Average student spending - can you beat it?

girleight@

2900ish for rent? In London? My rent was like £3600 last year in Oxford for a very standard place so I doubt theirs is so low.

buses7675

theadore wrote:

(2989)
Clothing 441 (441)
Huh? Just for the 39 weeks you're at uni?

clothing as a luxury is essential, necessary clothing comes from christmas presents... figure depends largly on the student, but expect jeans costing £60 to be reasonable.

£60 reasonable for a pair of jeans!!! As you'll seen in my sig I finished Uni last year, and don't think I've ever spent more than £10 on a pair of jeans in my life!

Did live at home mind during Uni, so any figures I could quote won't be the rule, but half of the clothes I have I still had in sixth form etc!

Still even got some C&A brand T-shirts (think they closed in about 1998!) and a blue fleece that I was new in 1999 - All still fit as well!

Cheers

Steve

Savvy_Sue

buses7675 wrote:

Still even got some C&A brand T-shirts (think they closed in about 1998!) and a blue fleece that I was new in 1999 - All still fit as well!

Stay away from women then. We have a dreadful tendency to dispose of old and friendly clothes which we consider past their sell-by date. Have just managed to condemn a T-shirt I swear my OH has had throughout our marriage! And it is not even fit for gardening these days, but he's still upset about it!

buses7675

:rotfl:

Don't worry, I do have some new clothes as well!! - Tend to wear older T-shirts etc under newer tops in winter! :j

Steve

buses7675

Hi All,

Forgot to mention before, more releavent too probably is the use of the student library for books.

In the whole of the 4 years I was in Uni I only bought one single text book for IT, cost around £20 from Amazon (possibly could have got away with that looking back - suppose I could sell it now!), but all the Maths books I borrowed from the library at Uni for free, rest of IT info was available online! Libraries really are good for MSEers!

I think some courses such as sports studies etc require you to buy loads of bits of kit/uniform etc, which would push up your additional course costs and according to one of my friends who did that course, the kits seem to cost more than their worth, just as they have the University logo on them.

Cheers

Steve

jimclark1967

girleight&#64 wrote:

2900ish for rent? In London? My rent was like £3600 last year in Oxford for a very standard place so I doubt theirs is so low.

Maybe it's one of those trendy converted portacabins!

Suppose it depends where you study, I've studied in both Oxford and Liverpool, one cost £3120 with bills on top, the other £1600 including bills.

No prizes for guessing which was which! :T

lellie

Figures in brackets are London, other figures outside London

Books/equipment: 132 (315)

Hmmmm.. books - I've bought 1 book so far specifically for uni - £11 from blackwells on 10% day.. I just get lots out of the library - buy other generic history related books from charity shops which are useful.. Equipment - I spend about £15 on stationary a year.. £30 on printer ink a year? £10 on photocopying? I'd say about £50 a year would be more reasonable. Maybe if this was including cost of owning a computer or something?

Living costs 2146 (2989)
I'm not sure quite what this covers, apart from rent, as food etc are listed separately..

This looks like it just covers rent. I'd say that's pretty low really! I'm at Manchester uni. I pay 2081 for a year - for sub-standard halls.. they're pretty poor self catered with shared bathroom/kitchen between 8 of us in flats.. Ensuite halls are about £3000 a year (£72 ish a week)

For private accomodation next year my rent will be a bit more.. about £2500.. for a shared 2 bed flat. I'd say in general these figures are too low.. very low for london!!

Bills 788 (788)

Erm.. Well at the moment I don't pay any.. next year I'd imagine that's quite high.. Actually internet could come under this.. £92 a year this year.. £75 next year.. my mobile is PAYG - spend about £10 a month using o2 online sim.

Food 1103 (1247)

I spend about £15 a week - ish on average.. It fluctuates cos I tend to do big shops at the start of term and fill the freezer - then spend very little for 6 weeks.. I'd say that figure is a bit high though.

Household goods 300 (462)

erm like what? washing up liquid, washing powder and things? I probably spend on average £2 a week - at most!! too high! I did have a little initial outlay I guess for the first year.. £10 for crockery, £3 for cutlery, £30 for pans.. £6 for toaster, probably about £70 in total.

Clothing 441 (441)
hahahaha! I rarely spend more than £5 on an item of clothing.. I probably spend £50 a year and I'm a girl! Although I've b

Leisure 1440 (1440)

Erm.. That seems like loads! I spend less than half that I'd imagine.. I tend to go to gigs - and as I run my own music webzine usually get in for free.. so leisure is pretty cheap.

Overall it probably averages out a bit high.. I'd say rent is down about £800.. and everything else is too high..

I dunno.. I spend £2000 accomodation, £1000 tuition fees, £600 food, £1000 everything else?? That's very rough figures.. but probably pretty close.

sleepy

I think mine works out as roughly:
Books £150 (I like to have my own copies but buy them second hand - I have to have about 10 books a year)
Rent £2856 (and I'm in the cheaper area, rents in Durham are ridiculous)
Bills £675 (including gas, eletric and broadband)
Food £900
Household goods £80 (my share of the broadband router, and a breadmaker I brought for myself)
Clothing £263 (I reckon this is about right as I think I spend about £350 all year)
Leisure £780 (this is based on a generous estimate of £20 a week, but then I don't go out pubbing or clubbing very often - aproximately 4 times last term, so most of that is books and meals out)

Total - £5629, saving £2955 on the NUS figures

NellyLock

sleepy wrote:

I think mine works out as roughly:
Books £150 (I like to have my own copies but buy them second hand - I have to have about 10 books a year)
Rent £2856 (and I'm in the cheaper area, rents in Durham are ridiculous)
Bills £675 (including gas, eletric and broadband)
Food £900
Household goods £80 (my share of the broadband router, and a breadmaker I brought for myself)
Clothing £263 (I reckon this is about right as I think I spend about £350 all year)
Leisure £780 (this is based on a generous estimate of £20 a week, but then I don't go out pubbing or clubbing very often - aproximately 4 times last term, so most of that is books and meals out)

Total - £5629, saving £2955 on the NUS figures

clubbing in durham...hahah isnt that a contradiction in terms your college first year (if you were in college) would have been much higher i believe durham is rated as having the MOST expensive colleges, at least you get to experience some nice hills if u live in the cheap area

...as for me dont really like to calculate. @ southampton uni and it works out like this
rent works out at 230pm = £2760py
bills+household goods @ about = £200py
uni gym = £50py
books @ most £60py
clothing no idea not much £100 max py
Leisure hard to tell some weeks none others £50+ depends on week lets say £1000
car runnings (before it was written off) 40pm= £480

i reckon certainly under 6000 perhaps under 5000

neil

sleepy

Hmmm, not only is living in college at Durham expensive (about £3,800 this yr I think - for those of you that don't know durham, this figure is for a basic room, most durham colleges don't have ensuite facilities, and most have shared bedrooms for which you still have to pay the same amount), but I was in Mary's, the all girls one, so hardly surprisingly I chose not to move back in for my final year.
Yep, if there's one thing durhams got plenty of it's hills. My housemate rides her bike to lectures and just walks it back!
Seeing as you know what the standard of nightlife in durham is like, I'm sure you can understand how I manage not to spend too much on leisure :rolleyes: .