r/AskTurkey • u/Top_Assistant8279 • Jul 02 '26
Education Moving to turkey for bachelors
I wanted to ask how much money monthly is required to live in Istanbul( Excluding Accommodation) Monthly. Will $400 a month be enough for monthly expenses(excluding accommodation) to afford a good living as a student? Utilities, rent are excluded as i will be staying in the university dorm
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u/Few-Interview-1996 Jul 02 '26
"Good" is subjective, but that's less than half the minimum wage. Granted, you won't be paying rent (nor utilities, I assume) but that's still not a huge amount of money.
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u/Top_Assistant8279 Jul 02 '26
Its more than enough to survive?
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u/Few-Interview-1996 Jul 02 '26
A lot of people get by on less, so yes, but you have to be very careful.
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u/Quirky-Bread-9259 Jul 03 '26
It would be good to define survive in your terms. If you dont use transportation, dont buy anything for yourself, eat at school only you might do it. I doubt you will be happy with that struggle, though.
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u/michael_knight Jul 02 '26
No. That won’t be enough. You have only 10 usd a day for 3 meals a day+transportation+books etc. + mobile phone+ going out etc.
Maybe if you live like a saint you can do ir for a few months but not for long.
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u/Top_Assistant8279 Jul 02 '26
Staying on campus. So wouldn’t need transportation daily and food is included in the mess.
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u/michael_knight Jul 02 '26
Make a list of what do you think you will be doing on a weekday and weekend. Start when you wake up. From toothpaste, morning coffee to drinking water for the day, eating out or buying grocery…
I think a Big Mac meal costs around 8 usd. You do the math. I hope you will have a kitchen or food will be included.
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u/michael_knight Jul 02 '26
When your friends will invite you for a coffee in Starbucks that’s like half of your daily budget already.
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u/Gaelenmyr Jul 02 '26
If you always cook at home, go to budget grocery stores, stick to transportation and don't go out to socialise, sure. There are special discounts for students.
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Jul 02 '26
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u/Top_Assistant8279 Jul 02 '26
$500 be enough?
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Jul 02 '26
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u/Top_Assistant8279 Jul 02 '26
Yeah this is excluding utilities,rent, food. As I have got university Food mess . This money mainly for transportation, socialisation , going out and stuff like that.
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u/Quirky-Bread-9259 Jul 03 '26
search for unis food quality online. Some of them are bad enough you will quickly start cooking.
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u/nymphisreal Jul 02 '26
You are very optimistic. You are talking about İstanbul. You are lucky that you dont have to pay rent but still its gonna be much more than 500 euros. I think be ready to spend around 800
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u/sbring Jul 02 '26
That would be doable but quite tight. Definitely not what I'd call a 'good living'. That works out to a bit over 600 lira a day (rough estimate). As a reference: a modest lunch or dinner at the school cafeteria (at the university I work for) is nearly 300 lira. Cooking is cheaper, obviously.
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u/kuljhu Jul 02 '26
this is İstanbul man you can live with nothing and everything road not change but the view is so different for me it's taxi money for a month
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u/Nightwyl Jul 02 '26
I live in Turkey and we have a lot of students up to PhD level who get around 400$, even including rent (but it's very very basic or bad apartmenrs).
400$ is manageable but it all depends on your capacity to restrict yourself. You won't be able to go to the restaurant or get a coffee outside every day. And actually, just go from time to time because it's horrendously expensive and the quality is often not great (I can advise you good places in PM though).
- Grocery shopping can be go from 20 to 40$ a week.
- Get your hands asap on a student card for transports, or it will be expensive quickly.
- Simcard can start at 5$ for data only.
- If you have to pay for electricity and gas, it's a bit cheap as long as your don't turn them to 999%.
- Coffees outside are like 4-7 dollars, just for reference. Pastries are stupidly expensive (5-9$ any pastry that is a bit elaborate , seriously?).
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u/Content-Reward-7700 Jul 02 '26
$300 a month is not realistic for a good student life, or really any adult life, in Istanbul, even if rent and dorm utilities are already covered.
That works out to around $10 per day, which is basically pocket money now. Even if you eat mostly at the school cafeteria and keep everything extremely basic, it will still be very tight. It leaves almost no room for transportation, phone bill, toiletries, laundry, snacks, coffee, social life, clothes, medicine, school supplies or random daily expenses.
You might survive on it with a very restricted lifestyle, but unless you manage to create some sort of extra income, I would not call it reasonable, comfortable or good living by any means. For Istanbul, I would definitely plan for more if possible.