Anyone here have a child studying and living in Glasgow?

[ssd]

I am wondering the true costs of it all, if they child isn't living at home with parents

what does it all cost, broken down, and how much money do you give them and how much SAAS do they have?

even if not Glasgow, any other city in Scotland would give me an idea of actual true costs not what ds tells me it is

thanks

[ssd]

no one help me out?

[KermitsLoveChild]

My DS has a flat share with friends, not sure of the rent but I can ask? He needs money for travel to Uni and to his girlfriends - she's in Edinburgh. He struggles but seems to manage...at least we don't get that many 'send me money' phone calls .

[KermitsLoveChild]

Should have said he's in Glasgow and we're deepest darkest Argyll.

[bookishtartlet]

I studied and lived in Glasgow. Are they a Scottish student? Fees Will be free if so. Will they be living in halls or a flatshare? I lived in Murano Street halls which was one of the cheaper ones, but still around 500 a month. Once I moved to a flatshare it was around 350 a month. The amount of student loan and bursary will depend on the parental income too. Even with student loan/bursary I would advise a part time job. Hope that helps.

[S0ph1a]

The amount of money they can borrow from SAAS depends on parental income, it’s all on their website .

Costs depends on where they are living in the city, standard of accommodation , is it halls or privately rented, travel costs to college, how many days they have classes so can they have a job etc etc etc .

Do they cook proper food for themselves or live in take aways .

Obviously it’s expensive to be in halls or a posh flat in the West End and be a medical student so very hard to have a PT job

Compared to Two days a week course at cardonald college living in a dirt cheap flat in pollok.

You are asking how long is a piece of string .

[ssd]

we are Scottish so fees are paid

I'm asking specifically how much it would cost for him to live out and study, presuming a flat share, somewhere not too pricey, although I now this is asking how long the string is now...

apart from rent, what else would he buy?

I know this seems daft to ask, but we are on a low income and I dont want him moving out and asking us for help, as we cant give it

he has a part time job

[ssd]

I know he'd get SAAS but dont think that would cover everything and his p/t job is just 10 hrs a week, so we'd have to help him out and I'm asking if anyone has any idea how much a parent would need to contribute

[Olddogowner]

DS2 is in his first year at Glasgow and loving it. We are in England so pay the fees. He lives in Cairecross House it’s in the West End and pays £106 (I think) a week that’s everything bar the food, he doesn’t have an en suite bathroom shares a kitchen with about 9 others he’s really happy there. The accommodation is about the same price DS1 paid at his uni the other end of the country.
He’s looking now at accommodation for next year similarish prices perhaps £10 a week more.
He doesn’t qualify for bursary just gets a loan for his living cost. He has friends at Edinburgh, accommodation there once you leave the uni accommodation offered to most in the first year seems more expensive.
Generally I get the impression it’s reasonablely cheap to live there supermarkets and other shops to suit all budgets, entertainment to suit all budgets e.g. my DS is an opera nut Scottish opera tickets are very heavily subsidised for students, restaurants for all budgets the underground is also reasonably priced. He was offered places at Edinburgh London Manchester but only ever wanted Glasgow, we live in a village in the south west and he just liked the feel of Glasgow. He’s never regretted his choice.

[Olddogowner]

His loan covers the accommodation, we give him £400 a month, expect him to pay for everything except we pay his transport costs back and forth as this can vary depending how he gets home and how much stuff he’s bringing.

[ssd]

thanks olddogowner, what loan does he get, I think its different if you are English

up here he could get £6500 loan

[LallybrochLass]

DD is in her 2nd year at Uni, she lives in Finnieston which is walking distance from the city centre (25 mins) so doesn't spend money on transport. She lives in a two bed flat with a friend and her rent is £320 per month. Gas, electricity, wifi on top which comes to about £60 a month. She gets the full SAAS and the bursary and also works 12 hours a week. She has to be reasonably careful but she shops at Lidl so can fill her cupboards quite cheaply. She very rarely asks us for money - sometimes we get a call at the end of the month and I transfer her a tenner but on the whole she manages quite well.

[ssd]

whats the bursary?

[LallybrochLass]

If your household income is below a certain threshold (I think it's 25K but can't exactly remember) your child will qualify for a bursary. It works out to be an extra £121 a month on top of their SAAS.

[ssd]

sorry he gets £500 bursary and can borrow up to £5750 a year

[LallybrochLass]

I think a lot of it depends on how long he will be in the accommodation for. Most private leases are for a year and SAAS only runs from September to May, so if he wants to stay in private he'll need to get a full time job in the summer holidays (this is what DD does - she had two jobs last summer). But if he goes into halls he can choose the length of his stay and go home in the holidays.

[Olddogowner]

He gets the lowest amount of student loan maybe £3300 pa that’s all he’s entitled too.
My DS has just looked at private accommodation that was only for 41 weeks but I suspect is gong to average out the price as those you take for a year.

[S0ph1a]

My child is in first year elsewhere in Scotland. He is in self catering halls so it’s very expensive, about £600 a month . But only for 9 months of course and everything is included.

He gets the maximum amount from SAAS , including the bursary.

After hall fees it works out as about £50 a week everything , including food and travel, which is tight and we help out a bit. Not a lot extra, just £20 here and there.

Most of his friends have about £65. He doesn’t know anyway who has as much as £100 a week, as mentioned up thread.

He works in the summer but not in term time.

He thinks he will be much better off next year when he’s planing to share a flat with friends. But I think it will be about the same, as it’s a 12 month lease and bills on top.

I reckon they need about £7.5 k pa to have a reasonable time at uni and not be totally skint. That’s enough to allow them to go out at weekends but not get smashed in the union every night. And assumes they can shop in aldi and cook and not live on carry outs.

DS is not a big drinker but does a lot of sport and other cheap hobbies. So has a very busy but not too expensive social life.

OP if your son will get about £6.2k from SAAS then can he get a job to earn another £1,000 or 1,500? That’s quite doable I think.

Depends how much spare you have to give him too. For many families they don’t have much. And if you are working hard yourself to pay your own bills, you might resent giving your 18 year old money to piss up the wall every weekend. And their siblings might resent it too, especially if they don’t go to uni Themselves.

Personally I’m halppy to help with basic living costs but feel they can work and earn their own beer money. I’m a hard woman.

[ssd]

thanks for all the answers

I think it is doable, but it would put him into a lot of debt when he could just live with us, a few of his friends are living out and he tells me that he could afford it, but he doesn't realise their parents are footing the bill and we cant, well he does realise hes not daft, but he won't know how much help their parents are actually giving them.

I'm just scared of him getting into debt we can't cover and his student loan and p/t job can't cover. Debt we all don't realise is there, like hidden costs I haven't thought of. I hate debt and we don't have any ourselves.

[dkb15164]

Currently 3rd year studying in Glasgow. Sass student loan is 4750 a year (works out as a double payment of 950 at the beginning and then 8 payments of 475 a month after that which is usually put in around the 5th/6th/7th of each month although can be different if he applied later). Not sure when bursary goes in. First year is the worst if he plans to live in halls as is super expensive imo (mines was £98 a week to share with 7 other girls). After that a room in a flat can be 300-350 monthly shared (don't know about the user above whose kid is going up £10 a week, moving out of halls in my experience means rent goes down). I found a flat with friend 330 each all bills inclusive including wifi. Weekly costs if they're not getting steaming every single night is about £30-40 including a small night out (Thursdays is student night in Glasgow and when all the cheap deals happen, last time I went out on a Saturday I nearly had a heart attack). Part time job is 100% necessary if they're not getting support from royal bank of mum and dad - working 10 hours a week (£350 extra a month) was enough to get me through the year with enough leftover to save up £2500 for 2 months interrailing trip during the summer. Bear in mind they have to be willing to live the student life - charity shops or primark for clothes, lidl or Aldi for groceries or smart price/value brands for other supermarkets (no co-op or m & s weekly shops) and always looking for a good bargain (looking at price per weight to compare meats and cheeses etc) and avoiding takeaways/meals out (make sure he knows how to cook at least 3 or 4 cheap meals like spaghetti bolognaise or chilli or chicken curry packed with veg). There are tonnes of books on how to save money at uni, I used to bring a huge box or 2 of imperfect fruit home from fruit basket packing job for free and left it in the hallway once my flatmates got their pick (was always gone within 30 minutes), we had a guy in our building who got us leftover out of date bread from his Morrisons baker job, somebody's dad in the flat above had a Costco card so we would give him order of what we wanted bulk bought (cornflakes, potatoes, rice or pasta for 6 months) and pay him a pound for transaction and him and his dad would load up the dad's van with supplies about once a month probably making about £40 from all the flats in the residence. Flatmates and I would try to cook meals together on a Sunday to save money and have a nice sit down meal. Last week before payday if I'm broke I'll buy ingredients from Aldi for about £7 and make the biggest pot (bought cheap courtesy of gumtree) of chilli you'll ever see in your life and eat every lunch and dinner of the week until I never want to see chilli and rice again. Tupperwares are your best friend and make sure he knows how long different things can be frozen for. Use abebooks to buy second hand textbooks or get up early to use the library copies. Never used overdraft and have near perfect credit score (996) as I only use card to build score. Don't get me wrong though, I called probably at least 5 times during first year to ask for a backhander of a tenner so I could buy food since I'd been out partying too much. I do have to agree though that he won't realise until Christmas at least that when him and his flatmates are sitting complaining about how broke they all are, his flatmates started the month off with £4-500 more than him from their parents. Know a guy who moved out for uni and moved back in 4 months later once he realised how expensive everything is (if I had chosen a uni in my home town I would have stayed with my parents). He has to be prepared for no more nice shoes, no more petrol for car or insurance, no more treating girlfriend to nice meals out etc. Had to cancel my Netflix subscription on 4 occasions since starting uni as even the student deal payment would have put me into my overdraft.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

@ssd - ds2 studied in Edinburgh for 4 years, and ds3 was in Aberdeen for two years but has transferred down to Edinburgh and gone back a year.

They get (got, in ds2's case - he graduated last year) the minimum loan towards their living expenses (£4,500, if I recall correctly), and we top that up to the tune of about £4,000, and that covers all the basics - bills, rent, food, transport and a bit for fun.

Ds2 is in a 2-man flat at the moment, on the Royal Mile, and that is costing £950 pcm, between him and his friend - I think this is pretty average, for an Edinburgh property - when he was searching for somewhere to live last summer, most were coming in at around the £500pcm per person mark - but Glasgow might be a bit cheaper, I'm not sure.

[ssd]

dkb15164, thats a very realistic account, thanks

SDT £4000...ouch! thanks for your honesty

[readsalotgirl63]

DD is in first year at Glasgow. She earned about £1k working last summer which she had in the bank. We agreed we would pay for accommodation - she is in Finnieston in university halls so thats about £5500 and that she would live off student loan of £4750.

She has a heavy workload of lectures etc and we didn't want her to have to work in the first term as we felt she needed to get to grips with living away from home and independent study etc.

She has done pretty well - hasn't asked for money at all altho did ask for help with buying books at Christmas - so that was a big part of her Christmas present. I've paid her bus fare home once and we've visited a couple of times and taken her out for tea.

Next year she is planning to share private student accommodation with friends which is going to cost just over £6k (not the cheapest option) so she will need to find work over the summer or do menial tasks for us to make up !

I think the expensive part is the equipping for living away from home - pots/pans/ crockery/ etc and the upfront payment for accommodation before loans had come in.

It is cheaper to live at home if you can and I did when I was a student at Glasgow myself ( in the dark ages) but I moved out in my final year so I can understand the attraction. I do think everyone should experience living by themself at some stage - dd has certainly developed useful life skills ( unblocking the toilet) and it has been good for her to learn to live with others.

Having said all this - we have saved on food and fuel as we're not ferrying her around and she had a couple of quite expensive hobbies which have stopped
Hope that helps

[ssd]

it does

thanks

[readsalotgirl63]

DD was really keen to go away to university - she is one of only a few of her schoolmates to leave here ( NE Scotland), most stayed a home to study locally. While she is enjoying it and has settled well I think she has finally realised how much was done for her at home.

It is a steep learning curve in terms of coping with full on academic load and all the domestic stuff.

DD is friends with several students who are living at home and commuting from other parts of Glasgow and the surrounding area. and that is quite common so your ds certainly wouldn't be the only one living at home.

Think dbk paints a very accurate picture and I know dd is finding charity shop clothes and student deals to make her cash go further.

[dotdotdotmustdash]

I have DD studying in Edinburgh on the basic loan of £4750 pa. She shares a studio flat with her boyfriend in a block of private studio accommodation. The cost of the studio pretty much wipes out her loan money of all but £25pm. I give her £200 every 4 weeks from my wages and her grandparents give her £100. She has a weekend job (16hrs) which pays her nearly £500pm. She does fine for money and can afford holidays and has savings.