Dorm Room Budget

[PurpleEars]

I think the budget is dependent on what is provided and the style of room. This is the list of items I bought when I started university (about 15 years ago). It was to a traditional style room without sinks in the room. Bathrooms are outside the room (you have to go out into the hallway) shared among all people on your floor:

- cheap corded phone with extra long phone cord
- comforter
- 2 sets of dishes and 4 sets of cutlery, plus dish soap
- toiletries plus basket to carry them to the bathroom
- flip flops for shower
- bath robe for going from room to shower and back
- laundry bag and detergent
- hangers
- paper towel
- slippers for the room

I brought the following from home:

- sheets
- towels
- electric kettle for tea
- clothing
- school supplies
- no computer or laptop as students were not expected to need one for school at that time. I used the library and computer labs for computer access.

I rented the mini fridge so I didn't need to haul one around. Desk lamp, chair, and bookshelves were provided with the room. We all chipped in for the TV for the floor and we just had a draw at the end of the school year to see who gets to take it home.

 

[Ranger111]

Not strictly part of a "supplies" list, but I was thinking about something that hopefully none of you will have to deal with, but, if you don't have a plan, it could make it extremely "bad," for your child.

Develop some sort of plan in the event of a tragedy. If it is a tragedy on campus, that is one thing, and the campus "officials" will probably step-in pretty quickly to help, but still good to have a game plan of sorts. This happened when our daughter's friend tried to commit suicide during her freshman year and then called my daughter after ingesting all the pills. Luckily the campus people handled it quite well and the girl survived. Again, we had no plan, but at least it was handled well on the campus front.

However, a tragedy at home is another thing. After the event on-campus during freshman year, We had a wrenching home-front event during daughter's sophomore year. And, I have to say we did not handle very well.

As soon as my wife learned of the issue, she called our daughter directly and told her over the phone -- wife meant well, her rationale is that with all the cell phones and social media nowadays our daughter would hear about it somehow in the next few hours anyway -- so wife wanted to spare her that.

But, our child had absolutely no support at hand when my wife called with the news, and that was a big mistake (trust me, this was an event that the whole family still has nightmares about and it was four years ago). So, and it can be difficult, but if nothing else, find out if the campus counseling center has an emergency number that you can reach someone on 24-7.

Try to get cell phone numbers of on-campus friends, roommates, etc. (yeah, I know, a bit difficult, but...) I had to admit, that after all this, I kind of went about this in a bit of a covert manner.

I knew the last names of several friends and knew their hometowns, so I just hunted down parent's phone numbers and called them and explained our reason for contacting them (actually wife called, taken as less of a threat that way for some reason).

They were appreciative of the effort and were glad, because none of them had thought about it either. So, we swapped kid's cell numbers and we NEVER used them -- that is a big thing -- but it is nice to know that you have a way reach those kids if you need to.

If your family is at all religious, maybe a way to reach a pastor/minister/religious leader in the university area. You can probably develop your own ideas, but the thing is, develop something -- hopefully, you will never need it.

 

[StitchBuddy]

This is a very good idea, one I hadn't given any thought. My DD will be a student athlete, so I guess I would probably call her coach. Thanks for sharing!