How the calculator works

Our new budget calculator, powered by Whatuni, estimates your monthly expenses across categories like socialising, clothing, travel, shopping and income. It uses fixed multipliers, realistic prices from databases like Numbeo, and user inputs to give a detailed breakdown of costs. Let’s walk through the methodology so you can see how your monthly budget is calculated. 

Please note example calculations are for illustrative purposes and not based on real world data.  

Housing  

This question estimates monthly housing costs for students based on their living arrangement while attending university. Students can select from four options, each with a cost assigned to it. 

Institutions can have a single campus with or without halls, multiple campuses with or without halls, or run entirely online or through distance learning. 

Students have four main housing options: living at home, in university or private halls, in a shared private house, or living alone in private accommodation.  

The option to live at home is calculated zero-cost housing choice if they remain with family, unless they tick ‘I already know the cost’ and enter how much they pay as a share of bills while living at home. 

If university halls are available, either university owned or private, the official fees are used from the university's institution profile on The Complete University Guide.  

If an institution does not provide halls, private accommodation fees for shared houses in the private sector are used as a substitute. These data come from Numbeo for the different results shown by university and region.   

In cases where an institution has multiple campuses, these costs will be shown in a range from the cheapest to the most expensive across all campus accommodation. 

For institutions without a physical campus, such as online or distance-learning providers, housing costs default to £0 if the student remains at home.  

Your average housing cost in your results will be calculated from an average of all institutions included in the Complete University Guide League Tables.  

For a student planning to study in Edinburgh the cost of a shared private is calculated:  

Rent (3-Bedroom apartment: £1,200/3) £400 + Utilities (£150 /3) £50 + Internet (£30 ÷ 3) £10 = £460 per month. 

Food and shopping  

This question calculates monthly food expenses by combining the costs of eating out and eating in, based on user preferences (budget, mid-range and high-end restaurants and supermarkets) and frequency of eating out for each meal. For each budget level, specific grocery items are used to estimate costs for eating at home, while eating out costs are based on restaurant meal prices - both from Numbeo regional data. 

• Budget: Eating out uses the cost of a fast-food meal. Eating in consists of simple ingredients like bread, milk, and bananas. 
• Mid-range: Eating out cost is based on an inexpensive restaurant meal, and eating in includes foods like chicken and lettuce. 
• High-end: Eating out is based on a mid-range restaurant meal. Eating in consists of pricier ingredients like beef, rice, and fresh produce. 

Hygiene and personal care products are entered as free text and added to the calculation for this section. 

Based on a student planning on studying in Glasgow, spending an average amount on food and eating out for 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, and 2 dinners out per week (approximately 8 breakfasts, 12 lunches, and 8 dinners out per month) and spending £30 on hygiene and personal care products a month. 

Monthly eating out cost :(Breakfasts out: 8 × £12) £96 + (Lunches out: 12 × £12) £144 + (Dinners out: 8 × £12) £96 = £336 per month 

Monthly eating in cost: Breakfasts in (22 x the cost of breakfast ingredients in a mid-range supermarket) £13 + Lunches in (18 x the cost of lunch ingredients in a mid-range supermarket) £28 + Dinners in (22 x the cost of dinner ingredients in a mid-range supermarket) £49 = £90 per month 

Total food and shopping cost: Eating Out (£336) + Eating In (£90) + Hygiene and personal care (£30) = £436 a month 

Travel costs calculation 

The question asks users to estimate how often they use public transport, whether they own a vehicle and how much they think they’ll spend visiting friends and family. Based on their answers, a cost is calculated using public transport ticket prices from Numbeo and user input with each frequency level linked to a specific number. 

For a student planning of studying in Bristol, who will only use publish transport sometimes, doesn’t own a vehicle and estimates their month travel to see friends and family costing £25 per month, the calculation would be as follows: 

No Vehicle (£0) + Local transport (£16 per month) + Travel to see family and friends (£25 per month) = £41 per month 

Clothing costs calculation 

This question calculates monthly clothing costs based on the typical price range of clothing items a user prefers (budget clothing, mid-range clothing, or designer labels) and the number of items they purchase monthly. Prices for clothing items are sourced from Numbeo, with cost averages for selected city or region. 

Once the user says whether they buy budget, mid-range, or designer clothing and estimates the number of items they typically purchase each month, average prices are obtained for the chosen city or region for representative items in each cost category. 

A student planning on studying in Glasgow who buys an average of 2 items of clothing a month from mid-range clothing outlets would have a total clothing cost of £100 (£50 x 2 items). 

Daily life cost calculations 

This question calculates monthly costs for social activities, monthly subscriptions to apps and streaming services, mobile phone costs, exercise preferences and any other costs not covered in the questions. The answers are based on Numbeo data (reflecting average prices in the selected city or region), user-selected frequency and user cost input and type of activity. 

Socialising 

The user selects how often they go out to socialise: never, once a month, occasionally, every week, or more than once a week. 

For each socialising frequency, costs are estimated based on the price of an international release cinema ticket and the price of a domestic beer in a restaurant in the city or region the user selects. 

Based on the chosen number of times the user estimates they will go out to socialise the price of a cinema ticket and a beer will be multiplied but the quantities assigned to each frequency. 

Paid streaming services and apps 

Here the user selects the apps and services that they use, and prices are totaled from either the average price of a subscription or the student rate. Users can also add services and apps that do not appear in the list and add the cost themselves, these will also be added to the total.  

Mobile phone costs 

The user adds the price of their monthly phone bill, and this is also added to the total. 

Exercise/sport costs 

The users select their preferred form of exercise: Team sports, Gym, or at home/free (or No exercise). 

Price data is drawn from the regional price on Numbio for the price of a tennis court rental for one hour on weekends if team sports are selected or a monthly fitness club membership fee for one adult if gym is selected or the cost is set to zero if exercising at home or no exercise is selected. 

Additional costs 

Additional costs can be added by the user for anything not covered in the calculator, from car MOT to store cards and childcare, these will be added to the final calculation. 

Your income calculation 

Users can input their income from up to four sources: student loan, scholarship, work, or other sources. The calculator will automatically convert the amounts to a monthly figure. 

If a user receives £6,000 a year in student loans, the calculator divides this by 12. If a user earns £200 per week from work the calculator multiplies this by 4.33 to get the monthly amount. 

The total monthly income is calculated as (6,000/12) £500 + (200 x 4.33) 866 = £1,366 per month. 

Final calculation 

Once all expenses the calculator sums them to estimate the user's total monthly cost of living by adding up all the expenses have been added up, if the users income has been entered the sum of expenses will be subtracted from this calculation to show whether the user is over or under budget each month. These results are then shown by city, region and university.