Cost of living for a year?

LolaLuv

Hello everyone! Just posted something very similar to this in the Dublin forum but was told I ought to check over here as well. I'm an American student and will be spending late September through June studying at Trinity. (English and Irish studies departments--anyone else?). I was told to bring about €6100 for living expenses, minus tuition, rent, and utilities, for my time abroad. This amount is supposed to cover food, clothing, trips, phone bills, books, etc. I'm just wondering if this is a realistic estimate, or does it seem a bit low? I'm not planning on living extravagantly by any means (not much of a drinker, either, that ought to reduce my costs a bit), but I do want to be able to take advantage of what will likely be the trip of a lifetime without constantly having to worry about every last penny. Any input you have on this would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if you have any other nuggets of wisdom about TCD life, feel free to let me know!

Thanks!

worded

With €6100 you could have 3 exceptional or 6 excellent weekends on the booze :-)

LolaLuv

worded wrote: »

With €6100 you could have 3 exceptional or 6 excellent weekends on the booze :-)

Lol! Not if you factor in the hospital expenses I'll certainly need after my weekend of glory!

worded

Its a 12 hour wait in A and E here on average - no joking, so carefull when climbing for that flag at 4 am. (been there, broke that)

Im actually paying the last 4K off my loan that the bank gave me to go on the soup in 2000.
The world was ending then.

I hope all this helps.

LolaLuv

Googled "A and E" and am very proud of having learned a new abbreviation. But Google was fruitless when I tried to decipher "soup". Would you mind translating? (Thank god for these boards. I'm learning all kinds of Irish colloquialisms from them, hopefully by the time I get to Dublin I won't have to ask what anything means!)

worded

soup = beer
a&e accident and emergency
TLA - three letter abbreviation
hurry up we are missing out on VDT (valuable drinking time)


Ive so much to teach you.


Its 4:44 am here time to climb into the tree now.

LolaLuv

My liver's in for a hell of a ride. Thanks for the info, have a good night! (If that's what climbing into the tree means; google says you're off to masturbate. Enjoy in either case.)

Crash

Hey Pillypen, just did the maths there. essentially the term, and so time you'd be in Ireland per year, would be 9 months (October - June/Early July) - essentially works out as 678 euro a month, 22.50 a day.

So 158 euro a week for food, etc.

Which is pretty reasonable, seems around what I was living off the year before last. If your courses requires you to buy books, i'd say look online, look in the library etc. - take any option that doesnt require you shelving out too much cash in one go as it'd screw up your cashflow big time. I'd say you're in a reasonably alright position with that much to spend - an extra grand might make you a lot more comfortable, but not amazingly so, and may not be worth the hassle.

LolaLuv

Books I think are my biggest worry. In the US they cost anywhere from $200-500 per semester, and lit majors never get off easy. But when you break it down like that it does seem as though I'll have plenty of cash, especially if I can bypass purchasing books as you suggested.

Thank you very much for your help!

There's an excellent library in Trinity, so most of the time you won't have to actually buy books. Plus if there are books which you need you can get them ordered in.