Hi,
I was thinking that you might be interested in living expenses here in Edinburgh.
- Accommodation: Surely, accommodation is the most expensive part of living anywhere, but I was surprised that the price of a room here, is very expensive, too. I assumed it might be a lot cheaper than a room in Stockholm or Uppsala, but in reality, it is not. For a room in a shared flat, you usually pay from 400£ – 500£ with bills included. It always depends on the location where you live, but this could be about appropriate range.
- Transportation: As biking in Edinburgh is not really attractive due to lack of cycle paths and narrow streets with heavy traffic, you would probably use local buses to travel within the city. With Ridacard and student ID, it costs 48£ for 4 weeks. It includes all buses and tram in Edinburgh (a+b zones), night connection and connections to the Airport. It is about the same price as in Sweden.
- Food: This is really individual and depends a lot on your diet and preferences. I am able to spend less than 100£ and have some tasty food. I always look for something traditionally local as I really enjoy trying new food. Maybe it is worth mentioning that I hardly ever buy meat products in the supermarkets, so that if you eat meat, the price could be higher although I do not know the prices of meat. On the other hand, I always prepare lunch boxes and do not eat out that often, so that it may give you a better overview.
- Eating out: Going out to restaurants, pubs or cafés is not that expensive as in Sweden, in my opinion. But of course, the price of a dish in the restaurant may vary from 7£ to 20£. I would say that usually the meal is for about 10£ and beer for 4£. In cafés, coffee costs usually up to 3£, cakes and sandwiches around 4£.
- Travelling: Travelling to other places is not very comfortable if you want to travel to nature reserves and not to the cities. To Glasgow, it is very easy to travel with Megabus buses leaving almost every 15 minutes from Edinburgh and the price of a single ticket is around 4£ (online price). To Stirling basically, the same applies, just the frequency is much lower. Trains for these routes are less than 10£, I guess. When I wanted to do a trip to Loch Lomond, I could not find any simple connection as it would take around 3 hours to get there, with some changes and price around 25£… Unfortunately, in these cases, it is cheaper and faster to rest a car. Price of car rental may be around 40£ per day (depends a lot of the car type).
Apart from these expenses, there are no other for student union/nation as it is in Uppsala and nightlife is student-friendly with a wide range of student discounts, discounts on alcohol included.
I would say that these are the main expenses you will come across and it depends on your personal habits what the final costs could be.
I hope you found this helpful 😊
Denisa