Before I went to the UK to study, I had heard that the UK was not cheap, so I decided at the beginning to start my study abroad life with a careful budget, and sometimes it was inevitable to step on the pit.
What was it like to go to the UK with a rice cooker on your back?
As the saying goes, children are worried!
Before I left, my mother was worried that I would not be able to eat enough to eat and wear in England, and she was eager to stuff everything in the house into a suitcase, such as a rice cooker, a kettle and a quilt.
At that time, I thought that I could save a point is one point, so I still acquiesced to what my mother did, and as a result, as soon as the things were stuffed in, the luggage was directly overweight, and I thought of making up the difference in the share of the luggage, I was still a little sore.
At that time, before leaving, I had already added the school's student group, so I asked in the group how everyone packed their bags, and as a result, I just said that I was going to carry the kettle quilts over, and I was directly (ridiculed) by everyone.
"Going to the UK is not going to the countryside, what you want, everyone has to sell, go directly to the supermarket to buy a wave of it."
In the end, the quilt and kettle were left behind, but the rice cooker was still tucked into my luggage by my mother without question. In my mother's words, the people take food as the sky, and when they go to England, they have a good tableware to eat a full meal.
And I heard that the better rice cookers in the UK are more expensive, so in order to save money, I still honestly listened to my mother's words and carried my rice cooker to the UK.
When I entered the school, I was assigned to a 6-person dormitory, and everyone was Chinese. However, the embarrassing thing is that when I went to the kitchen to set up my rice cooker, there were 5 rice cookers lined up in the public kitchen...
I learned afterwards that I was not the only one carrying the rice cooker.
To save money on haircuts, I almost cut myself into a little boy
Before going abroad, I did a lot of raiders, it is said that the British labor is particularly expensive, like changing locks, repairing toilets, haircuts these expensive outrageous. So in order to save money, I thought about it at home for several days and decided to go abroad after getting a haircut.
As a girl, where there is no love for their own hair, but thinking that a British haircut costs dozens of pounds at a time, I still decided to cut as short as I can.
At that time, I remember when I got a haircut, Teacher Tony heard about my request, and he was still confused, and repeatedly confirmed with me several times before he dared to put down the scissors.
But I have to say that the tony teacher I was looking for is still quite capable, although the hair is particularly short after cutting, but the hairstyle is not ugly, at least not to the point where I have to wear a hat to go out. Finally, when I came back from a year of study in the UK, my hair just grew just right.
Don't think that the people who study abroad are rich people, and the chinese students like us who are meticulous are the mainstream. At that time, in our school, almost every Chinese student dormitory was equipped with an artifact - push scissors. Cutting bangs and fixing a hair tail is as skilled as routine for us.
Boys' hair is basically help each other to push each other, we girls, the requirements for haircuts can not meet a little haircut, so even the hair dyeing skills are getting, sometimes home in the bedroom is fine, but also about to go to the supermarket to buy hair dye to come back to dye each other's hair.
I remember the first time I dyed the hair of a girl in the dormitory, the result was just on the job, the business is not very skilled, directly dye her full head of black hair into a different brownish yellow, not to be hacked on the spot is not easy.
In order to save money, I became an "expert" in major British supermarkets.
Anyone who has been to the UK knows that there are so many things that come and go in the UK: potatoes, salads, sandwiches, fish and chips...
To be honest, these are really not delicious, it is okay to eat a few meals fresh, and after a long time, my Chinese stomach will protest. And these things are quite expensive, so in order to save money and save money, within a few weeks of effort, I decided to cook my own food, after all, I also brought a rice cooker myself.
In order to save money on living expenses, I became a senior "expert" in major supermarkets in the UK.
At that time, sainsbury and tesco were the supermarkets I most frequented, and the prices were very affordable, especially the semi-finished shrimp and shellfish seasoning had been processed, and they could be eaten directly when heated. Iceland is also cheap, you can buy ten eggs for a pound, but there are too many frozen foods to suit me.
Because the supermarket is shopping a lot, my experience in picking leaks is getting richer and richer, and when the supermarket is about to close, it is definitely a key time to pick up cheap. At that time, supermarkets would deal with some bread and vegetables and other difficult food that was not easy to store, and I often had to stock up once a week, and sometimes it was inevitable to have a battle of wits and courage with the British aunts who also came to pick up cheap.
British supermarkets and domestic, plastic bags also need to charge, one between 5p-10p, although not expensive, but the accumulation into a lot, is also a lot of expenses, so I have to bring my own bags every time I visit the supermarket.
If you don't go out for a week, eat plus bits and pieces of daily chemicals, fruits, yogurt, cakes, etc., 150 yuan per week is enough, and the average is more than 20 pieces per day.
In fact, now that I think about it, these things in the UK at that time, although it sounded more difficult, were still quite meaningful, and it was also a valuable asset left by my study abroad life.