Besides tuition fees, a matter of great concerns for students when studying abroad, especially US, is foods and accommodations. However, if being wise enough, they could be served with good foods and  accommodations.

Good accomodations

According to students in US they can live in US at whatever costs depending on their budgets.

“If having enough money, you should live in the dormitory. Although the costs are quite high (approximately $1.000), you do not bother much about your foods, accommodations …. The more important reason is that you must speak English here. This will help to improve your English faster” – Hoang Thi Thao – the former student of Washington University said.

The other choice is renting a room. It is different from a state to another that the rentcal cost can vary between $450 (in Texas) to $750 (in Washington) or even thousands of dollar (in New York). The advantage of this option is your private space is better. However, you may have troubles with lots of public services, documents and invoices.This may be more difficult if your English is not good enough.

“If you want to be more private but to save money, you should share the room with a friend (rent a room in a house). For more information about this, you can search on the website: www.craigslist.org or on the notice of your college. The special thing is that you should share your room with a student from US or Europe to practice your English” Nguyen Van Tuan (Shoreline Community College, Seattle City) said.

In California, Houston and Dallas (Texas), or Seattle (Washington) where there are so many Vietnameses, it is hard to find a room with good equipment, electricity, water and internet with costs of $250 – $350.

“You just go to the market and get some free newspaper of Vietnamese. There will be many ads for room rental service. The cost for this type of living is quite cheep but you do not have a lot of change to practice your English frequently. If you come to US, you want to save some hundreds of dollars and you speak Vietnamese only, you should stay at home in Vietnam”. Nguyen Trung Tin (Houston University, Texas) said.

Cheep foods

It is unbeleivable that money spent on foods in US is less than in Vietnam. But it is the truth. In US, it is quite expensive if you have your meals in restaurants due to the costs for labour and service. However, you can save a lot of money if you go to the market and cook for yourself. You should go to the US markets for meats, milks and eggs and go to Vietnamese markets for vegetables and spices.

If you are too lazy, you can go to the supermarket to buy ready-made foods (you jus put it into the microwave when you want to eat). A set of foods including a chicken thigh, grind potato, and pean costs only $1.

A roasted chicken costs $5 (approximately 100,000 VND), milk costs about $2.5 per gallon (approximately 14,000 VND per lit). “Always remember to take the ads delivered in the market because there are a lot of discount coupons on them”.

And you do not forget to get your free membership card. Your foods can be much cheaper with this card. The total amount of money that I spend for my foods is only about 100 USD. I have three meals per days with meat, milk and vegetable.” Tran Thanh Mai (Houston Community College, Texas) shared her experience.

Even when you do not have enough money, you can search the address of a Food Bank on Google for free foods. You just show your ID. Card to get free foods (even a vegetarian diet) for a whole week.

“Come and get foods again if you eat it out. You never be scared to be hungry. But Food Bank is the place for poor and homeless people. People come here just when they have no choice. Young and strong people never come here.” Brian Nguyen – An oversea Vietnamese living in California said.

Experience sharing

You should go to Goodwill stores (a system of stores of second hand equipment at the cheapest prices in US) to buy clothes and household equipment. You can find products of famous trademarks with only some dollars, tables, chairs, televisions and microwaves are much cheaper.

Moreover, Goodwill also offer 30-50% discount on some items everyday. You should find Goodwill stores which are near the white and rich American areas because they often give many new and modern assets to Goodwill.