Monthly Food Expense:

In shared accommodation, students use two approaches for managing their eating related stuff.

i. Individual eating approach

ii. Shared eating approach

Individual Approach:

I have seen some houses where students are from same country, same language, same religion but still they do cooking and other things individually. May be it is convineant for them, but still they suffer. Because when they just come from university or job, even they are tired but still they have to cook something. Mostly they go for fast cooking stuff like eating eggs, buying already made food etc., which greatly effect their diet.

Shared Approach:

It is always easy to follow the first approach because by nature people are dependent on others. Every student in the house contribute, so there is not much burden on a single person and it comes handy during exams, when you have got a paper tomorrow and your colleague cook food and bring all necessary stuff, so you don’t need to worry about anything. Mostly students have made a roster for cooking and cleaning and they use to do swapping if are busy.

Rosters for work may vary according to students/community; like three people in house will do cooking and bringing necessary stuff and 2 people will be responsible for cleaning or it may be every person has to do cooking according to roster and then cleaning after 2-3 days or once a week but the approach remain the same.

I have seldom seen students sharing a single house and some of them doing individual cooking and some share this responsibility. For better understanding and more unity; I suggest the shared approach.

The estimated monthly food expense is $65 - $80 a month per person which includes buying Oil for cooking, spices, salt, sugar, tea bags, milk, meat, bread, eggs, vegetables, fishes, onion, potatoes, rice, beans and other things that includes normal eating habits and it should not exceed $80.

The cost may increase if you also share Juices, Cold drinks, pizza, buying food from outside and other such things.