Sharps disposal when you move every year

I found that being organised was the substitute for being able to throw money at problems, and it worked most of the time.

Tansy, answering your question directly rather than going round the houses.

Something that helped was talking to the pharmacy about timing so that nothing ever ran out at a moment I could not afford.

Replying to Tansy rather than to anybody above, because I want to answer what was actually asked.

What surprised me was how much support was available once I actually asked. I had spent a year assuming there was none.

I would gently say that if cost is about to make you stop, please have the conversation before you stop rather than after.

The holidays are the difficult part. Term-time arrangements do not survive four months at a different address.

Something I got right was keeping a small buffer, built up slowly, so that a delay or an unexpected cost did not stop everything.

My experience of the health service as a student was much better once I stopped treating it as a last resort.

I would encourage anybody here to write down what things actually cost over a year. Mine was less than I had feared and knowing was worth a lot.

The fridge in a shared house was a genuine problem and I solved it with a small locked box and a conversation with my housemates.

My budget for this is fixed and small and I plan the whole year around it rather than month to month.

I asked the university health service and they were far more helpful than I had assumed they would be. Worth trying before assuming.

What helped was finding out exactly what I was entitled to, which took an afternoon and turned out to be considerably more than I expected.

Quietly agreeing from the other side of the country.

Doing this without money is a completely different exercise and most of what is written assumes a car, a fridge and a stable address.

Coming back at the end of my second year to say I managed it, it was tight throughout, and it was entirely possible.