These are the eight things Edi students spend way too much on

Ubers: treat yourself. Plants: treat yourself. Waga’s: treat yourself.


Spur of the moment spending can be far too easy sometimes, and as a uni student you don’t have to reach too far to find an excuse to splash: big deadline tomorrow? Better ease your nerves and commit to some self-care in the form of a TingThai takeaway.

But it’s not just spending in the name of self-care that will beat up your bank account, it’s the little things, like a coffee here and there or choosing Scotmid over Lidl because you just don’t have the mental strength today to face the shouty man at the self checkouts.

Anyway, here’s eight things that students in Edinburgh disproportionately splash their precious cash on.

1. Booze

A nutritious dinner or that £7 bottle of Barefoot wine: they cost about the same, but which is the more beneficial? The Barefoot, obviously, on a spiritual level at least. Wine is the food of the soul after all, but sometimes even the soul requires a *financial* diet.

Next time you’re in the big Tesco, deliberating over whether to treat yourself to anything that doesn’t come from the bottom shelf: be kind to your wallet and stick to the Echo falls. Own the cliché that know you are.

2. Heating

Waking up in the morning to a suspiciously warm flat is a daunting feeling with which to start the day. You left the heating on overnight. Again. It’ll be fine, just turn it off before the flatmates notice and act surprised when the bills come through.

3. Ubers

You did it. You fell for the old “you get the Uber I’ll get you a drink”, little did you know that “drink” would be a £2 tequila shot from Subway without even the mild comfort of a lime to get you through the ordeal. You’ve been scammed.

Sometimes, the Uber seems worth saving you a 20 minute walk, but as we know, that stuff really adds up. Take it from anyone who has ever sat down and added up their total Uber expenditure from the last few years. Now think about how you could have bought 295 tubs of hummus with those funds. That’s right, an empire of hummus could have been yours by now, but no, instead you have no hummus and a daily step count below 200.

4. Coffee

You’re halfway through a library shift that’s really testing your will to complete your degree. The least you can do is treat yourself the wistful escapism of a Starbucks at lunchtime, right? It’s just a shame that, for some, this seems to be the case on a pretty much daily basis.

It’s hard not to indulge in caffeinated goods on a regular basis when there are so many cosy cafes in which to study in Edinburgh, and I don’t think you’re going to get away with smuggling in your keep cup filled with Tesco’-own instant; they will smell your guilt (and your cheap coffee).

5. Plants

Another Edinburgh cliche is an over-indulgence in plant collecting. Some will place a couple around the kitchen here and there just to spruce up the space and give it some life, which is all well and good. Others like myself find themselves convinced that they need a large tree from Ikea with an added puppet-snake which they will carry on the 20 minute bus ride home.

There’s a flare for interior design and then there’s creating your own private rain forest, there is a very big difference. It’s a student flat not the secret garden. On the plus side you could turn it into a lucrative side hustle by charging admission. “Alexa play, Welcome to the Jungle”.

6. Takeaway

Takeaway more than once a week is somewhat normalized at uni, especially when you’re nearing the end of the semester and every remaining piece of your will is being diverted from doing the dishes to watching lectures at 2x speed. Sometimes you just need the embrace of a warm pizza box to get you through at 11pm, but if you do want to avoid the expense, maybe stock up your freezer with a generous supply of oven pizza’s right at the start of exam season.

7. Cloakroom

Back when socializing was a thing it was all too easy to go over budget on a night out. Not preing hard enough and trying to make up for it with double vodka’s is a terrible mistake. Another mistake is taking out cash to pay for the £2 cloakroom and figuring that you might as well spend the remaining £8 on tequila rose.

As someone who has been on cloakroom duty several times at the club, I can tell you that they really do rake in the dollar on coats. Do the smart thing and tie your jacket around your waist and enjoy the extra element of swoosh that it will add to your boogie, or better yet don’t wear a coat and stand in the queue for 45 minutes and let yourself be warmed by the powerful feeling of regret (actually please don’t do this).

8. Clothes

A Friday afternoon off seems like a nice time to browse the sale rack of various retailers on Princes Street. Nothing wrong with a wee bit of affordable retail therapy after all, however just be careful of falling into the trap of thinking that just because something’s in the sale it has to be bought.

There’s lots of ways to buy lovely clothes on a student budget, swap Asos for Depop and support other students selling off their goods, or try the lovely charity shops of Stockbridge and Morningside where you can pick up some unexpected finds.

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