Student Spend Richard Shaw When I went to polytechnic (I usually say university because it’s easier to say but although it is a university now technically I went to polytechnic – the reason why is another story) I kept a diary for the first 10 weeks which was almost the whole term. I wrote in it every night before turning the light out and recorded the time of the entry, therefore the time I went to bed. Bearing in mind that I’m in bed before 10pm almost every night now-adays I was surprised to see how late I used to go to bed. I thought late nights was something the modern generation did thanks to late night opening (the pubs had to close by 11pm when I was a student) but apparently not. I also recorded everything I spent every day and that showed something I would also associate with modern day students but if I’m honest I knew was just as relevant to me too – the amount of money spent on alcohol. If I remove my rent from the chart
the library, somewhere I never went) and on 35 out of 73 days which is 45% of the I’m pretty sure I didn’t go to the pub on time. my own, so maybe it was just the thing What things cost in 1986 (very to do. I always tell people that I didn’t start reading fiction until I went to university (sorry polytechnic) but I didn’t buy a single book in my first term, the £28.64 of reading material was mainly newspapers (the American football paper First Down) and one book off my
nearly 30 years ago) is also interesting: Lager 82p Can of pop 25p Loaf of bread 38p Corned beef 87p Toilet roll 52p Swimming 75p Take-away burger 68p Pie and chips 89p then it’s almost 25% food and 25% course’s reading list (the only one I Chinese take-away £2.25 alcohol. bought in five years). I’ve kept a diary on other occasions I would say the reason for it was that The other thing I tell people is that it over the years but I haven’t recorded any I didn’t have anything else to do, my only rained twice in Wales, once from statistics in any of them – shame I would course work was trivial and there were January to June and once from June to like to have compared. I can say though only four channels to watch on TV (and December. As I recorded the weather that I’ve never spent as much on alcohol as I never watched ITV that cut it down every day in my diary I can see that I since! to three) but my friends had lots of wasn’t exaggerating too much, it rained Month 2016 course work to do (they were always in