Morgan Tinney, Pitt in London Spring 2025
My average week studying abroad in London is hectic as I have a combination of interning, class, and traveling. I have class from 9:30 to 5:15 on Mondays and 11:30 to 5:15 on Wednesdays with an hour-long break. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I intern from 9:00 to 5:00 and until 1:00 on Fridays at a company called Gung Ho. Gung Ho is a public relations and
communications agency for lifestyle brands including New Balance, Speedo, and Keen. For my internship, I work with the public relations and communications team to help plan brand events, conduct media outreach, identify new influencers to partner with, and complete product send-outs. My commute to work normally takes around 45 minutes by tube where I have to take three different lines.
After my Monday classes, I tend to go shopping next door to the CEA CAPA building at a large Sainsbury store. I only shop for a week’s worth of food at a time because it tends to go bad quicker in England. We also have a small fridge split between six people so there isn’t a lot of room to store food. I try to buy food that can also be used to make lunch to bring to work and class to save money. However, if I ever forget to pack lunch, cheap sandwiches and salads can be found at every local grocery store. Going out to eat in London is very expensive even without taking into account the exchange rate. A normal dinner out to eat here costs around 18 pounds
which is around 24 dollars at the moment. Although there are so many international food options in London, I mostly eat at home because it is the best way to save money.
Most Fridays, my flatmates and I travel until Sunday for a quick weekend trip. This semester we went to Oxford, Budapest, Paris, Dublin, Venice, and Copenhagen on the weekends. During our Spring break, we went to Madrid, Barcelona, and Interlaken. Although this traveling is very fun, it costs a lot of money and can be draining. In order to budget for trips, we try to find the cheapest flights available which often means we are flying out of London late Friday night and back into London early Sunday morning. We research where we will eat beforehand so that we don’t end up at an overpriced, touristy restaurant. Flights within Europe can be cheap if you choose the right weekends. There are also many cheap day trips you can take within England. Just recently, I went to Seaford for 35 dollars where I did the Seven Sisters hike and it had great views! We mainly let the prices dictate where we ended up traveling to which worked out because we loved every place. Saving money abroad is very difficult, but if you do your best to plan meals ahead of time and keep the shopping to a minimum, it should be manageable.
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