<p>This is just for personal/misc. expenses, not tuition. I have $3,700 right now in the bank and will continue working this summer, so I am estimating having $4,500 by the time school starts. I have to buy my own books, will that be enough?</p>
<p>buy your books on half.com, drink busch light and karkov instead of sam adams and grey goose, and it’ll be plenty.</p>
<p>One Million Dollars.</p>
<p>id have to agree with bronxbombers here – although karkov is wayyy too expensive haha when you can get handles of mr. boston vodka for 9.99$ lol</p>
<p>Is your food already taken care of or are you going to be trying to eat with that money?</p>
<p>Are you staying in an already-paid-for dorm, or are you going to be paying some or all of the utilities for an apartment or house?</p>
<p>Are you taking classes that are likely to have costs that you aren’t being billed for?</p>
<p>Do you already have appropriate clothes for the weather in whatever area you’re going to be living in?</p>
<p>i would personally go with vladimir vodka, the one in the plastic bottle. mix it with diet coke!!</p>
<p>Agree with nontraditional… food will be your biggest expense. If housing and food are all taken care of by a meal/board plan like it was for me, you’d only need about $2500 for the entire year. That’s about what I spent freshman year…</p>
<p>Books: $250/semester
Other: $1000/semester</p>
<p>And I went out to eat at like restaurants a lot and bought a bunch of random things. $2500 should be enough in my opinion. It’s college…</p>
<p>you’ll spend a lot less money if you take out a certain amount from the ATM every week as opposed to swiping your debit card for everything–easier to keep track of</p>
<p>Everything is already taken care off in terms of room and board, meal plan and clothes. I am talking strictly eating out/drinks/random stuff</p>
<p>Thanks alot for your guy’s input</p>
<p>Where did you get books for $250/semester?? I used Amazon, and still paid over $600 for my books (science ones however).</p>
<p>To give my input though, you’re basically set. Expect to spend $1.5-3k per semester depending on your lifestyle and whether or not you join Greek life.</p>
<p>For freshmen it might be a little more because more classes need official texts, but I know people who spent around that much on average for each semester at Duke; I bought mostly new books so it was more). </p>
<p>half.com (I think others know more about this than I do) offers many used books for a steep discount and some classes (like 2/4 for me one semester) didn’t require books at all. </p>
<p>Example: My freshman year, second semester…</p>
<p>Econ 55: No book because Prof. Nechyba was still writing it so he gave us PDFs of the book-in-progress.</p>
<p>BME 8: No book… just because.</p>
<p>Math 107: Book $100 New(I think)</p>
<p>Bio 25: Most worthless book ever. $150 New</p>
<p>So this is how you could get to $250, but if you bought old that would leave room for if you had to get books for all 4 classes.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that you can sell books at the end fo the semester to at least regain some cash.</p>
<p>I think $4500 is more than enough for the whole year if you’ve got the major expenses (not including textbooks, that is) taken care of. If you plan on drinking, though, don’t forget that beer money adds up. </p>
<p>Where do you go to school? I go to school in NYC, so the cost of living is very high, and with so much to do, there’s also more to spend money *on<a href=“but%20I%20still%20spent%20nowhere%20near%20$4500%20this%20whole%20year”>/i</a>. On the other hand, if you go to a more suburban school surrounded by a small town, you’ll probably spend less money.</p>
<p>Another factor, though less obvious, is who you hang out with. Well, not so much who, but what kinds of people they are. If they’re used to living the high life, you may blow through a lot of money trying to keep up.</p>
<p>But I still say you’ll have enough.</p>
<p>Bars will eat you alive if you don’t pregame. It is relativly easy to put down 200 bucks in a night.</p>
<p>4500 for random spending should suffice, but you are going to want to budget everything by the week - for the year and keep track daily. I’m in your position, I’ll have around 5k or so maybe a bit more.</p>
<p>my boyfriend says he’s spending 5 euro (which is like $7.50!) on a beer at the cheapest bar in paris. ridiculous. they chug cheap bottles of wine before they go out..</p>
<p>leah, i think its closer to 10 isn’t it?</p>
<p>mm isn’t the exchange rate around 1.5 times the american dollar? or maybe 1.7?</p>
<p>rate is about ~1.55</p>
<p>i’ve never had a tab over $15…doesn’t hurt having brothers working, but there’s still some sort of special every night where one could black out for under $20…(this is at college bars, not downtown clubs)</p>
<p>My worst night consisted of paying $9 and not remembering how it happened until my boyfriend showed me the receipt.</p>
<p>1/2 priced 3-fer night, double shots in every glass. 3 orders of rum and cokes and a game of tequila shot billiards later, and I remember waking up on my boyfriend’s couch. Aced three 10-point quizzes that day, only one of which I had studied for, so all in all not too shabby ;)</p>
<p>I’m gonna miss the college bars and their Thursday specials when I graduate and leave this town :(</p>
<p>We don’t have any bars :(</p>
<p>How sad…dang. Where do you go to school? Timbuktu?</p>