COUNTING THE COST: NAVIGATING EXPENSES ABROAD

    

Picture by Stevepb from Pixabay

October 04, 2023

By Stephanie L. Granada

    Studying abroad is not just about learning new cultures and languages, is also learning how to manage your money and start living like an adult, how I mention in previous blogs. The reality is that at some point, you will have to make important decisions about where are you going to live, and as an international student you need to buy everything from scratch. 

    In my case, the first semester at Washburn University, I had to live on campus, because I wanted to have the experience of living on campus as a college student. But I researched about cost and living in apartments off campus, and I realized overtime will be more profitable and comfortable. The first challenge was to find a roommate to split the rent and utilities like electricity, water, and Wi-Fi. Once I found one, we decided to move to College Hill Apartments, which is five minutes away walking from campus.

    We decided to pick that place as our home because the rent is worth around $831 and it is not expensive as other places off campus. The apartment is in good conditions, and it offers a laundry room with washing and dryer machine that other apartments complex did not. 

    Also, there are many source international students can use to find good deals for equipment for their apartment. Some of them are IKEA, thrift stores like Goodwill, Facebook marketplace, and something that I like about Washburn is that every time an international student graduates and want to sell their stuff, they will send an email to all the international students about material and cost of what they are selling. Generally, cheaper than other places such as Dillard's, Walmart and TJ-Max.