<p>I'm trying to make an approx. budget since my summer earnings have nearly been drained. I want to know what you spend on entertainment, transportation, food (not in your meal plan), random school supplies/essentials for projects and what not, and any other random expenses you have monthly. I am not a drinker, and I don't plan on clubbing, so if you could leave those estimates out that would be awesome. I'm also not a big clothes shopper...so...I seriously doubt I will be buying any clothes at all up there.</p>
<p>starbucks $20 a week (tho i generally used declining dollars)
food: i usualy ate 2 times a day, so i only had to buy food on weekends, tho i ended up going on midnight pizzza runs. $30-40 a week
drinking: 30-50 a week, sometimes alot more, sometimes almost nothing if i find the right parties
transportation, cover fees, stuff for dorm: $10-30 a week</p>
<p>basically expect to spend $400-600 a month. </p>
<p>I know you said you dont drink and club, but i included it anything since 90% of people who say that end up doing it in college, unfortunately drinkings and smoking pot is really all NYU students do. but when you think about it, the whole allure of nyc is the night life, and you really cant experience most of it without booze. if you do start clubbing, which i did maybe once a month, its very expensive, $15-20 cover fee, $10-14 drinks, tranportation, and about $500 if you want a table. even if you dont drink except to spend $10-20 a nite doing anything: movies, sushi, w/e.</p>
<p>If you want to have a decent time at NYU expect to spend $100 a week, though as you probably noted, almost all of the expenses are recreational, so you can live with like $10 a week, you'll just be really bored and hungry.</p>
<p>Take a look at what NYU considers additional expenses. That dollar amount is used to set parameter on loan maximums and is supposed to be an average. Depending on your financial situation, you can adjust that figure upwards or downwards.</p>
<p>I'm on nyu on a lot of financial aid, so I wanted to keep the expenses at a minimum, but I still managed to have a fantastic time. I only spent $125-200 a month. Alot of people have the money to drop $100+ a week on clubs/alcohol/etc, but tons of people don't. You can have a great time either way. A great resource is the broke students guide to nyc...
<a href="http://www.nyu.edu/src/brokestudents/%5B/url%5D">http://www.nyu.edu/src/brokestudents/</a>
Alot of weekends, we would go to free nights at museums (the MoMA and the Guggenheim are fridays, I believe), or to Yankees/Mets games for only $7, and a couple of times for free with my floor. Our RA also took us out to dinner, and some nyc classics (like walking across the brooklyn bridge), which were all free. NYU offers a ton of free stuff if you just look into it. It IS possible to have a great time with out spending hundreds of dollars a month.</p>
<p>I didn't expect to drink in college, but some drinking is inevitable (i guess CHOICES might be different, but i'm not really sure how that all works). Still, I kept my drinking at restaurants/bars minimal, and my pregaming at a max, and it wasn't expensive at all. </p>
<p>I guess entertainment depends on your personality. I'm pretty laid back, introverted (and sometimes too lazy to go out), so I wasn't really into clubs, though I went a couple of times for the experience, but had i done that often, it would have been a huge expense. I'm also pretty anal about grades, so I went out a max of 2 times a week. You don't have to be drinking/smoking/clubbing to have a great time or experience nyc. While I enjoyed doing some of that, I also had a great time hanging out in the park, going out to dinners with friends, or just watching movies in someone's room. Even though it's nyc- it's still college, and it can be chill. You will find every possible type of person at nyu- ridiculously rich, has taken their entire tuition out in loans, goes out every night, spends all their time studying, and everything in between. It's awesome. </p>
<p>That said...</p>
<p>Food- $15-25 a week
Booze- $5-15 a week
Entertainment/Transportation- $10-20 a week</p>
<p>And I honestly had a great time. Lots spent more than this, some spent less. It all depends on what you want to make of it.</p>
<p>Trust me, I won't be drinking...(and neither will Mehgan) so you can lyao in someone else's direction. I don't care what other CHOICES people do...just because they drink doesn't mean I'm automatically going to.</p>
<p>Anyways, I had planned to spend about 5-6 hundred a month, assuming that would be the minimum I could, but it's great to hear that you can easily have fun with $200. I really don't go out much either, and mostly just stick to my food plan, so I think I can get by on $300 a month easily (which is less than I should be making working). </p>
<p>All good to know...thanks for all the info!</p>
<p>Yeah, I forgot to add- I had a roommate (tischie) who naturally loved going to plays- at least weekly. While NYU offers discounts, ususally tickets are at least $30-40 for crappy seats, so if you're into that, be prepared to pay alot. Entertainment expenses, whatever they be, vary hugely.</p>
<p>haha...they are the nosebleed section. back of the upper mezzanine, usually, but it all depends on the theatre. in some theatres (even on broadway) those seats aren't completely horrible.</p>
<p>^Rushing the theaters can be slightly cheaper, depending on the show, although there's not always a guarantee that you'll get seats. Most shows offer the first two rows of the orchestra, although some (like Sweeney Todd) offer seats throughout the theater</p>
<p>the nyu tickets i had were literally the back seat in the theater lol. but it was still fun. </p>
<p>yeah i know alot of people who did the rush-thing and swore by it. i could never bring myself to do it. i guess psych majors just don't have the same kind of dedication as the tischies :)</p>
<p>I'm a huge clothes shopper, and being in the middle of nyc, it was hard to contain myself =p My credit card bill came to about $500 a month, but most of that was clothes and things i wanted but didn't need, like room decor, dvd player, starbucks, etc (I allowed myself to spend more money because i worked practically all of fridays & weekends during the day). I also drank with dorm friends pretty often, like a couple of times a week, but i have extremely low tolerance, so i didn't spend very much on alcohol at all. As for clubbing, I went as often as twice a week, but sometimes once every other week. Being a girl, I didn't have to pay cover, most of the time.</p>
<p>If you're not much of a partyer, and plan on being frugal, don't feel like you won't fit in or have fun. I know plenty of people who are like that, and many of them are good friends of mine; we just don't go clubbing/drinking together. There's just so much to do in nyc, and the nightlife is simply one part of it. A lot of museums have special days when admission is free, and if you go for the student rush tickets on broadway, you can get GREAT deals. I personally haven't tried it yet, but i have friends who have seen broadways like wicked and rent from the first three rows (AMAZING seats) for $20-$30 a ticket through the student rush lottery. Also, sign up for the ticket central mailing list...they have good deals on stuff every week. Movie theaters tend to be expensive since its NYC ($10-$11), but i think ticket central has vouchers you can get for like $7.50 or something? That makes the ticket price at least somewhat normal. </p>
<p>Food is going to be expensive in the city. But if you're on a budget, definitely take advantage of the street fairs and the union square farmers market. The food is fresher and a LOT cheaper. Also, there's places like gray's papaya (97 cent hot dogs) and mamoun's ($2 falafel) which are amazing. Definitely explore the city during the day...that's an activity in itself, and you'll be able to discover places that have good cheap food.</p>
<p>There's really no estimate average amount of money people spend...it really depends on your lifestyle. Just keep track of your money and what you're spending it on, and you should be able to budget accordingly.</p>
<p>This may be a stupid question, but are the farmers markets held daily or on the weekends or once a week?</p>
<p>Also...what exactly is rushing. I'm assuming it's something like waiting in line for long hours until the show is just about to open and getting the left over seats for cheap cheap cheap...</p>
<p>And by the way, can upperclassmen stop telling us that we are going to drink? Unless your planning on shoving a beer bong down our throats, lay off...it's completely irrelevant to the essential topic, and pretty annoying. Who knows if we will or won't...and really, who cares? The only reason it was mentioned was because I'm not factoring alcohol into my budget.</p>