Catered or Non Catered halls?

•

Cheaper (if you don't over-spend and know exactly what to buy - I managed to spend £15-£25 food shopping every one/two weeks dependi ng on what I needed to buy)

•

More fun and you start to get creative when you've got no money and no food!

•

Cooking is an important life skill so it's good to learn (you'd be amazed at the lack of skills some people have... good chance to teach them if you're already good at cooking!)

•

More sociable within your flat (gets you out of your room and in your shared living space)

•

You probably wont feel guilty for buying take-aways since they will come under your food budget, and uneaten take-aways can be tomorrows lunch!

•

If you wake up/get in from a night out at 4am and feel like making lasagna because why the **** not, it's just top quality uni #banter then nobody will stop you

•

You will get a bigger kitchen in your flat and you will have more things to cook with, such as 2 ovens instead of 1 induction hob (you did at my old uni anyway)

•

Food shopping is strangely fun and makes you feel independent

•

It's a part of the uni experience

•

You will almost definitely be cooking for yourself next year when you're in a house so again, good to get used to it if you don't already cook for yourself at home

•

Depending on how close you are with your flatmates you might end up shopping together which will be insanely cheap!

•

Flatmates will also cook together - in my flat for Christmas we all chipped in and paid for and made a Christmas dinner, it was so fun and cute, 10/10 would recommend doing that at Christmas before you all go back home

•

Chance it could be VERY expensive if you're bad at budgeting and go shopping when hungry

•

Chance that flatmates could steal food (never had this problem myself thankfully but it definitely happens)

•

You might end up wasting a lot of food you either don't eat or completely ruin when cooking

•

If you're a **** cook and wanting to get better you might set the fire alarm off a few times and piss off your block

•

Probably the least obvious con.. You actually have to go and buy the food. If you can get a delivery - great! If you can't get a delivery, you're going to need to leave your flat and walk to the shop - if the closest shop is far away or up a massive hill, food shopping will quickly become a drag

•

You will be eating a LOT of pasta

•

Your kitchen will most likely be disgusting because of all the washing up you'll need to do which you'll stop doing after a few weeks, and if there is at least 6 of you in your flat it will all add up, trust me

•

So much easier

•

You will almost definitely eat healthier

•

You're less likely to skip meals (being self-catered I had to make my own lunch and if I was out all day I could never be arsed to make it after like week 3 and skipped it...)

•

The food will probably be nicer if you can't cook

•

More sociable within your hall (my old uni had huge dining rooms for the whole hall to go in and it was easier to mingle with people across the whole hall, access was also only allowed for specific halls so I couldn't get in)

•

May be able to take food away and keep it in your kitchen/room (a mate from a catered hall used to go in at breakfast and take a load of fruit and put it in his room to have whenever he wanted)

•

Very expensive room prices since you have to pay more to be catered

•

There is a chance you could only be catered 5 days a week instead of 7 so you'd still need to spend money on food for the weekends

•

Will most likely end up with a tiny kitchen and *****y cooking equipment

•

The food could get very repetitive.. There was/is a running joke at my old uni about how the catered students only ever eat potatoes