The Student Room Group

Annual budget for uni?

So basically I have several bonds maturing at the moment and need to decide whether to reinvest them for another year or whether I'll need them at uni. So how much money does the 'average' uni student spend in a year? Excluding the cost of the room and stuff like that, but the money you spend on everything else; food, books, going out, ect?

Also is it different for catered and self-catered as my firm choice is catered but my conditional is self-catered so would I need to budget differently for the different choices?

Any help greatly appreciated!
Original post by smartalan73
So basically I have several bonds maturing at the moment and need to decide whether to reinvest them for another year or whether I'll need them at uni. So how much money does the 'average' uni student spend in a year? Excluding the cost of the room and stuff like that, but the money you spend on everything else; food, books, going out, ect?

Also is it different for catered and self-catered as my firm choice is catered but my conditional is self-catered so would I need to budget differently for the different choices?


Any help greatly appreciated!


Yes you would need to budget differently (i'd say £20-30 a week extra for self catered) , i recon i spent 2.5k a year at uni not including food or rent (although i lived in a cheap city, didnt drink but still did my fair share of shopping) .
Original post by claireestelle
Yes you would need to budget differently (i'd say £20-30 a week extra for self catered) , i recon i spent 2.5k a year at uni not including food or rent (although i lived in a cheap city, didnt drink but still did my fair share of shopping) .


uh maybe i'm being a bit dense here but what exactly is there to spend money on at uni aside from food and rent?
Original post by smartalan73
uh maybe i'm being a bit dense here but what exactly is there to spend money on at uni aside from food and rent?


Travel clothes toiletries phone bill and days out.
Original post by claireestelle
Travel clothes toiletries phone bill and days out.


Gosh I hadn't even thought of some of that stuff. So is there like a rough figure you like to have at the start of the year to cover everything at uni?
Original post by smartalan73
Gosh I hadn't even thought of some of that stuff. So is there like a rough figure you like to have at the start of the year to cover everything at uni?


It all depends where you buy it all from, for example I used £50 on everything fr the kitchen.
it really depends a lot on how you want to live... e.g. you can buy a basic set of cutlery, plate, bowl, cups plus a saucepan, frying pan, oven tray and chopping board for very little, take bedding from home etc or you can buy yourself new stuff that's a bit nicer, a few 'extra's (e.g. slow cooker, blender, pyrex, muffin tray) and buy some stuff to decorate your room (throw, cushions, speakers, picture etc) and spend quite a bit
some people can't fathom getting trhough the year without plenty of new clothes and others are quite happy to make do with what they have and only buy what they really need

if you need to buy food £20-30 will do you (depending whether you're happy to go cheap or whether you like to eat nice stuff/treats/meat), plus £10-40 a week depending how much you like going out, you can add your phone bill + transport on to that yourself as they will vary (e.g. I pay £7.50 a month for my phone on giffgaff and have a bike so never use public transport, if you have a new iphone and live in london you'll pay a lot more!)

I would factor clothes and bigger items into a yearly budget
Reply 7
tips to save money in uni would be to sell your unused items and buy preloved (books, clothes, furniture.. everything)! used this app called carousell (im sure theres many more out there but this was the easiest one my friend recommended) helped me save quite a lot of money :smile:

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