[Average_Aaron]

Thread title basically

[dirtyoldriver]

Depends how close you are I guess. If you're a tight knit group you might agree to have dinner together and share the cooking but other than that, your food is your food.

[joey11223]

Erm......no.

Think of it this way...would you expect it from them?

You might end up agreeing to all buy ingredients for a meal you work together to cook for you all, but that'll most likely be an occasional thing.

It depends on the people basically, but no by default people don't expect it. Why would you expect someone to randomly spend their money and cook for you, unless there was an agreement to return the favour?

[Pandabär]

We do nice big meals together sometimes and just share the cost of ingredients, but it'd be far too complicated to do every day. Sometimes one or more of us will eat out/ at someone else's house etc, so it'd just cause a lot of hassle...

[Philbert]

It may work out cheaper for you to group together with a few people to buy milk and things that everyone will use. It's fun to cook meals together and cheaper in the long run if you do it often, but no-one will expect you do it it.

Unless your flatmates seem to think that "sharing food" means stealing your food, which is a possibility in halls/shared houses, unfortunately

[jelly1000]

Depends on how well you all get on and whether you like the same food.

[Xhotas]

I live with 15 people (so it's easier this way) but what we do is have a router people either cook/wash up/clean the kitchen. Only 8 of us are still on it and it costs us £7 for a weeks worth of dinners and I wash up/clean the kitchen 3 times a week. Such a time/money saver, I strongly recommend you doing it. It's also a great chance to bond during dinner times

It's worked all year round, whoevers free goes out and does the shopping and help bring it back every week (suitcases are a star help) and we do our own shop for breakfast/lunch/bacon as well. Plus it keeps the kitchen clean which, looking at the state of other flats, is a life saver. We have much better parties in a clean kitchen than a dirty one

As for casual ****, we may ask each other if we can borrow milk/a pack of crisps but usually pay it back. We take stuff like sugar, ketchup whenever we fancy as we don't really care too much though. No one really steals food.

[KJane]

No. Unless you get a flatmate that's lazy or something the majority of people won't expect you to share or cook for them unless you offered.

[CamH]

We (6) all cook every night and split every meal that everyone is present for, which makes each meal like £1-2 each, no real rota, most people go to the kitchen and cook / wash up / unload dishwasher at like 7ish. Obviously when people are away they don't pay for that meal.

As everything is split, including meals, bills, tv, internet etc etc.. we only actually have to exchange money about once per term and it normally balances out so no one pays more than about £20, if it gets to the point where one person is owed a lot they just don't buy any food for a while.

So yeah I wouldn't have to cook if I didn't want to, of course most nights I do but if I'm busy I won't same goes for the rest of the house.

[Origami Bullets]

With the exception of the odd flat meal (where two people cook and everyone chips in) then your food is your food.

That said, in my flat we do have a few communal items like curry paste, and nobody really minds if you borrow a bit of soy sauce / milk / vinegar / chilli powder / whatever if you've run out.

[punctuation]

Based on the replies to this thread, do most people cook, then eat, then wash up, alone? That seems like a very lonely and tedious experience. I, for one, really loathe washing up and I'd rather share the responsibilities over the week.

If there are a lot of people in the flat, don't the cooking, eating, etc. times coincide and consequently wouldn't it make more sense to do it all together? I just can't wrap my head around it.

[CamH]

(Original post by punctuation)
Based on the replies to this thread, do most people cook, then eat, then wash up, alone? That seems like a very lonely and tedious experience. I, for one, really loathe washing up and I'd rather share the responsibilities over the week.

If there are a lot of people in the flat, don't the cooking, eating, etc. times coincide and consequently wouldn't it make more sense to do it all together? I just can't wrap my head around it.

We all cook and wash up etc together, some people don't like doing some things, some are better at cooking some dishes, I mostly wash up as I'm a bit of a disaster with a lot of meals.

As there are no lectures at the moment just revision we even have a schedule for having breakfast and lunch together, but we are a bit weird.

[ScarlettDangerfield]

(Original post by punctuation)
Based on the replies to this thread, do most people cook, then eat, then wash up, alone? That seems like a very lonely and tedious experience. I, for one, really loathe washing up and I'd rather share the responsibilities over the week.

If there are a lot of people in the flat, don't the cooking, eating, etc. times coincide and consequently wouldn't it make more sense to do it all together? I just can't wrap my head around it.

In my house (and it was a similar situation in my halls in first year) we all tend to cook different things but we do it at the same time so it's still a nice sociable thing to do. As for washing up.. not one of our strong points at the moment.

[py0alb]

Cook, no.
Share, it depends. Houses where people are petty over whose milk is whose inevitably spend the whole year fighting.

Set down sensible guidelines from the top. Yes you can have some milk for your coffee, some oil for your pan and a slice of bread for your toast (as long as it isn't the last slice). You can have a beer as long as you tell me and promise to replace it next time you go shopping. No you can't eat the lasagne my mum sent me. If something is about to go out of date, ask me, and maybe you can have it so its not wasted.

See, sensible. Not this ludicrous situation where people engage in fullscale war just because someone used an ounce of THEIR butter.

[py0alb]

(Original post by punctuation)
Based on the replies to this thread, do most people cook, then eat, then wash up, alone? That seems like a very lonely and tedious experience. I, for one, really loathe washing up and I'd rather share the responsibilities over the week.

If there are a lot of people in the flat, don't the cooking, eating, etc. times coincide and consequently wouldn't it make more sense to do it all together? I just can't wrap my head around it.

Washing up takes like 30 seconds. How is it really that loathsome? Just do it as you're going along. Use the pan, wash the pan. use the collander, wash the collander. Finish your dinner, wash the plate. Done.

[alexmagpie]

(Original post by punctuation)
Based on the replies to this thread, do most people cook, then eat, then wash up, alone? That seems like a very lonely and tedious experience. I, for one, really loathe washing up and I'd rather share the responsibilities over the week.

If there are a lot of people in the flat, don't the cooking, eating, etc. times coincide and consequently wouldn't it make more sense to do it all together? I just can't wrap my head around it.

We all cook and wash up our own meals, but it's rare that I cook or eat alone unless I'm eating particularly early or late. Somebody else will almost always be cooking at the same time or sat eating with me.

We don't do shared meals because we like to do our own thing - people like to eat different things and have different schedules so it would get a bit complicated.

[Beckyweck]

In first year I used to cook big meals for like 12 of us every week. However when we moved in second year, one in particular expected it to continue and even mentioned it being a nightly thing. I got a boyfriend in second year and started hanging out with him and I'd cook for the pair of us and this particular friend got rather nasty. Needless to say we are no longer friends.

[lexilove]

(Original post by Beckyweck)
In first year I used to cook big meals for like 12 of us every week. However when we moved in second year, one in particular expected it to continue and even mentioned it being a nightly thing. I got a boyfriend in second year and started hanging out with him and I'd cook for the pair of us and this particular friend got rather nasty. Needless to say we are no longer friends.

Haha, wow everyday? Once a week or something then yeah but everyday is a bit much.
That was a really cool thing to do, did they give you any money for cooking the meals? Might suggest that to my flatmates..as long as the same thing doesn't happen to me :P
Did you still do weekly meals for them all or did you stop when you moved away?

Anyways, my flatmates seem to respect my food and only use what they buy and same with me to them. I don't think it's right to eat other peoples food without asking. It all works well

[ElfManiac]

We shop, cook and eat together in our house, but there's only three of us so it's quite easy to find meals that all of us are happy to eat.
I'm guessing our 'family-like' arrangement is pretty unusual amongst students, and we're lucky that we're all practised house-sharers (we're all fourth year ML students) and good friends well before we shared a house. You can save money by sharing stuff, but it really depends on your flatmates whether it works or not

[Beckyweck]

(Original post by lexilove)
Haha, wow everyday? Once a week or something then yeah but everyday is a bit much.
That was a really cool thing to do, did they give you any money for cooking the meals? Might suggest that to my flatmates..as long as the same thing doesn't happen to me :P
Did you still do weekly meals for them all or did you stop when you moved away?

Anyways, my flatmates seem to respect my food and only use what they buy and same with me to them. I don't think it's right to eat other peoples food without asking. It all works well

I charged £2 each which covered the cost of the ingredients and gave me a few extra pennies. :P £2 was just easier than working out exactly what each person owed me because the number of people who turned up varied.

I stopped doing them all together because I usually had a turn out of about 10-12 people but when people went separate ways there were only 4 left plus me. In the end I moved out because I discovered that living with people is a lot different from being friends with them and we really didn't get on. xD