<p>I haven’t been on CC in a very long time, but as I’m going to Rice in a few weeks, I had a few questions regarding expenses. I’m trying to figure out how much money I’ll need to have in my checking account for first semester. So, including expenses like laundry (is it free? I can’t find anything that says either way), formals, books, entertainment, eating out, etc…everything except for the bills you pay at the beginning of the semester like tuition and room and board…how much should I expect to spend first semester?</p>
<p>It all depends on you. If you’re on campus, laundry is free (paid in room and board expenses), as each residential college has a laundry room with plenty of machines to go around. Also, all students get a metropass good for the year, which allows you to ride the lightrail for free if you’re going around the city. Here’s a list of some stuff that a lot of students tend to spend money on:</p>
<p>Books:
The Rice campus bookstore is way overpriced. I would totally recommend buying your books from an online retailer or from other Rice students at a discounted price. However, as an incoming freshman, you might have to buy from the bookstore since you probably won’t know what classes you’ll be taking until the Friday before the start of classes, and by that time you might not have the time to hunt down other students or wait a few weeks for books you order from the internet to arrive. Some textbooks are as expensive as $100 (or more), and for a humanities class with a long reading list, you might find yourself spending $50 or more for books. This is going to cost a lot.</p>
<p>Formals/other attire:
So, at least in my opinion, formals aren’t that big at Rice. What’s more popular is weekend parties that often have a costume theme (i.e. Sid’s 80’s party and Lovett’s casino party). For these, you probably shouldn’t buy expensive clothes since they’re for one night/you won’t wear them anywhere else. You can try to bring “costume” stuff from home, or if not, there are some inexpensive stores in the Rice Village that you can walk to to buy stuff.</p>
<p>Entertainment:
This depends on you. If you plan to go out on the town a lot, prepare to spend. If you’re looking for what Rice offers on campus and organizes for off-campus, the expenses aren’t bad. For example, if you want to see shows at Rice, tickets might be anywhere from $5-$15 per student (more for non-students). A few times a semester, there might be a campus-wide or college activity offered. One thing that the Jones RAs do pretty frequently is cheap date night at the Angelika’s theater. I think you pay like $5 or $10 and get a movie ticket and maybe popcorn or something. Also a few times a semester, you might get emails about subsidized tickets to Houston events. One thing I was excited about but unfortunately couldn’t take advantage of was subsidized tickets to see Wicked the Musical in April. I don’t recall exactly, but I think Rice students were being offered a limited number of tickets for maybe $20 or $30 each.</p>
<p>Eating out:
Also depends on you. If you live on campus, you have to buy the meal plan, which is breakfast, lunch, and dinner Monday-Saturday and lunch and dinner on Sunday. The meal plan you buy also includes $50 in tetra points per semester (and they rollover until you graduate if you don’t use them all). You can spend your tetra points to buy food at 13th Street, a sandwich shop/Smoothie King, Willy’s Pub, and Sammy’s (only open at lunch), all located in the RMC. You might need more money if you plan to eat at these places more than once a week. Also, Rice students often go off campus on the weekend to eat, as there are a lot of nice, reasonably-priced restaurants in the Rice Village. </p>
<p>Other expenses you might incur:
Also depends on you. The campus bookstore is overpriced, but you might want to buy some Rice t-shirts or sweatshirts or something. Some of my friends have developed a compulsion for online shopping after living on campus for a while =).</p>
<p>Only other possible expenses beyond the ones emilia listed I can think of are:</p>
<p>-study food and snacks you’ll probably get for your dorm room (ramen, easy mac, cokes, etc.) Probably won’t cost you that much. </p>
<p>-If you drink, alcohol. Whether you buy it from a store or from Willy’s Pub, it’s not that badly priced but can add depending on your lifestyle. I think I dropped an average of 20-30$ a week on it. </p>
<p>-If you smoke, I hear packs of cigarettes are pretty expensive.</p>
<p>-Equipment for IM sports will be a pretty decent expense if you play. I know they hauled all us brown freshman off to buy cleats because we’d use 'em all four years for IM and IC sports. </p>
<p>Misc. Expenses: Uhh, snacks when you’re places, i.e. at the football games, or those nice 3$ t-shirts, college t-shirts/sweatshirts/whatever, donations for causes/etc, tickets for a couple of the parties. I’ll add more if I think of them.</p>
<p>I spent about $2500 my freshman year, but I didn’t pay for my books. I’d figure about $1250-$2000 per semester, including books. If you know where to look, you can get your books on the cheap (even at Amazon).</p>
<p>Even as a freshman I would tell you to hold off on buying the books from the bookstore. Go to the first class and see if you want to drop any of the ones you signed up for first. In the first class the prof will probably go over which books you will really need and which ones will seldomly be used. If you take an Ostdiek class (in the Poli department) you do not need to buy any of the books he has on the syllabus! He only assigns a couple of chapters from each of the books and sometimes a quick glance at just the intro and conclusion (first and last chapter) and the titles of each of the chapters will suffice (got A’s in both of his classes). </p>
<p>Basically, just hold out to buy your books. When you find out with ones you will need you just need to find them on half.com for way cheaper. A lot of times you can buy an older edition for so much less but make sure to ask the prof if you can use an older edition.</p>
<p>Shampoo, conditioner, laundry soap, regular soap, lotion, socks, gum, haircuts, clothing, shoes… personal expenses. My daughter paid for everything except tuition, room and board with money she earned over the summer and from a 10hour per week job on campus. All together, she probably spent $2500 over the course of the year on books, cleaning and personal supplies, food, club sport trips, entertainment, clothes, etc.</p>