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Student life; some of the best and worst times of your life, amirite? Like, on one hand, you get to live with your friends, party a lot and for most of us, we get to explore a new place. On the other hand, we have to manage money, make those friends, do a ton of uni work and learn your way around a new place. There are so many things I wish I had learned before going to university, like how to make a bed. My time at university was mostly spent Googling a variety of things I didn’t know the answer to like making a bed or finding out how long you cook something for.
Google is your best friend whilst at university, you get your references from there, do research on it and even find out where the closest takeaway is. For this post I decided to include 8 of the best hacks/life tips I learnt whilst at university and some of them are pretty damn useful and others not so much, but I thought they were useful and some of them I still do. I’d love to know in the comments what life skills and hacks you picked up from university!
1. You can use a mug for basically everything.
Ok, so not everything, but a lot of stuff. A mug is an underrated tool in the kitchen, in my opinion, you can use it to make drinks as well as also using a mug to make cakes, scrambled eggs and of course as a bowl to drink soup out of.
2. The microwave is your best friend.
The microwave like a mug can be used for so much stuff, you can use it to make ready meals, make just about everything in the food cupboard and even heat up pizza, the morning after the night before. A great hack with pizza is if you put a small cup of cold water alongside your pizza and it stops the crusts going chewy, let’s be honest. Nobody wants this.
3. Make lectures easy with Trint.
When you’re in a lecture at 9am, barely able to keep your eyes open the last thing you want to do is write notes. This where Trint comes in, you record your lecture on your phone and then it will transcribe it for you on to your laptop at a later date. This is great for being able to hear back your lecture and for being able to read back through everything and taking parts to look into further detail.
4. The wooden spoon hack.
When cooking pasta it’s a pain when you have to stand around and watch it, to make sure that it doesn’t boil over. When in university one of my friends taught me the wooden spoon hack and still to this day I do not have a clue how it works but it just does. You put a wooden spoon across your pan and the water will not boil over. Magic right?
5. Keeping the fridge clean.
Cleaning the fridge is a grim job, especially when it’s full of gone off and when stuff has leaked everywhere, ew. An easy hack I found online is to cover your fridge in clingfilm, looks a little odd, however when it comes to cleaning it, it’s somewhat easier, you just peel it off and put it in the bin.
6. PayPal is a life saver.
When you’re out with your friends and one of you gets a round in and you need to pay each other back, it’s just an annoyance to carry cash and who even does bank transfers anymore? PayPal is the easy way to send money to each other in a few seconds, would totally recommend it for bills too. That way you can easily keep track of who has paid and who hasn’t and what’s left to pay.
7. Clean your keyboard with a post-it note.
This hack has changed my life, cleaning your keyboard properly is a pretty momentous task as it involves taking all of the keys off your keyboard, cleaning it out and then putting them all back on. With this hack, you can get the crumbs and dust out with a post-it note. All you need to do is slide it within the keys and the sticky side should catch the dust and crumbs.
8. Keep track of your spending.
There are so many apps these days to help you with your spending. When your student loan ‘drops’ you live well for the first week and then have to survive on 20p noodles for the rest of term (we’ve all been there) however if you have a money managing buddy, advising you of what your money looks like as well as what you’ve spent it on, it may make you think twice.
9. You NEED Cards against humanity.
Honestly, this game is a life changer, it’s known as the party game for horrible people. However it sure does get the conversation flowing, makes people laugh and feel a little bit more at ease and you can never really get bored of playing and as it’s like a whole new game each time you play with different people. With loads of expansion packs too, there is always plenty more to add to the game.
What is your top life hack?
*This post was written in collaboration with trint, however, all thoughts and experiences (sadly) are my own.
