There are few feelings that compare to getting your student loan in. You wake up early already dreading the lectures ahead, you check your bank balance from the protection of your bed, and it's happened. The government has given you money, simply for existing, simply for going to lectures. You don't even have to listen in the lectures, and you still get the money! Obviously you have to pay it back, but don't think about that now (in fact, it's better to just never think about that ever), because it's time to spend some money.
Here's all the things that literally every student does as soon as their loan comes in...
1. You do an incredibly fancy food shop
The first shop after loan day is a near-religious experience. After weeks of living off pesto pasta, pot noodles and Strongbow Dark Fruits, you've earned this. Yes, you’ll soon be back to raiding the reduced section for bashed-up boxes of own brand cereal, but today you’re going all out. Who knows, you might even go to M&S.
£3.70 for some artisan cookies? Why not, it's loan day! £5 on an interesting looking chilli sauce that will ultimately sit in the back of your fridge until it comes time to move out at the end of term? Fuck it, you've got loadsa money.
2. You inevitably go overboard with the clothes shopping
There is genuinely nothing you can do to stop this happening - it's the law of loan day. A student loan drop in the middle of the spring/summer fashion season? There's simply no way of saving your money. So just embrace it. Embrace the fact that you'll end up spending £220 on trainers that you'll most likely spill a Jäger bomb on and never clean. Embrace the fact that you're gunna buy everything you see on your Instagram feed for the first week of your loan. Embracing it helps with the guilt.
3. You feast like Henry VIII
Obviously we all eat out all the time, regardless of the fact we can’t actually afford it. But that first week after getting your loan, people go out for dinner. No tap water, no getting the cheapest thing on the menu, no pretending you don't want dessert and then just buying a Snickers from Tesco on the way home. Alcohol, appetisers, £2.50 for a fucking soft drink - nothing's off limits. Enjoy this while it lasts, because after next week it's back to guiltily putting a £7 cocktail on your credit card and trying to get away with ordering from the kids menu.
4. You get very, very drunk
So you've been out to eat, you've stocked your cupboard up with weird gourmet foods and you've basically bought a whole new wardrobe - what are you gunna do now? You're gunna get drunk. Very drunk (of course). The first night out with a fresh student loan feels like a music video; double vodkas, bottles of champagne (OK, Cava), and shots of weird stuff you'd only really order on holiday like Goldschläger or flaming sambuca. Anyone in your general vicinity is getting a drink whether they want it or not, and if you think you're not getting food and a taxi on your way back you're lying to yourself.
5. You run out of money
Yeah, so it turns out a student loan doesn't last forever
