Uni living expenses

laissez-faire

laissez-faire

laissez-faire

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Edinburgh/Southampton
It's probably about that time of year when you are off to uni and not sure how much money to ask for, I certainly didn't have a clue 3 years ago.

These are my estimated costs for a student living in Edinburgh. I was pretty shocked how much money I needed when I got up there and if it hadn't been for my parents telling me I wouldn't have believed how expensive supporting myself was. It depends how far away you live from home, for example some of my friends only live 30 minutes drive from home so can just get their parents to do their weekly food shop for them! So this is for anyone who isn't sure how much money they need for uni or if they just want to post their own figures to disagree with me etc. I once in halls got in to the habit of not cooking for myself and ended up spending about £1000 a month on food eating in restaurants most nights and getting take-aways the other. Needless to say I have now stopped that!

Rent - £350 per month
Gas + Electricity - £45 per month (flats are mostly old)
Internet (split by 3) £8 per month
BT Line - £4 per month
Mobile - £35 per month
Fuel (or if you don't have a car, train (/bus?) tickets) £50 a month
Going out - monthly - £100 typical, so easy to spend more
Food - £250 a month, but that is all Waitrose stuff. Go to Tesco for cheap food.

Works out roughly £500 per month in expenses and £350 in rent. Having spoken with my friends we agree that £500 a month should be perfectly possible to live from but somehow we all end up spending more. Take £800 a month if you plan to party a lot or £1400 if you can't cook.

Annual expenses:
£1225 fees (I think about £2000 for new students or even more if you go to uni in England)
Insurance: Belongings? Car? etc

A typical thing, say a friend has a birthday - a present, £20, all go out for a meal @ £30 a head, then on to a bar/club another £25. So say you have 10 friends and you pay £75 each time one of them has a birthday and you see how easy it is to rack up the bills! Payback time comes on your birthday though so don't be stingy with gifts.

I know a lot of people have to buy clothes too - so keep that in mind. I don't really know how much clothes cost, I haven't really added up my parents Jermyn st bills.

Tips for saving money:
- If you do some incredibly difficult degree like Physics then you won't ever get time to go out so you will save a lot of cash.
- Join the OTC - you get about £90 paid for each weekend, it means you won't go out that weekend saving you about £50 and you'll save about £20 in food. Net benefit about £160 per weekend. Do that twice a month and you start to see how it works well!

Good luck wherever you go!

EDIT > I forgot I usually have to buy about £300 to £400 of books a year. Buy second hand if you want to save cash. There are loads of posters in departments of students selling old copies but they are often the previous edition.
 
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laissez-faire said:
Rent - £350 per month
Gas + Electricity - £45 per month (flats are mostly old)
Internet (split by 3) £8 per month
BT Line - £4 per month
Mobile - £35 per month
Fuel (or if you don't have a car, train (/bus?) tickets) £50 a month
Going out - monthly - £100 typical, so easy to spend more
Food - £250 a month, but that is all Waitrose stuff. Go to Tesco for cheap food.
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I don't know many students who would pay £35 a month for a mobile bill, £20 perhaps. £250 for a single person food shopping in a month is ridiculous too, I spend less than that for myself and my boyfriend when we don't eat the same food, and mostly buying Tesco Finest etc. Tesco isn't a cheap food shop, Farmfoods and Lidl etc are.

Even £350 for rent seems steep to me, most of the people I know renting in Edinburgh pay a maximum of £300pppm. I really don't think your values are accurate for an average student, more for someone who has plenty of money to waste.
 
You spend LOADS more than I did...



remember, if it's a male friend- you don't buy them presents

or is that only where I live?


you could get your food for 30 quid a week if you really wanted to. Phone, just get a cheaper contract (o2...15/month sim only 200mins 400 txts)

BT line? why do you need a land line? unless they're forcing you to have one...

I did a Physics as a degree and it's true, you go out much less in the final year... but I cancelled that out by eating LOADS of takeaways... at least twice a week...
 
£100 a month is a bit stingy for going out allowance. Some people top £100 a week. I soon got out of that habit after my first semester!
 
Living in London, and enjoying myself I spend £400 on rent and £100 a week on living expenses (food, going out, travel, bills etc).
 
Careful not to put too many people off going to uni!

That's not the breakdown I would have gone for, my rent is £250 a month in York, and I don't know how much you eat, but that seems like a lot of money for food shopping. Between 4 of us, we spend about £400 a month at Asda, that's including our beer habit.

I fill up my car every couple of weeks when I'm at home working, so £50 a month while I'm at uni seems also very high. I reckon I spend at most half of that, and that will include a trip home or two.

Our utilities are about £300 per quarter, but that's split between 5 (I suppose having 5 of us helps to bring costs down), and then we have BT landline, £30 broadband and Sky Sports.

I reckon I spend about £500 per month total, including rent! :)
 
Vixen said:
I don't know many students who would pay £35 a month for a mobile bill, £20 perhaps. £250 for a single person food shopping in a month is ridiculous too, I spend less than that for myself and my boyfriend when we don't eat the same food, and mostly buying Tesco Finest etc. Tesco isn't a cheap food shop, Farmfoods and Lidl etc are.

Even £350 for rent seems steep to me, most of the people I know renting in Edinburgh pay a maximum of £300pppm. I really don't think your values are accurate for an average student, more for someone who has plenty of money to waste.
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Couldn't agree more. £250 is WAY over budgeting for food. £100 is more than enough for 2-3 people per month, and that's eating a lot of chicken / salmon and other expensive meat.
 
apart from the rent mate your talking absolute rubbish. when i was at uni i could easily get away with spending £20 week on food.
 
simoran1 said:
apart from the rent mate your talking absolute rubbish. when i was at uni i could easily get away with spending £20 week on food.
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Is that a joke? HOW?

OK a typical cheap meal for two, not exactly expensive and pretty much cooked from scratch. Burgers + chips.
1 Curly Fries Waitrose 1.19
1 Mixed Salad Bowl Waitrose 1.99
2 Caledonian Deuchars IPA 3.58
1 Hovis Best of Both Rolls 0.87
1 Ben & Jerry's Caramel Chew Chew Ice Cream 3.79
1 Pizza Express Dough Balls 2.10 (kind of an appetiser)
1 500g Organic Lean Ground Beef 10% Fat Waitrose 4.99

Total £18.51 for two, i.e £9.25 each just for one simple meal, things like the fries will last longer than one meal but you also need other things to cook burgers like seasoning, olive oil, BBQ sauce.

So you can imagine how much more expensive it is going to be when you cook things like fillet steak and you have wine. £250 is not much for food at all.
 
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laissez-faire said:
Is that a joke? HOW?

OK a typical cheap meal for two, not exactly expensive and pretty much cooked from scratch. Burgers + chips.
1 Curly Fries Waitrose 1.19
1 Mixed Salad Bowl Waitrose 1.99
2 Caledonian Deuchars IPA 3.58
1 Hovis Best of Both Rolls 0.87
1 Ben & Jerry's Caramel Chew Chew Ice Cream 3.79
1 Pizza Express Dough Balls 2.10
1 Organic Lean Ground Beef 10% Fat Waitrose 4.99

Total £18.51 for two, i.e £9.25 each just for one simple meal, things like the fries will last longer than one meal but you also need other things to cook burgers like seasoning, and BBQ sauce.

So you can imagine how much more expensive it is going to be when you cook things like fillet steak and you have wine. £250 is not much for food at all.
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How about this...

Couple of kilograms of potatoes, £1.50
2 sirloin steaks £4.50
Mixed vegetables £1
Some own brand vanilla ice cream £2
Morello cherries £1.50

If you're eating Ben and Jerry's and Pizza Express dough balls every night then they're extravagances... hardly what is required, and certainly not living like a student. It's really cool that you can afford to live like that, though don't assume that living on anything else is a struggle.
 
daz said:
How about this...

Couple of kilograms of potatoes, £1.50
2 sirloin steaks £4.50
Mixed vegetables £1
Some own brand vanilla ice cream £2
Morello cherries £1.50
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Yeah, hence why I said for cheap food go to Tesco. You are still looking at £5 a head for a very simple meal there. People eat lunch and breakfast too!
 
I eat lunch out, and for breakfast I'd have something like a bacon sarnie or scrambled eggs on toast... if i'm feeling extravagant i'll add some salmon and chives to my scrambled egg.

Even good sausages can be economical, tesco finest is something like £2.50 for 6, that's £1.25 a meal, mash up a few potatoes and add some gravy and it works out to about £2 each.

I spent about £25 a week on food.

laissez-faire said:
Yeah, hence why I said for cheap food go to Tesco. You are still looking at £5 a head for a very simple meal there. People eat lunch and breakfast too!
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£10 of your budget isn't integral to the meal at all... the ben and jerry's, the dough balls, the beers. You could get by without those, do you agree? Perhaps if you're eating dinner with someone special, you might make an effort and get haagen daz and some stuff for starters etc... but for everyday eating, it doesn't make sense.
 
laissez-faire said:
Is that a joke? HOW?

OK a typical cheap meal for two, not exactly expensive and pretty much cooked from scratch. Burgers + chips.
1 Curly Fries Waitrose 1.19
1 Mixed Salad Bowl Waitrose 1.99
2 Caledonian Deuchars IPA 3.58
1 Hovis Best of Both Rolls 0.87
1 Ben & Jerry's Caramel Chew Chew Ice Cream 3.79
1 Pizza Express Dough Balls 2.10 (kind of an appetiser)
1 500g Organic Lean Ground Beef 10% Fat Waitrose 4.99

Total £18.51 for two,
Click to expand...

:eek: I'm budgeting for 30quid a week tops on food for uni, maybe a tad more when the gf comes over and I cooke something nice.

But 19quid on one meal? Just go out and eat...
 
laissez-faire said:
Is that a joke? HOW?

OK a typical cheap meal for two, not exactly expensive and pretty much cooked from scratch. Burgers + chips.
1 Curly Fries Waitrose 1.19
1 Mixed Salad Bowl Waitrose 1.99
2 Caledonian Deuchars IPA 3.58
1 Hovis Best of Both Rolls 0.87
1 Ben & Jerry's Caramel Chew Chew Ice Cream 3.79
1 Pizza Express Dough Balls 2.10 (kind of an appetiser)
1 500g Organic Lean Ground Beef 10% Fat Waitrose 4.99

Total £18.51 for two, i.e £9.25 each just for one simple meal, things like the fries will last longer than one meal but you also need other things to cook burgers like seasoning, olive oil, BBQ sauce.

So you can imagine how much more expensive it is going to be when you cook things like fillet steak and you have wine. £250 is not much for food at all.
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That is a meal for 2? Someone's feeling hungry. Between 3 of us, we spend £20-30 a week on food and as I said before eat a lot of Steak, Salmon, Chicken etc. It's not hard. £4.99 for minced beef is a joke.
 
I used to be able to get by on £10 a week on food when needed - it is pretty simple if you know what to look for. Vegetables are cheap, pasta rice and beans are cheap, buy some cheap meat and do something with it to make it awesome. I used to make large batches of bolognese which could be frozen in individiual portions and eaten whenever I fancied it. Try some of the ethnic grocers too, they usually have pretty cheap, good stuff. You can easily make a decent daal and rice for a cheap meal if you fancied it.

Spag Bol:
Sainsbury's Beef Mince, Basics 400g £0.74 x2 = £1.48
Sainsbury's Onions, Basics 1.5kg £0.60/unit = £0.60
Sainsbury's Closed Cup Mushrooms 250g £0.67/unit = £0.67
Sainsbury's Chopped Tomatoes, Basics 400g £0.21/unit x3 = £0.63
Sainsbury's Spaghetti 1kg £0.45/unit = £0.45

Total = £3.23

That would easily last you 4 meals and can obviously be jazzed up if you have herbs lying around. For a student on a budget though at 81p a meal it works out pretty well.
 
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£50 a week on food is probably correct, that factors in a couple of takeaways too which will invariably happen.

I share food between 3 people in my house and the last shop came to about £75. This will last just over a week. In fairness we sometimes have to buy extra bread and things, but it's not exactly hard to stick to it.

The biggest expense for a student is going out. If I stopped that, I'd not have a problem at all with money (except for stupid London rent). This is not likely to happen as I'm in my final year.
 
daz said:
I eat lunch out, and for breakfast I'd have something like a bacon sarnie or scrambled eggs on toast... if i'm feeling extravagant i'll add some salmon and chives to my scrambled egg.

Even good sausages can be economical, tesco finest is something like £2.50 for 6, that's £1.25 a meal, mash up a few potatoes and add some gravy and it works out to about £2 each.

I spent about £25 a week on food.



£10 of your budget isn't integral to the meal at all... the ben and jerry's, the dough balls, the beers. You could get by without those, do you agree? Perhaps if you're eating dinner with someone special, you might make an effort and get haagen daz and some stuff for starters etc... but for everyday eating, it doesn't make sense.
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OK - well I find it amazing some people buy new computers every year. My 2003 box is still going strong and I plan to get another 3-4 years of life out of it. I guess I just place a high priority on food.

For example, say you have a couple of people over and are cooking for 4, it is so easy to run up a pretty big bill;

Smoked salmon amuse bouche, melon and parma ham to start with, fillet steak stuffed with gorgonzola and wrapped in pancetta with new pototates and vegetables, followed by St Agur + oatcakes followed by a cheescake type thing for pudding (by this time I am usually too drunk to prepare some food hence why we always end up with ready-made puddings)


1 Scottish Oatcakes Waitrose 0.69
1 Offer Organic Strawberry Ice Cream Waitrose 2.59
2 Frü Three Berry Cheesecake 5.58
1 Royal Tokaji Blue Label 1999 9.99
1 Pancetta Waitrose 1.89
1 Saint Agur 1.98
1 Paltrinieri's Gorgonzola Apicante Waitrose 3.50
4 British Beef Fillet Steak Waitrose 29.59
1 Garlic Infused Olive Oil Waitrose 2.99
1 Bertolli Lucca Olive Oil Spread 1.24
1 Farmhouse Batch - Sliced Wholemeal Bread Waitrose 0.95
1 Farm Assured Reserva Parma Waitrose 3.69
1 Melon Wedges Waitrose 1.99
1 Les Sinard Perrin Chateauneuf 2004 17.00
1 Organic New Potatoes Waitrose 1.99
1 Ghillie & Glen Scottish Smoked Salmon - Oak Smoked 6.69
1 Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut NV 28.49
1 La Grille Classic Sauvignon Blanc 2005 6.99


Total £127.82 just for hosting one simple dinner party for 4 people. Even if you only do that once a month I think it makes my point about how much food bills can stack up!
 
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