UK Studying Abroad Tip #8: Shopping to live in the UK!
In the UK, Oxford Circus is a famous area for shopping -- mostly for high end fashion and department stores. Of course, it is an expensive area to go shopping, but for good reason! This tip will mostly be about knowing where to shop in the UK for cheap and smart deals. I wish I had someone to guide me to these places or at least tell me about them. I could have saved more money and could have felt better about some purchases. Since I lived and went to college in MA, I have great respect for students who are able to move from their home country/town to a new place that they do not know anything about! Learning the good and bads of places to shop is a hard thing to do.
This will seriously be a great tip for those studying abroad in the UK in the future!!
When you're studying abroad in the UK, you have to buy your own bedding, cutlery, cookware, and groceries, if you live in a self-catered hall -- which most likely would happen. The following three stores are awesome about having nearly everything you need at good values:
1) Argos, http://www.argos.co.uk/
Price Range: Under Ten Pounds = Under $15
When you first move into your hall, it's always a good idea to make friends with your flatmates so that you can share the cost of cutlery and cookware. Argos is a SUPER bargain home-ware store. There are a bunch located throughout the UK, but in central London, Argos is located near Holborn and another one near Oxford Street. It's a catalogue based store, so when you walk into the Argos store -- you have to look through pages of the catalog, write down the product number, and check the inventory in their little calculator. From there, you take your list of product number and go to the cash register to pay for the item(s). Because I found out about this store so late and September is college/university move-in season, everything inexpensive was/is pretty much sold out. Tip to avoid this upset, check online to reserve the items you want!
My fellow flatmate managed to share dinnerware sets of folks, spoons, and plates, etc. for only a couple of pounds/pence with other people. The same for a cookware set that come with 5-6 pots/pans and they simply split the set amongst themselves. Individual pans/pots were sold out, but not big sets of them. I wish I had someone to share the costs -- I ended up buying items separately which were a little more pricey. In comparison, buying everything individually is more costly then splitting up the price for sets from Argos.
2) Primark, http://www.primark.co.uk/
Price Range: Under Ten Pounds == $15, homeware can be under Five pounds == $7
While researching online, I saw that Oxford Circus was a great area to shop and thought that buying things from department stores would be a bargain. I was totally wrong. Primark is a company from Ireland that sells clothes, bags, and homeware (bedding, linens, duvets, duvet covers, etc.) for bargain prices. They are located on Oxford Street, closer to the Marble Arch underground and past Forever 21.
Shopping at Primark can be crazy. There are tons and tons of people in the store every single time I've been there. The clothing seem to be of okay quality and there are a lot of tights (since this is a fashion staple in the UK). The bag collection is huge, but some of the bags are not great in quality. Accessories are very inexpensive and cute!
I bring up Primark because I know that everyone has to buy their own bed linens when they study abroad, unless you have them shipped over. In the UK, they have this interesting combination of bedding needed. Instead of buying a comforter, they have a thing called duvet and duvet cover. The duvet is simply the cotton inside a comforter and it is stuffed into a duvet cover like an envelope. Primark sells very inexpensive duvets/duvet covers and they are pretty cute too! I wish I knew about Primark earlier, I bought bedding from John Lewis, a department store. I got them for a good value, but Primark is even cheaper than for how much I initially bought my bedding.
3) Tesco, http://www.tesco.com/
Price Range: Under Ten Pounds == $15
The UK has many chain grocery stores such as Costcutter, Sainbury's, Waitrose, etc. but I believe Tesco has the best bargains. They also have a rewards program, so you can sign up online for a card to accumulate points. After a while you can cash the points for coupons to use on your next visit. But overall, it doesn't matter where you go grocery shopping, you just have to keep an eye out for bargains of the food you eat. :)
I guess this is a tip to help you get started in living in the UK. Of course, you can still shop on Oxford Street at Topshop, H&M, and Zara, etc. for fashionable clothes. Argos, Primark, and Tesco are just shops I wish I knew about when I first arrived in the UK. This whole experience is a learning process and I'm glad! :)
Til Tomorrow!
xoxo,
Kristian
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