Money

‘I’m a law student who works to help mental health charities’


Name: Lewis Alexander Baxter
Age: 21
Income: £3,000 plus student loan of £4,500 a year
Occupation: Full-time law student, part-time tutor and organisation founder

I’ve just started my second year at Durham University, where I’m studying law. I’m not your typical student: I probably only go out once a week or, more accurately, once every two weeks. I’m not into mad nights out and clubbing. Let’s put it bluntly – if I did have those classic kind of night outs several times a week, I’d have very little money left at the end of the week.

At Durham I’ve really had to budget. I work out how much I need every month. I’ve started to use a spreadsheet – my dad loves a spreadsheet. I was sceptical but this year I’ve really got into it. I’ve had to be very frugal. Durham is quite an expensive city, and drinks are costly, so you have to be quite savvy in terms of eating and going out.

I receive a student loan of £4,500 a year. I’m living with five lads in a house share half a mile from the city centre, which costs £105 a week each. Fortunately my parents pay for my rent in Durham, which is quite expensive compared with other cities. I pay for the bills, which come to about £15 a month each. We use apps such as Splitwise to work out what we owe if one of us buys a toaster or a kettle or pays a bill.

My main living costs are food and drink. I’m super-organised and budget food costs. I spend about £45 a week on my food shop, which is certainly not excessive or extravagant. I might miss lunch occasionally, but that doesn’t matter as I’m trying to lose weight anyway. I love cooking and having friends over. I do shop around for the best deals and check out the products in the reduced section. I treat myself to the occasional meal out at somewhere such as Nando’s.

I really like to go travelling. I’ve had two amazing holidays in the past year: I visited Bali and Italy for a week each. This year has been a freak year as it’s been my 21st, and my mum is not very well at all. She’s always said: “When I was 18, I always visited these amazing countries, and if you can afford to go, do it.” Bali cost me about £1,000, but once we were there it was very cheap. When I came back, my bank balance was about £400, so I had to start building up money again.

To up my income, I do a bit of tutoring on the side and make about £100 a month from it. I go back to my parents’ in Blackburn every two weeks, and while I’m there I’ll see if anyone wants support or tutoring. I help with subjects like English literature, geography and law. When I was 14 to 18 I worked two nights a week and every Saturday in a restaurant on the minimum wage. I wondered how I could utilise my time better and earn more money.

In 2016 I suffered from depression and tried to take my own life several times. I’d been suffering from severe depression for about six months before I found myself standing on a bridge. I was there for four hours with emergency servicemen trying to talk sense into me. It was a torrid time. I ended up starting a new sixth form and shared my story in assembly. Speaking about my mental health for the first time felt really good – lads who played rugby or outwardly had a strong and determined exterior opened up afterwards about their mental health, so I thought maybe I could help more people. Now I give talks about my story to businesses and donate the fees to my organisation, the Blurred Line Group, which I set up this year to help mental health charities with grants and support. Our first event in Lancashire last year raised £7,500. As we’re a startup, there’s not a lot to play around with in terms of cash, and paying for train tickets across the north and down to London for meetings can set me back £60 at times.

My five- to 10-year goal is to work for a non-profit organisation. But as soon as I finish my degree I’ll probably go and work in law for a couple of years. I’ve started looking at flats in London and am now starting to save to live there. Moving to London for anyone my age is stressful if they’re not from the capital or the south.

I do plan to go into law, and that career path can make a lot of money. But the Blurred Line Group is my baby – I want to watch it grow and develop over time. I want mental health charities and local grassroots initiatives to get the vital funding they need.

As told to Suzanne Bearne



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