6) Money management

If you are wondering how much you will spend here, I will point you some everyday prices so you get the idea of the money you will need for students life.

• Dorm 50-80€
  
• Room in apartment in central areas 200-300€
  
• Meal in dorm 1.7-2.2€
  
• Menu in Old Town pub 4-6€
  
• Menu in good restaurant 8-15€
  
• McDonald's menu 5€
  
• Big Pizza slice 1.2-1.6€
  
• Fornetti (small bakery) 1-2€ for 3-5 pieces
  
• Tram student ticket 0.35€
  
• Tram ticket 0.75€
  
• ISIC 16€
  
• Transport card 90 days 31.5€
  
• Train to other city in Slovakia 3-8€ and free if student
  
• Beer in pub 1-1.4 €
  
• Beer in disco 1.5-2.5 €
  
• Vodka shot 1-2.5 €
  
• Vodka bottle 3.5-9€
  
• Borovichka shot 1-2€
  
• Borovichka bottle 4-8€
  
• TatraTea shot 1.5-2.5€
  
• TatraTea bottle 17-23€
  
• Rum bottle 6-9€
  
• Wine 1.5-8€
  
• Disco entrance 1-5€ and up to 10 if special party
  
• Cloakroom in disco Free-2€
  
• SIM card 5€
  
• 5 GB Data and calls 7.5-15€ per month (O2)
  
• Supermarket food is 20% cheaper than western europe standards, but is not as cheap as you would have imagined
  

This are more or less the everyday things you will need if you are Erasmus student, but I will wirte down some advices if you want to save money and save for the next month:

1. Get your ISIC as soon as you can, it's almost like an ID here and then get the Transport card on the same day, you will need to pay 3 times for it if you are staying whole year so if you are not planning to be here on July, you can just get it when the previous time expires and you will never pay for bus/tram tickets (don't do experiments, if you come in September is exactly 9 months the time you will be here).
   
2. Arrange your accomodation time before coming, check the mails from the university if you want to have a room in the dormitories, coming without having arranged it will cost you time and money since you will need to sleep in a hostel meanwhile.
   
3. Check your room facilities and go to IKEA with a written list agreed by all the roomates, in that case you will avoid second visits and buy things you won't really use. For example, a 30€ coffee machine shared by all the roomates will save you much more money than using 0.4€ machine coffees.
   
4. Get phone card on the second day you are here, my recommendation is O2, where you can get up to 5 GB internet connection for just 7.5€ per month if you do the following: There is an offer for new registered people that all fares will be 50% off if you have enough money at the end of the month when the next payment will be made, my recommendation is to have about 20€ most time in your card because if for example, you have 5GB option but your credit is 7.3€ at the end of the month, you will need to pay 15€ for the rest of your stay instead of 7.5€. But if this happen, just “loose” your SIM card, get a new one with another number for 5€ and start the offer again.
   
5. NEVER USE TAXIS, and when I say never, is NEVER, they will scam you in a very obvious way and you will feel pissed off for the rest of the day, the only taxi driver you can trust is William (+421 944 286 714) he speaks English and is Erasmus friendly, he can take you to Old Town from dorm for just 3€ per taxi, compared to 10 of others.
   
6. DO NOT CHEAT ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, there are a lot of revisors hidden in the public, and they target foreign people, but if you have the ISIC and transport card on the first days this will never be a problem. Fine is 50€ and as far as I know, Slovakia got more than 300€ from my friends' fines this year.
   
7. Eat in canteens, they will be in your faculty or dorm, you will never pay more than 2.5€ and you should have several meal options, best canteen in the city is Mylny one, and also the cheapest. Is healthier than McDonald's or most fast food, but we all known that we will abuse that as well. You don't need to sleep in the dormitory to use it, but you need ISIC card.
   
8. Eat Pizza slices if you have the munchies, tastier and cheaper than Kebabs and 1€ McBurgers, with 2 big slices (2-3€ dinner) you are ready for a party night.
   
9. Drink beer in pubs and discos: Prices are very good, you can have half a littre of beer for less than a vodka shot, so is a better deal. If you start drinking cocktails like crazy, the bill at the end of the night will pass 25€.
   
10. Buy middle-average quality alcohol, is better to pay 4.5€ for a 75cl bottle of Zubrowka, than 3,5€ for Familia Vodka. Cheap alcohol can be used for killing rats and you won't wake up all right next morning, instead pay 1-2€ more per bottle and get something that won't kill you. You don't need to pick expensive brands such as Aldmunsen, Absolut or BeFeater since they will be same price or even more expensive than in your home country.
    
11. Go to discos in the discount times: Many discos have even free entrance before 23 pm, and at that time discos already have a good ammount of people, so if you party a lot, get used to this timetable since it can be a saving of more than 100€ at the end of the semester. Also try to get as many fliers as you can, to get better offers.
    
12. Buy a flask, for 5-13€ you can get a 18 cl metal flask that you can hide in your coat or jeans, sometimes security check you before entering the disco, so my advice is to have the wallet close to it, so in the case they ask you what is that, you take the wallet and show it, it happened to me several times and didn't checked more, so it did the trick. If you fill it with your favourite mix, you kinda have 5 shots for free inside every disco, so it's pretty cool.
    
13. Get the free Train card if you want to travel in the country, you can have a nice weekend for free! You can get it with your ISIC and ID in the train station.
    
14. If you plan to party more than 4 nights, get the ESN card for 5€ and you will have around 2€ discount in every disco when a international party is taking place, you will recover the money in less than a month.
    
15. Buy tickets for spectacles in advance, ask your buddy pair or people who knows about this to save a lot of money in very good spectacles, for example, booked in advance, a good rated Orchesta playing Mozart was just 4,1€ compared to the 30€ they asked on the day of the play, same applies to Opera, Theather and hockey matches.
    
16. Know Slovak people: They can help you with issues you may have and also recommend you places to go.
    
17. Have a free tax withdrawal bank account, you will need to withdraw cash many times during your stay, and you should avoid those nasty comissions that can take up to 8% of your money, so check your country banks and look for one that can offer you something useful for your Erasmus, for example in Spain we have EvoBank which offers an account with 3 comission free cash withdrawal per month from any ATM in the world.
    
18. Have your European Health card active, so any medical procedure will be for free, If you don't have much time, is better to go through emergencies and pay the 2€ fee instead of waiting 4 h for a normal medical review, but please consider if you problem is serious enough to go through emergencies.
    
    

If you follow most of this advices, you can just spend 300€ per month including meals, discos, beer and accomodation. That money will be in most cases covered by your scholarship, so you will have more for shopping or traveling!