AIBU to think student DS spending £50 on his nights out is ridiculous?

[OwlBabiesAreCute]

Maybe my age but I used to go out with £5 - into a club for free, couple of halves of lager, 10 fags. Admittedly a good few years ago!

DS (2nd year of uni SE England) says he cannot go out with less than £50 for drinks in the pub, then admission and drinks in a club. And possibly an Uber home after.

He does have a job but is saving that money for when he goes back to uni.

AIBU to think this is not a typical amount that uni students / teens spend on a night out?

YABU - £50 is a normal amount and you have no idea of the true cost of a night out

YANBU - he's a student with limited income and should therefore limit nights out / spending

A lot of bars are like £6 per pint now! Cocktails can be £10+. When you throw in a taxi and a kebab that is very easily done. “In my day…” yes it was obviously cheaper lol!!!

I don't think it's a lot of money for what he got, but I'd say it's still a lot of money for a student to spend in one evening so I guess it can't be a regular thing. Things were cheaper when I was a student so we could go out several times a week! I guess these days it's fewer nights out like that and more house parties, student events or just going to a club for a couple of hours later on.

The more I write, the more out of touch I feel! I'm 47 and my dc are 9 and 11 so I'm pretty out of the loop. Interesting to read others' replies and suspect it'll be a shock when my dc reach that stage!

I hardly ever go out now, too expensive. Admittedly I would not be heading to a night club but prior to all the hideous price rises I and a few friends would regularly go for an early meal, a few drinks and then to see a film. We would do this a couple of times a month and I would get a cab home. We have now cut this down to once a month, no meal, one drink a film and a cab home and that sets me back by around £25 .

YABU. I would struggle to spend less than £50 on a night in my village pub (walking home).

£50 is a cheap night out these days, but equally he should reign it in a bit. Maybe stay in with a £10 bottle of wine some weeks.

I go out each weekend, mid 20s, I spend £100 a night.

You’re right, it is your age. £50 is a cheap night out nowadays.

Girls had cheaper nights out than boys, because they got into the club free and then often boys would offer to buy them their drinks.
It seems very unlikely that humanity has changed much in 25 years, so your DS might feel he needs to budget for a couple of drinks for other people as well as himself...

There’s a difference between what a student being funded by their parents spends on a night out and what I would spend. My daughter is in her third year and she hasn’t been able to get a job this year due to her placement hours. She would think €20 was plenty for a night out, prinks with her friends, cheap Tesco vodka and Fanta apparently, then minimum spending in town. She knows we are her only source of income and doesn’t take the piss. She definitely wouldn’t be going to expensive clubs and getting taxis home.

Look at what has just happened in Nottingham, my daughter lives 5 minutes away from where the people were hit at the bus stop so I totally get the whole 'user thing' 😔

I wish I’d spent more money on fun nights out drinking & dancing before I got stuck at home with kids.
Tell him to enjoy every minute.

It's a bit of a daft question really. If you can afford it and it's what you want to do then it's fine. If you can't afford it then it's not fine. There are cheaper ways of going out on the lash £1.49 pints at Wetherspoons.

To me it seems a ridiculous price for a regular night out when there are much cheaper options and it does give a bit of traction to those claiming the only reason the younger generation can't afford homes is because they spend all their money on avocados, lattes and £50 nights on the town.

My dads Father’s Day pint cost me £7.89 on Sunday.
dad paid for a round on Saturday for him my mum, my aunt (alcoholic bevs) and then my 2x sisters, my cousin, me DH &Dd, and 5 bags of crisps and it was 53.47 or something for the round
so either he gets 4 pints, entry to the club and can fair or a single round of drinks with his £50
that’s what it costs

I knew of people spending that amount 15 years ago as I couldn’t afford it back then! On that basis, I’d say it’s probably cheap for a night out now. That being said, if money is tight he should be limiting unnecessary spending.

£50 would have been unremarkable when I was a student, around 20 years ago.

I mean 10 ciggies used to cost £1.20 in about 1994/5 so yeah nearly 30 years ago you might have got 10 ciggies and a couple of cheap pints at a student union. But even in the early 2000s I remember spending the best part of £30 on a "proper" night out with club entry and a dirty post club van burger as a student (in the North from a working class background and went to uni in Wales). Maybe could get away with a tenner midweek at the union. £50 tracks.

Having said that I remember being given a £2k overdraft pretty much as standard in 2001 as a 19 year old 1st year student... god knows what that would translate to nowadays. 😅

Wetherspoons is where he goes, and the prices vary massively by location.

And as of late last year the absolute cheapest alcoholic drink you could get from any Wetherspoons in the UK was a £1.75 300ml beer in some of its Scottish locations.

In SE England, the cheapest beers in Wetherspoons are ~£3. They’re probably more in the club, which he also needs to pay an entry fee for.

You could probably have a night outon the lash, bar and club, for less than £50 if you’re very careful, but not much less.

I went out the other day and a double vodka was 10.55 and a taxi home cost me nearly 20 quid for a 10 minute drive. I don't think 50 is an unreasonable amount at all.

One pint in Bristol is £6!

in my local pub a pint is £9.10

In the SE £50 sounds like a reasonably cheap night if he’s managing drinks, club entry and an Uber! I’d be telling him well done 😂

Where I live you're talking £8 a drink, £10 into a club and £18 for a taxi home and I think I live in quite a cheap part of the U.K. so £50 for a proper night out is fairly conservative.

Obviously not every night out needs to be a big one, surely students still go local or just drink in each other's flats too?

I don’t think i could get drunk or have an entire night out on £50. That’s not getting him far.

Pints are between £6-8 (I can’t drink them). G&T about £10 as is a glass of wine.

Food - £10 depending what you get. Let’s assume kebab.

Taxi’s are mega money. £10. As a woman I wouldn’t walk home on my own.

So 3-4 drinks and a taxi. If you eek those drinks out, you’re sober at the end of it. No shots or usual Uni style night out that.

so yeah, you’re totally delusional.

'And as of late last year the absolute cheapest alcoholic drink you could get from any Wetherspoons in the UK was a £1.75 300ml beer in some of its Scottish locations.'

Our local has several beers for less than £2 a pint. Or at least they did on Tuesday. £50 quid would get you absolutely hammered.

Our local has several beers for less than £2 a pint. Or at least they did on Tuesday. £50 quid would get you absolutely hammered.

In almost 20 years of being legally old enough to drink, the only place I've seen where the beer was that cheap was the local British Legion (preschool by day, bar frequented mostly by 80 year old men by night*).

*between 7 and 10pm.

I didn’t really go out at all for a few years while I was pregnant/kids were small and then with the pandemic. I was a bit shocked how expensive it worked out last couple of times I went to a work thing. Even my recent funded night out cost almost £50 and that was just the cost of 1 drink before we went into the thing and a taxi back home. If I were a student now then unless the Union was loads cheaper think I’d stick to house parties.