I was looking to get an apt in Cork and I was trying to add up my expeditures. Does anyone know how much of internet and television and electric come out to?
For TV, your options are Sky Ireland (
www.sky.com/ireland) or UPC (upc.ie). UPC also has packages for TV, internet, residential home telephone which you can also call Canada free after 6pm for 60 euro/month for the entire package or combinations or individual components for a lower price. If you want a mobile phone you can look at different packages with O2 or Meteor which are big here and you'll see the shops in City Centre. You can pay monthly or pay as you go so the mobile charges vary a lot. Tesco also has mobile phone and they're pretty cheap, but quality and reception is questionable. For cheap ikea style furniture, computer stuff, basically any electrical appliances (you might want a printer to print class notes...I don't recommend printing out physiology or epidemiology notes because they have 60-100 slides per lecture) go to argos.ie (cheap!) and they're also at the City Centre. If you don't really print much out for instance if you like to just download all your lecture notes and just look at them on your laptop you can get a printcard at the library. The ONLY thing you really need to print out are the weekly SGL stuff and that end of year research assignment for epidemiology the rest is up to you like the class notes.
For electric, I'd say anywhere from 60 to 100 euros per month with ESB depending on how much you use, but later on you can switch over to Airtricity which is supposed to save you 15% off of that (worry about that switch later, you will see salesmen for this EVERYWHERE when you get here and they can get pretty annoying).
For groceries you will be pleasantly surprised. Its really cheap here especially if you shop at the major grocery chains like Tesco (also online delivery) which is located in the City Centre, near CUH, and an express store at Dennehy's Cross. Meat, eggs, bread, vegetables, snacks are cheaper here than in Canada and also taste better but some fruits can get pricey in the winter. The cheapest packaged loaf of sliced bread for instance is only 65 cents. Just as a rough estimate for a typical single male, the food might cost you 100 to 200 euros per month.
Can't think of anything else besides rent. My only real complaints were the electric bills and the outrageous school tuition. There is zero way it cost that much money to educate us. Teacher shortages, our pathology department didn't exist, and they just doubled your class size. This will make anatomy labs more crowded (unless they separate the class into two separate time slots for these which I imagine is the most realistic option) and matching might be even tougher for you guys so lets just hope UCC is the only school that increased their intake. Be prepared to question your teachers about this once you get here because they are all very important issues.
