Every student at LSE is a broke student. Don’t believe me? Read on.

I know that you come here, the LSE blog, when you’re procrastinating and thinking about where you can be in a year or two instead of doing the presentation or assignment that’s due tomorrow. I feel you. These things are meant to procrastinate –with that added feeling of fulfilment of having learnt something new.

Well, I realised that while I’m procrastinating, I might as well get that same fulfilment by telling you somethings that you may find worthwhile! So here’s to a new initiative.

I introduce to you ‘the broke student’, a series of posts that fits every stereotype that you’ve heard about uni kids. No, seriously. You don’t need to even actually be broke to be a broke student. The only qualifying criteria is that you need to be enrolled in a Uni. More specifically, all you need is a tuition fee that’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.

In this series of posts, I intend to share with you all the neat little cost saving tricks I’ve learnt. In my first post, i.e. this one, I’ll explain to you how every student at a place like the LSE is broke by default. In the next, I’ll tell you how I manage my finance and try and hope that you get a new perspective by learning about my situation. In the third post (and this is where it starts getting exciting) I’ll map out all the cheat secrets I’ve learnt, in my limited two-month experience, to save costs using LSE facilities. After that, my favourite one, I’ll give you a tour of all of the cafes at LSE and tell you where the broke student is the best off. If you’re interested, I could also do a post on events and travel for the broke student post (comment and lemme know!). Perhaps a housekeeping and general life-hacks for the broke student post too!

Finally, if you have any other suggestions, broke-tips or are simply inquisitive about any other aspects of the broke student’s life, please write to me or comment below! I’d love to get new blog ideas, do broke student field research and hear more broke-tips for my poor broke soul!

Now, to get to the point: why is every LSE student a broke student? Well, the answer to that is simple. We’re at LSE goddamit! There’s too much to do, too many places to be at and too many exciting new things to spend your money on! It’s the classic problem of unlimited desires and scarce resources. Don’t be mistaken to think that money is the only limitation of the broke student! Oh yeah, the broke student is not unilaterally broke. He or she never has money nor time. I’ve never been one for clichés statements, however, there isn’t any more truth in the world than that in the phrase, “time is money.”

Before we go on, let me reassure you that although I claim to be a broke student, I really am not. I have parents who take more than ‘good’ care of me! In fact, they insist on helping me more than they already do all the time –but more on that in the next post. Nevertheless, I find that no matter how rich you are or how well-endowed or charming or smooth-talking, you’re still broke. Ironically, the broke London School of Economics’ student problem is the oldest economic problem in the book!