Money, money, money

it was funny
in the rich men's world

That is, here I go with an honest and detailed post about expenses.

When I applied for my Erasmus+ semester, I looked up a lot of stuff online in advance. Accommodation, of course, and food prices, transportation prices, shower gel prices and cinema tickets and a whole lot more. I really tried to calculate how much money I would need because, to be honest, I sure enough did NOT have enough. While others stressed about how they would be able to handle stuff abroad alone or how they would make friends, I only worried about one thing: money. And I could find literally nothing about expenses properly added up online (or offline, for that matter). So I had to look up everything seperately and pray that I did it right.
And, because I am such a nice helpful little Hufflepuff, I decided that I would write up all my expenses (and income) during my Erasmus semester. Okay, this is not such a huge thing if you consider that I do the very same here at home as well, but still. I did it, okay? Categorised even. And now that I got home and double checked all the stuff on my bank account, here I am to give you the statistics from my three and a half months abroad.

First, I'd like to clarify that this includes ALL expenses connected to my Erasmus semester. This means that from my flight tickets to the fifth cider I bought drunken in a pub, or the insurances I had to pay and the souvenirs I've brought home, this calculation really includes everything.

So here we go with actual numbers:
I spent:

• 1721 EUR on accommodation, out of which 1280 EUR was my rent and the remaining the hostels and a flat in Galway and Dublin for my short stays
• 409 EUR on grocery shopping
• 296 EUR on my flight tickets
• 227 EUR on bus tickets (to the city centre and back in Limerick and also to Dublin and to Cork)
• 162 EUR on bus trips all around the country, out of which 70 EUR was spent on a 3-day-trip to Belfast and maaan, that was super cheap and legen-freaking-dary craic
• 98 EUR on food that was not made by me but bought ready (eg. restaurants)
• 87 EUR on cider alone, wow (and another 50 EUR on beer or Guinness)
• 68 EUR on souvenirs, and I swear I tried to buy the cheapest stuff - I am just so selfless, apparently
• 36 EUR on swimming (the reason for this being so cheap is that after paying 5 EUR for the Swim Club membership fee, I could attend all trainings for free and only had to pay when I wanted to swim out of practice time)
• 32 EUR transaction fees at my bank (disadvantages of using a HUF based Hungarian card when paying in EUR in Ireland....)
• and some more smaller expenses
• fun fact that my lowest expense is that I paid 40 cents for toilet use (twice 20 cents)

Which makes:
3 570 EUR in total

So now you know.
Here is the number that I was not able to find online at all.
Important to note that I have cooked for myself basically all the time, proper food (meat, eggs, veggies, bread, fruit and such) that costs money but is still less than food at campus or at restaurants. Also, I have not bought clothes except for some HP stuff and a UL hoodie, I had my own bedsheets and towels and slippers with me so, as you can see, it is basically just accommodation, transportation, food and drinks, and stuff like washing liquid or toilet paper that I had to spend money on, but everything else I packed at home. Moreover, I always tried to buy the cheaper stuff and sometimes had to be really strong and NOT buy another cider or beer or chocolate or an awesome HP T-shirt. This 3 570 EUR was spent on mostly essential things, well, if a few chocolate bars and bottles of OJ and alcohol can count as essentials ;) They were, by the way, totally essential for me. Pinkie swear.

All in all, if you want to have a cost-effective and yet comfortable and enjoyable semester in Ireland (Limerick) you will need about 3500-3700 EUR. Should cover all costs for three and a half months - almost four.
Note: These statistics stand for an autumn semester in Limerick at off-campus accommodation in 2017. If you plan to spend your semester in another country or even in another city or your overall expectations differ a lot from mine, please do count on discrepancy compared to this post as it is only a case study, so to say, and has no further statistic data collected from others.