like I owed people something and if I didn’t keep them happy then they wouldn’t want me around. I did everything for everyone so they would keep me around and the one time I said “no” I was branded the bad guy. We are all guilty of that aren’t we?

However, after many attempts at keeping people happy and then getting hurt by them, I continued to repeat my actions over and over and I didn’t know how to stop. Have you ever come across a cartoon on social media where this one person does everything for everybody, that same person giving away a piece of their heart until they have nothing left, but when

By Anastasia Burton

We all have trouble with money, it comes with being a college student who has either just moved away from their parents’ home or still living with parents with access to adult money!

School taught us a lot, but none of it was useful in teaching us how to manage our own finances and how to prioritize expenses that go towards necessities and leisure.

Budgeting is hard, but fear not, SIN are here to help you skint students with some top budgeting advice

Firstly, what is budgeting? Well if you had studied accounting or business in secondary school you would have a faint idea of what budgeting is. But if you hadn’t studied budgeting, don’t worry. You don’t need a fancy ledger or anything of that sort. Get yourself a cheap copy or just any piece of paper you can find. Begin with layout!

DATe YOuR LeDGeR: Make sure you have the date written somewhere on that they want someone to talk to everyone turns away from them? That was me!

However, upon speaking with my neighbour one day, she taught me that me being “too nice” was a weakness, but it was also a strength. I taught myself then that it was okay to be nice as long as it wasn’t towards people who take advantage of kind hearts.

I hated my panic and anxiety attacks. They always happened at the worst of times, and when they would happen, I would feel self-conscious and ashamed. There were times I felt like crying because it was too much for me and I hated that people witnessed what I thought was a weakness. Over time, I sat myself down and thought about how my anxiety attacks made me feel, and even though the cons outweighed the pros, I kept going back to the positives. Yes, suffering from an anxiety attack is awful, but I taught myself that it was my body’s way of saying “you need to take it easy”. paper so you can then look back and see your progress from one week to another or one month to another. we mean write out every bank account/ credit union/ cash that you have. Note the amounts you have in each, so you have a better idea of your finances. sPLIT A COLuMN: Split the bottom of the page into income and expenditure. Make sure to put in all the dates you are expected to get paid, so you know when money is coming in. If you don’t know how much you will be getting, guestimate. In expenditure make a rough draft. In the expenditure you should have your rent, bills, food expenses, travel, treat money, etc. Calculate both income and expenditure. income, if your expenses are higher than your income, decrease your expenditure. By that you should maybe cut out treating yourself for a week or so to try and accumulate funds. Maybe try and save on public transport by walking or

Budgeting Advice!

I was putting myself in situations that I couldn’t deal with and I was adding all this pressure to myself to the point where I could feel myself crumbling and what good did it do me? My body was telling me to stop and breathe.

After a while, I learned how to embrace my anxiety attacks; I let them happen, but when they did happen, I would take a few minutes to myself in order to give my body the time it needed to recover. I’m in a bittersweet relationship with my attacks, but they happen for a reason and as a result I have grown to love them. I don’t want to get into my physical scars, mostly because for some it is an upsetting subject, but in regard to physical scars, a recent post by Selena Gomez really spoke to me. Her confidence in her Instagram post was truly inspiring. It read “When I got my kidney transplant, I remember it being very difficult at first showing my scar, so I wore things that would cover it up. Now more than ever, I feel confident in who I am and what I went through! All bodies are beautiful.”

Those few words spoke to me and made me realise how all of our bodies scar differently mentally and physically, those differences set us apart from other people, but even though we are all different, we still all hold the title together of being beautiful. Our bodies are sacred, so let’s

LAY OuT ALL YOuR ACCOuNTs: By this

COMPARe: Look at expenditure and learn to love their good sides and bad sides.

taking your bike. Consider buying less expensive groceries. You need to understand that you can’t live paycheque to paycheque.

MAKe A GOAL: You need to set a goal for yourself in terms of how much you want to save and what you’re saving for. This doesn’t have to be a set idea, you can literally just save for the sake of saving in case the world hits the fan and you really need extra cash.

You can make these accounts as often as you like if you are actively saving or looking for ways to save. These little accounts will help you understand where you need to work harder and where you need to tone down a bit. Budgeting is an important part of being an adult with student money that is way too easy to spend.

Refer to SpongeBob’s quote of “I’m Ready!”, are you really?

By Rachel Garvey

There are a lot of things that I wish someone had told me before I moved out into the big bad world full of uncertainty, and adult problems lurking around every corner. Here are a couple of useful things to keep in mind!

Planning: Planning is everything and if you don’t plan these things then you’re already setting yourself up for failure. You need to know where you’re moving to, how you’re going to get there. Whether it’s close to local amenities such as supermarkets, banks, gyms and colleges. Have you done your research with regards to looking at various places to see which ones suit you better, especially in terms of rent prices and how close it is to your place of work or education?

Budgeting: This is the probably the one thing I did right when I moved out. Budgeting is going to become your new best buddy. Moving out of home is stressful enough, but then the money matters decide to tag along, and it’s up to you to manage your financial matters. Whether you’re on a student grant or working parttime, it is important to keep track of your income and expenditure because no-one wants to be struggling to pay their rent every month because they overspent their money on new clothes. Putting aside money each week for rent is a good way to ensure you won’t be stuck at the end of the month as well as putting money aside for any extra bills. Then you have the rest of your income for food shopping and anything else you might need.

False hope: I wish someone had told me how hard it is to be away from home. As children, we’ve always wondered what it

would be like to move away from home and we have all this pentup excitement, but it actually turns out to be a whole different experience. We may be excited at first for the first couple of days, but after a while a particular type of anxiety sets in; separation anxiety. We don’t have our parents close by, and we miss their cooking, or we just miss them in general. There is the reward of being independent and learning how to do things for yourself, but it won’t be all fun and games, and there will be times you will find yourself thinking “Am I doing this right?”, but those doubts will soon disappear once you get yourself into a routine. Checking in on your parents and loved ones at home will also make things a little easier in your day to day life. Calling Mum, Dad or your grandparents will do you the world of good and they’ll be there to remind how proud they are of you.

Correct meal prep: We all can’t live off noodles and pasta for the rest of our lives and our bodies won’t be thrilled about having a ready microwaved meal every day of the week. Noodles and pasta may be cheap to purchase, but we shouldn’t have to live off them because that’s all we can afford. This is where the budgeting comes into effect. Making sure not to overspend in certain areas and ensure you have money to buy yourself proper ingredients to make healthy and nutritious meals. This is where meal prep comes into effect; make your dish, but be sure to make enough so it can last a couple of days and all it takes is putting it in a lunch box, popping it in the freezer or fridge and taking it out when you want to eat it after a couple of short minutes in the microwave. Easy as pie!