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

Do people routinely get taxis home as students? I could never afford one so I walked!

It cheap for a night out if you have the money to spend the night in a pub and get a taxi and are having one of those nights out. But when I was a student, barely anyone was taking taxis home, sometimes the night bus but mainly walking, we didn't go out at 7pm and spend three hours in the pub, we drank in our flats and then headed out about 10 to save money. That's just kind of student life isn't it? Or is it all Ubers and bars now?

£50!! I was spending that 20 years ago as a student on a night out and that wasn’t in an expensive city. I think he’s budgeting pretty well if he’s doing one night on £50.

I can't take you seriously.

The cheapest absolutely shit packet of 10 cigarettes is about £11.50 now.

A pint is £4-£6 depending which pub you go to, where you live and what you pick. Cheapest I've had recently is £4.10 Amstell and that was over a year ago.

Uber is £7 on average depending on your distance from a club.

Club entry is around £5-£10 depending on time of entry.

So the absolute minimum spend to match your old night out would be £27.60.

Surely this is a wind up. Have you been to a pub, or got a cab, this decade?

That's quite a cheap night out, I'd easily spend that within a few hours. A place I was at the other week was £13 for a pint and a half (I wasn't down south either)

£50 is an absolute bargain for a night out.

£50 is cheap for a night out with a club and transport included.

I spent more than that on a night out, no taxis involved in the 90’s. What are you expecting him to do? Drink water or sponge off of other people?

Uber is cheap and ubiquitous and a lot of students now live alone or don't socialise with their housemates, so would be wandering the streets alone at night to get home.

Yes £50 sounds good to me to be honest. For a proper night out which would include more than two drinks and plenty of shots.

There's no point harping back to what you paid 20-30 years ago, you just surely be aware that everything costs more nowadays?

Yeah!! I mean, I used to get a week of groceries for about £40, now it’s more like £160!! I should really reign it in!!

I did have 2 kids in the meantime and there is the inflation and the COL but hey, £40 is better than £160 so I am BU!

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

So how is he affording the £50 nights out? If he can't afford them, then logically he'd do them much less often and cut corners wherever he can (bus not uber, no places with cover charges, etc.) But yes, even pitchers at the cheapest student bar are going to be considerably more expensive than you remember - and like most things they've gone up significantly more rapidly than usual in the past year or two.

Have no real idea how much a student night out would cost but surely it’s their business
we fund ours to the extent of £150 a week absolutely their call what they spend it on

Sounds about right.

I paid less in my day but 1, that was 15 years ago, 2, I was a lightweight and only needed a few drinks to get tipsy enough to dance, and 3, I lived a safe-ish walk from the clubs so no taxi fares.

That said, pre-drinking in a pub isn't exactly being savvy. Whatever happened to going to the supermarket and then to somebody's room?

Yep, £50 is cheap these days, I assume that's student bar prices. I think a lot of clubs charge extortionate rates to get into these days and are no less sticky and smelly and minging than they used to be

I haven't been on that sort of night out since it cost me, the bloody designated driver, £50 for the privilege of drinking tiny glasses of shite diet coke in said sweaty sticky overcrowded hell holes all night 😱

Young uns I worked with in my last job would think nothing of spending £150-£200 on a night out 😬

Maybe try going out with a fiver and see how far you get today, then you should be able to answer your own question.

Ten years ago in Sheffield, a night out for a fiver was doable, but you had to go where someone had free birthday entry to a club, buy two drinks, and walk home. Taxis were about £2 per person. Nowadays, I would use about £20.

It depends what night out you want. London was £7 for one drink, then £5 travel costs. But I also paid £19 for a meal out, so don't know what the £50 goes on.

I went to uni in the early 00s and a night out was probably between £20-30 depending on if we got in for free which we normally managed. If we had to pay it was around £5- £8 entry depending on the club. Special drinks/shots were offered at £1- £1.50 and others like a vodka coke were £2.50. Taxis and food after could be a tenner or more. Considering that was 20 years ago i don’t think £50 is a lot. Should he cut down if he can’t afford it, yes. Let’s be honest who wants to miss a night out!
I look back and remember all those nights and the fun we had. Being that age doesn’t last forever. My dh and I often reminisce about back in the day and how when we got our first flat and were skint we bought a couple of bottles of wine drank them at home and then went to the local with a tenner and managed to get 2 drinks each. We were out recently and both drinks were over a tenner.

Christ, no way could he do all that for 50 quid around here.

Nightclub admission is at least £15 or more and Ubers are much dearer than normal cabs.

I'd say that's a fairly cheap night out OP.

Taking cabs and spending all night buying expensive drinks in bars is lovely but not when you are on a real student budget he really isn't doing this is his full spend is £50. Take off a, tenner for the cab. £5 entry into a club. £5 supper. £30 on drinks really isn't much.

Also, blokes very rarely get into clubs for free.

Depends on where he's going out.
£50 is probably about right for a modest night out!

£4 a pint in the pub x6 = £24.00
Taxi Home = £8.00
Entry into a club = £10.00
Couple of shots or Jaegerbombs in the club = £10.00

Total = £52.00.

If i'm going 'out out' these days I budget about £80 - £100.

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

Does that mean you're funding his nights out? Why the fuck are you doing that, if so? You're not doing him any favours.

If I went on a night out and only spent £50 in total I'd be well chuffed with myself. Yabu.

Club entry: £5
2 beers: £16
Shot of tequila: £4
10 cigarettes: £7
Uber: £15
Total for a subpar night out: £47

You can't possibly be this out of touch, OP. Welcome to the 21st century. It sucks.