To think £60 a week to live on will be a struggle for DD at uni?

It will be tough so she needs to get ready now. I used to teach Food Tech and always did Uni starter food courses for the 6th formers. Getting a job in a main supermarket will be a good start as some encourage good workers to stay with company and help with transfers to Unis (def Waitrose do…..I know, not the cheapest store, just an example). She’ll then end up getting staff discounts off her shopping bills.
Things to encourage her to do between now n Uni:
Upskilling her cooking so she has good range of basic recipes and how to adapt them.
Lots of food shopping and how to find bargains. Trying the cheapest pasta and actually finding it’s OK as long as you don’t over cook it and use plenty of boiling water when cooking. Same with rice. Can of value tomatoes blended with dried herbs is a good start for a tomato based sauce.
Building confidence in cooking so she’ll know you can just swop some ingredients in curries/stews/sauces depending on what’s on offer that week but that you def need to measure others eg flour in cakes.
Yellow label discounts, when they discount, best things to buy, not always ‘food’ shops that do this. Last 2 weeks I’ve got boxes of 6 eggs for 17p each in Home Bargains. These eggs had dates over 1 week ahead!!
Bulk cooking and then freezing into portions so always have decent freezer food for busy days or night when working.
Cheap or free treats, everyone needs these. Add birthday details etc onto the apps. Use apps that give free or random treats/food eg Lidls,
When she knows her Uni and it is getting time to go then encourage her to make contact with her flat mates to be if it’s that type of Halls. Building good friendships before if sharing a flat could lead to team cooking which is fun and less isolating.
101 ways with rice/pasta/potato/mince/chicken etc. Recipe challenges and trying new things eg Lidls were doing boneless chicken wing meat which was great for a curry.
Lentils and other tinned pulses that fill you up and are good sources of cheap protein.
How to extend meat in recipes eg adding in a handful of soya protein when making bolognese. Good luck and definitely start doing this now!

We're paying DS's rent so the (lowest level) loan has to cover his living expenses. This equates to about £100 a week which is very comfortable in my view. We bought about £100 of groceries so he'll only need fresh fruit/veg and bread/dairy for at least a fortnight.

Could you give some indication of her preferred course and/or uni? You need to think strategically and people might be able to give some extra insight. For example, some unis (Southampton and Bristol, for example) include bus passes with their hall fees - immediate win. Some do free laundry, another easy win.

Do you live in an area with a low transfer rate to tertiary education? Check POLAR4 and Tundra; some unis may have bursaries to offer. A friend of DS's has a scholarship because his parents live in a postcode on the list.

Start buying something every week/month now. A set of kitchen utensils when they're reduced, a new duvet, have you got towels/crockery that she can take? Then the last month isn't spend, spend spend.

Break the £60 down, how much would she need for travel etc . So she can budget the £60 to see how realistic it is .

Who's paying her rent and bills? I had to pay everything myself out of full-time work and my student loan. That's a lot of disposable income per month actually.

She needs to work her ass off in the summer before she goes if you’re anywhere at all with seasonal work. I worked from after exams to the week before freshers every year and one year in two jobs - a family visitor centre in the daytime and waitressing in the evening. It was knackering and I had no life at all but it was only for 3 months. And the more hours you work the less you spend over the summer. Definitely worth it to have that money for the uni year. And where I am summer work is much easier to get than a term time pt job.

Oh my goodness. Read the thread!!!!

The jobs just aren’t out there. Things are v different now for students.

I wouldn't expect her to have to buy any clothes other than the occasional say a uni society top.
Travel, assuming you're only talking about beginning of end of term and that she doesn't have placements, maybe you could buy her train tickets then.

Course materials we've always looked on as a separate thing so we normally pay back, always if it's an essential.

So you're looking at £60 for food and socialising. That's more than doable - she can choose between more social money and cheaper food or more expensive food and not going to expensive places. That's a normal thing, and a good thing to learn to budget over.

Send her with a big bag of pasta, some tins of beans and a few other staples and she'll be fine.
Ours all have/had about £40 a week and a supermarket shop at the start of term. Only time they've struggled has been when something unexpected has come up and with internet banking it's easy to sort quickly now.

I would look at the 'prefered uni halls cost'. Is this an en suite? If she has medical reasons for needing an en suite then contact the university they may provide one for a cheaper cost. If no medical need then encourage her to consider a shared bathroom. It can reduce the cost considerably. Being in a shared bathroom mean that my dc have managed to live on minimum student loan plus 5k a year from us as parent contribution. Their preference is to get this money weekly so it is never too long until they next get food. They do get more than £60 a week, but that is because they are in a shared bathroom.

Bear in mind that private accommodation in later years often has to be paid over the summer holidays and in final year if there is time remaining on the lease they may need to pay council tax.

I know this has already been mentioned, but would she consider a gap year and get a job? Although I know jobs are much harder to find these days.

DD took 2 gap years between undergrad and post grad and saved enough to live on for her post grad course.

How long ago was that?

Mine did - Southampton. He also got bus travel for free, just the first year though.

I assume it different in different areas.

I think going to uni is a lesson in life skills. If she can’t survive on the money she has she will need to take a job. I used to work three PT jobs during term time (one in the morning, one eves one weekends) and full time in the hols. It isn’t easy, but in life if you need to work - you work! Lectures and studying will not take up 24/7 and working is also a way to meet people and develop a social life.

Start stocking up on toiletries now. Buy things on offer each month. Deodorant/shower gel doesn't go out of date.

That way she can take a few bits each time she comes home/you visit.

It will be fine and she has a £2k buffer!

If it isn’t enough she will get a job.

I found the bigger issue was that the loan is paid in 3 equal amounts but the first semester of year 1 was very long and the first payment barely covered the student halls . It was eased in term 2 and 3 .
One of my daughters worked 2 days a week .
The other one is home about 13 weeks a year and works at home . So you need to factor in extra costs for you while they’re home .
Remember to also budget in a deposit for the 2nd year house (often paid before Xmas) . Houses can be cheaper than uni accommodation tho.
tbh it is a struggle . Only go if they 100% want to and the course is worthwhile .

My daughter was in halls with two freezers. They were rammed. So we could not bulk-buy.

She could also not find a job. She applied to almost a hundred places; her applications were good and included her previous retail experience. We then realised that there were around 600-700 applicants for each suitable job. It was crazy.

It depends on the city and the halls. But the suggestions are not always guaranteed to work unfortunately.

OP it’s brilliant that you are planning ahead so well. The key will be savings I think. To reduce the stress esp in the first term. You and your daughter sound great!

Consider deferring for a year maybe. Work next year and save. Get a job in somewhere that transfers students (Greggs, co-op, there are others) or will allow job to be worked in holidays only.

According to the bank of England inflation calculator £25 in 2017 is worth £33.70 today or, if you switch it around, £25 today was worth £18.54 in 2017.

So comments like this are pretty much irrelevant because you wouldn't get much for £33.70 a week these days. Not being able to afford to go out ever would be pretty isolating for many students, and laundry costs that average at about £5 a week would take 20% of the students weekly allowance only leaving £20 (assuming we are still talking about £25 a week).

I can see how a few hours of work for a few days per week might seem like a ‘juggle’, but unless she’s doing a course which is very lab heavy or lecture heavy with placements etc (I’m thinking pharmacy, teaching etc) she should be able to do a shift per week. It
might be tricky to find the right job - perseverance.

what was it that she found so hard about working with alevels? Surely she had plenty of free time too? I think to suggest she can’t work is molly coddling.

£60 per week isn’t much for a fun life. I’m sure she’d survive, but she’ll have an incentive to get a job.

I think it depends what her spending habits are.

If she’ll eat noodle pots form Aldi for lunch, take a flash of coffee out etc it’s cheaper than if they want to buy meal deals everyday etc.

Also if she’ll be happy not buying clothes, cheap toiletries and getting pissed all weekend.

I agree with idea of working term time. A really good job is supermarket that will transfer you between stores or lifeguard at big chain leisure centres that will also employ you across the 2 locations. Lifeguarding pays well too.

Depending on her course, the first year at Uni is likely to be a lower workload than A levels or at least a lower number of hours. My Dd only has 8 hours per week of lectures and seminars, plus personal study.

Medicine, dentistry and veterinary science are different though.

If she genuinely can’t manage part-time work she might need to do a gap year and save as much as she can.

£60 and a part time job and she'll be fine.

University life can be extremely expensive if you are out partying all the time or you can live quite cheaply with a more restricted social life. The old student life I had of living on a shoestring and still affording to go out every night and then travelling for 4 months in the summer no longer really exists for students from "average" backgrounds.
For food alone £60 per week is enough, however it is not enough for the "University Lifestyle".
Between loans and the allowance we give them, our DC's (presently at uni) have just over £120 a week after rent and both also have part-time jobs to top up their income. That brings in about another £500/ £600 a month.
Despite all that they still end up having "pasta" weeks where they have to eat incredibly cheaply.
Both work full time over the summer to try and build up a nest egg but as they still have rent to pay it doesn't really work.