Best Life Hacks for Students

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First things first, you’ll need to banish any hack-related thoughts of geeky teens breaking into FBI computers. These life hacks are all about tricks, tips, and shortcuts to make student life, well, easier. So let’s see a round-up of techniques and tips that will help make your life as a student just that little bit simpler…

Food Life Hacks

Food is at the forefront of the mind of most students – whether you’re at university or balancing job/life/study commitments as a distance learner. You can’t study with a rumbling stomach, and a fair old chunk of your budget is likely to be blown on it. But there are a few food hacks you should know about…

  • Shop just before closing time at the local supermarket. Many items will be reduced down as they edge closer to their best-before dates. Stock up on perishable bargains, especially in the meat department, and then freeze them.
  • Leftover pizza? Always better warm – but soggy crusts are no fun though. Place a glass of water in the microwave at the same time as your last slice of pepperoni pizza and the crust will be as crispy as when it was delivered. (Quite possibly the best hack ever!)
  • No room in the microwave for two bowls? Place one on an upside down mug and it’s dinner – ok, noodles again – for two.
  • Flatmate stolen your milk (a-gain)? A couple of drops of green colouring will put them off the next bottle…
  • Cleaning Life Hacks

    The chances are your mother’s not there to clean up after you. So, do it yourself, but use a few of these cleaning tips for making things easier around the house…

  • Post-it notes are really useful, but they’re also a great way to clean the crisp and biscuit crumbs that are clogging up your keyboard. Just run the sticky edge along and between the keys, and hey presto!
  • A drawer spilling over with t-shirts soon makes your room take on that ‘just burgled’ look. Roll with it instead. Simply roll your clothes, or stack them vertically to see at a glance what’s there.
  • Use a drinks can clip to hang from a hanger an extra shirt or dress – two into one will go.
  • No, Mum’s still not coming to wash up. With that in mind, here are two magical words: paper plates. You’ll wonder why you ever bothered with the china variety.
  • Time & Money Life Hacks

  • Late nights and early morning don’t really go together – and there are some mornings when that happy hour didn’t seem like such a good idea after all…
  • Don’t be a mug; use one to ensure you’re up early enough to finish writing that essay. Place your phone in a mug and the alarm will wake you up, along with almost everyone else within a mile or so’s radius.
  • Use a money saving app on your phone as an organisational tool. Spendometer is brilliant. Available for iPhone or Android, it enables you to set yourself a budget, log your spending and view your spending reports.
  • Don’t write off that ‘dead’ biro. Between being lost, pinched and used up from frantic scribbling, pens can be a significant expensive for students. Before you throw away that old biro, though, try heating the tip up under a lighter. And bingo – the dried up ink that’s blocking up the flow will melt away and you’ll get a bit more life out of it.
  • Found our life hacks for students useful? Make your studies more effective with our pick of task management tools.