How to live a champagne lifestyle on a Lambrini budget

We all know uni is essentially three to four long years of trying to one up your social media friends. 

And as Glasgow Uni Wankers, we have a reputation to maintain as champagne-quaffing, private school alumni, rugby-playing rahs.

In reality, life is less glam and we spend more time watching Midsomer Murders in a cocoon of duvets and self loathing than attending cool parties. But I’ll be damned if Becky who I met on holiday in 2009 knows that.

Wherever you look, people put rose tinted glasses on their lives to impress people they probably don’t even like anyway. Here’s how you can do it even better.

Hang around near booths in clubs

Once you have managed to get out of the freezing queue and past the bouncers without having to recite the alphabet backwards, head towards the booths as fast as your Air Max clad feet can carry you.

Try to befriend the people in the booth with your winning charm and sparkling personality. If this fails, take as many pictures as humanly possible in and around the booth, while trying to dodge the bottles of vodka with sparklers sailing past your ears.

Learn the lingo

Tweet about how much fun “aprés” and “Verbier” are, even though you aren’t entirely sure what those words mean.

Also always call mainland Europe “The Continent”, because it makes you sound cosmopolitan and cultured.

Top tip: Always turn off your location if you’re planning on lying about where you are. These charades to impress the person you sat next to in Year Nine Maths can quickly unravel if they notice you sent it from Maryhill.

Visit your friends at other unis

To keep up appearances you have a jet set lifestyle and enjoy partying across the United Kingdom, make sure to visit friends at far-flung unis.

Most will think you splashed the cash on the train, but instead take the Megabus and save your pennies for a hangover breakfast.

Top tip: If you’re taking Snapchats of your journey, only show scenery and not the seats of the bus. You don’t want people to work out you spent a five hour coach journey sat next to a man smelling like a scotch egg, and not in a first class compartment delicately eating your free lunch.

Buy one bottle of expensive alcohol when it’s on offer

Enjoy this rare experience of drinking something that wouldn’t qualify as paint stripper. Then, when it runs out, refill it with the Tesco Value version of the same alcohol.

Feel like you’re balling with a bottle of Absolut, when in reality your insides are melting away. Just make sure no one spots you running out to the recycling with the incriminating £10 bottles.

Top tip: Make people try it and say if they can taste the difference between their alcohol and yours.

Same with painkillers

When your friends come in so hungover they can hear light and taste sound, flash what seems to be Nurofen Extra. In fact, all they’ve been given is 15p Ibuprofen, but anything living in a fancy box must be expensive.

Top tip: This whole switcharoo technique also works with bags, whether it’s swapping a Mozza’s bag to an M&S one, or a Primark one to Topshop, the principle remains the same.

This is especially pertinent as we have to pay 5p per bag, so just bring a high-end bag with you and save 5p and the planet at the same time. Win-win situation really.

Keep your summers ambiguous

Just say you loved the partying and take generic hot dogs or legs and beach pics, you know the drill. Just forget to mention you’re actually on a package holiday to Magaluf. Instead say you’re going to the Med “with the girls”. Whack a good filter on it and no one will be the wiser.

Similarly, if you plan to visit more than one place, then say you’re “travelling this summer”. Because going from London to Manchester to Anglesey counts as travelling right?

Meet in places next to fancy restaurants

That way you can Instagram pics of the outside and pretend you ate there, when realistically you’re on bread and a little bit of hope until the next loan payment.

Top tip: To complete the illusion, have one drink there – if the budget allows it – and snap away to your heart’s content. If you are doing this with your significant other, make sure to say you’re a “lucky gal”, having a “cosy night” and use the monkey emoji. Always convincing.

Have cocktails and/or brunch

We all know an artful shot of eggs benedict or a mojito in a dingey yet high end bar speaks a thousand words.

Now if you can be bothered to make these things at home then congrats, but although I grasp the theory, the practicalities of poaching an egg is beyond me.

For brunch, do your research and find the cheapest place for it, or just take a picture of your fry up and add an ironic #eatclean.

For cocktails, many places have cheaper days during the week, for example Vodka Wodka has £3.50 cocktails from Mondays to Thursdays.

Top tip: Always share these photos or this info on a weekend, so all those who see it think: wow, this is someone who can afford to go out on weekends. In reality, you spent a smug night in watching Game Of Thrones with a packet of Magic Stars.

Buy luxuries in Aldi

Champagne for £9.99, get on it.

Top tip: If you buy a cheaper, smaller bottle elsewhere, take a picture of it from a lower angle or close up you can disguise the fact it’s only tiny.

And remember, you’re too blessed to be stressed.