Is £700 enough for first year at Sheffield?

I'm struggling to pick between en-suite accommodation which would leave me with £700 (not including any money I earn from work over the summer) or if I should pick shared bathroom accommodation where I will save an additional £1000. Is the en-suite accommodation, such as those at Yarncliffe, Derwent etc, worth it over the shared bathroom accommodation such as Crewe or should I save the £1000?
Do the 2 differ significantly in the social aspect?

Reply 1

BiscuitsNTea

This is going to vary from person to person. 700 is what I'll also get per semester after rent, before work. I personally can live off of that no trouble, but I'll work over the xmas, easter and summer breaks to finish each year with 2000+ in savings.

It's mostly going to come down to how often do you drink, or intend to go out/eat out/ get takeaways. As you wont have the option often.

If you're young you're probably better off just taking the shared and having 25 extra per week to go out once a week.

University of Sheffield

Sheffield

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Is this catered accommodation with the food costs included, or not? If not then it's a bit tight, mainly just that you won't really have any leftover money for doing anything else at all - going out, going home, buying random bits and bobs here and there etc.

Honestly just get a shared bathroom. En suites are really not worth the money unless you have very specific personal/medical/religious/cultural reasons to not share a bathroom (which granted, is a wide range of cases). For your average UK school leave though I think that probably doesn't apply, and while it would be nice to have, it's not worth £1000 over an academic year...

You just need to make sure you talk frankly with your flatmates when you move in about expectations on maintaining the bathroom to a good level of cleanliness and hygiene, both in terms of e.g. weekly cleaning rotas, as well as individual actions taken to maintain that (washing out toothpaste gunk in the sink when you're done cleaning your teeth...using the toilet brush when appropriate...making sure the extractor fan is run after a shower...etc, etc...should mostly be obvious stuff but it helps to actually explicitly say it!).

Those are really things you need to do sooner or later anyway as eventually you will end up having to live with someone you aren't related to nor are dating, so may as well get started sooner rather than later.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 3

Jess_Lomas

Hi I've applied for Crewe flats and love the area
I'm in a flat of 6 which has 1 shower and 2 toilets but the flat of 9 has 3 showers. There are also sinks in all bedrooms so you don't need to worry about brushing teeth and stuff in the morning.
6 people sharing one shower might seem like a lot but when you consider some people have it mornings some evening some have one every two days and then some go to the gym and different timetables apparently the shower is always avaliable when wanted
I would say that the rooms are so much bigger at Crewe and the area around it is lovely as well as it being closest to the uni out of Endcliffe and Ranmoor
Socially the endcliffe village is louder at nights from music and louder in general however Crewe is more social so people know each other better and if you are into partying then you can read the bio and find others but also if you want to just have a quieter flat with no parties but have good friends and invite people round or board game sort of things Crewe is definitely bigger
Also with Crewe there is a private laundry for 130 people the same size as the one for around 1500 people so laundry is much easier to get done
Also the kitchen is bigger in Crewe and get a whole dining room

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 4

Desideri

£700 per semester or per year?

£700 per semester would be ok as long as you budget.

£700 per year would be hard. Even if you were only there for the 30 termtime weeks, and spent absolutely nothing outside of termtime, that would be £23 a week. From that you'd need to buy food, any course books/printing, laundry (kind of overpriced) plus be putting some aside for bigger expenses like any train journeys home. If you want/need to spend in the holidays too, it would be tighter. You'd not have much left at all for fun stuff. Id definitely choose shared bathroom over having to budget that tightly

Besides, from second year onwards, basically everyone shares bathrooms.