How much will Nottingham freshers cost you?

Freshers is basically a week away. Whether you’ve spent the summer working twelve-hour days at Costa, or laying in bed and crying about how much debt you’re embarking on, there’s no doubt everyone is excited for Freshers.

The question that every fresher has been asking themselves whilst pondering life in the shower, is how much will a great week cost me?

For those of you who didn’t get to the answer before the water went cold, we’ve been number crunching and worked out that the entire week, from Vodka to Paracetamol, from societies sign ups to taxis home.

Tickets

Heaven and Hell- £5
Baywatch – £5
Toga – £5
Back to school – £5
And Finale – £27
Costumes- £25

Although most won’t end up at an event every night of the week – here we have taken the five most talked about events of Fresher’s week. They total a fairly reasonable £47 which finale the most expensive, coming in at a huge £27. Others cost a fiver

Most of these events are fancy dress, so you’ll be looking to become Pamela Anderson, or a Greek Scholar for the evening. We priced up two outfits from fancy dress shops in Notts for £25 as you could probably get away with wearing your old school uniform.

Pre-drinks

2 Litres of Sainsbury’s Vodka – £30.00
4 x 2 Litres of Sainsbury’s Cola- £2.00

Perhaps being slightly cautious with the amounts, we’ve settled on 2 litre to last the week, because while you’ll start strong, you’ll end up hating the taste of anything vaguely alcoholic. It’s all mixed with the second cheapest coke that supermarkets have to offer and at £2 for 8 litres, you’ll be able to afford it.

Up in the Club

4x 4 spirit and mixers per night – £50
25g of Golden Virginia, papers and filters -£11.00
5 x Taxi rides between city and campus – £15-£20

After a good amount of pre-drinking, we’ve gone for a reasonable effort of four double spirits and mixers which will be around three quid a pop. This gives you the option to get an occasional round in for your new best friends or try and impress a future bae with a free bev.

As you’ll soon find out, most of the real socialising at uni happens in smoking areas outside the club, rather than inside with the deafening sound of Pitbull blocking out any coherent thought.

You’ll go out with every intention of getting the free SU freshers buses to the club and back, once you find out that they leave halls at 6:15 some nights and return at 3 am, you’ll inevitably end up hailing a trusty Lenton or DG taxi. An average journey will be between £4-£7 and most of the time you’ll split it, but there’s always going to be that night where you get shafted and end up paying the whole thing while your mates protest that they have no change.

Food 

Basic groceries (if you’re in self catered)- £30
4 post-club takeaways- £20

home x

A D2 meal deal is likely to be the only thing your drunken self will feel is possibly edible on the way home from a big freshers night and for at least the first few nights –until the price dawns on you- a pizza/doner deal is going to be the only thing your tongue can belt out an order for. Going by this, we estimate the nightly takeaway will cost you about £5 a night for meat chips and a drink.

Ignore this section if you’re lucky enough to be living on campus but for the rest of you, when you aren’t scoffing deep-fried foodstuffs down, it is likely that you’ll want something with real nutritional value.

Using Sainsbury’s, we worked out that a basic weekly food shop will cost somewhere around £30 This gets you five apples, bread, milk, burgers, chicken, 1kg of potatoes, various other veg, soft drinks, tea bags, and a few cans of soup. Along with snacks, treats and cooking essentials like butter, oil, and herbs.

Miscellaneous

Six pack of Durex- £5
Pulp Fiction poster- £6
Uni T-shirt- £6

How else will people know you’re original and edgy?

A six pack of condoms might leave you £5 out of pocket, but we insist it’ll be cheaper than raising a child you didn’t want, or more convenient than missing some lectures, for clinic. So it is a fiver worth forking out.

A pulp fiction poster is one of the most commonly bought halls room accessories and show off your urban aesthetic without betraying your middle class roots.

You’ll also definitely buy a Uni of T-shirt, before realising how deeply uncool they really are.

Total cost- £227

Whilst money isn’t everything, the seven-day session will no doubt take one boozed up chunk out of the bank balance. However, we can assure that –hangovers aside- it’ll be worth almost every penny.