How much do students need to live on per week/term?

DS gets £100 weekly for groceries, toiletries, clothing and social life during term time only. He can and does supplement this with the odd shift cheffing and is always in demand for holidays because he's at university in a popular resort.

My daughter's accommodation was around £7000, one of the more expensive (self catered) but newish, own bathroom and great location.I would have chosen a cheaper one in her position.

I’m doing £65 per week, also paying for accommodation in full. And dd has a part time job where she will earn £80 but she might give this up.

Ours is 5.8k, 44 weeks, not catered, which we’ll cover at least for first term. Basic maintenance loan should cover food and everything else.

Honestly, I’ve done this twice now. We paid for accommodation up front, phone bill and a couple of hundred for first month (because freshers is expensive and the loan doesn’t come in straight away) After than, the loan was more than enough each term to get them through. And my two are very sociable (🍷)
It’s the accommodation costs that are the killer for most families

[quote MyDcAreMarvel]@Revengeofthepangolins £7k I have never heard of anyone paying anywhere near that high![/quote]
My sons were 6.5k at Bristol but he was in the 2nd most expensive self catering halls.

But you only saved about 500-1k to go in the really cheapest, if you were lucky enough to get a place

Sorry, halls were 6.5 k

My ds is just going into his 2nd year at Bristol. He got the max maintenance loan of about 9k. He had to pay his halls (4.5k) out of that and had plenty to live on with what is left.

He got a small job in a coffee shop near the end of term and has worked this summer. He plans to keep his job for about 10-15 hours a week.

If your paying accommodation then the loan should be enough, and surely if they need more then a small part time job to supplement themselves is an important part of growing up.

[quote MyDcAreMarvel]@Revengeofthepangolins £7k I have never heard of anyone paying anywhere near that high![/quote]
Take a look at accommodation costs at Bristol, Durham or London @MyDcAreMarvel

@Revengeofthepangolins £7k I have never heard of anyone paying anywhere near that high!

We will top up loan so she has £100 a week and see how this goes, she generally manages her money well. Having said that, she did pick the most expensive halls!

Ds has £100 a week

Starting to think that’s very generous!

Minimum maintenance loan to cover self catered halls, we will have to subsidise this by extra £1,500k, plus £500 per month for living expenses.

@RageAgainstTheNahCantBeArse

My dd has £150pm (£37.50 pw) from when she goes in Sept until end of June - so she still gets if over the 3 weeks or so she can be home over Christmas and Easter. She manages fine.
I have two older ones who went to different places and they had similar amounts, and also managed fine.
Mine all work in the holidays.

A lot of people (who can afford to) seem to do the “we’ll pay the accommodation, they can live on the minimum loan “ scheme. If the student goes to somewhere really cheap eg many Oxford Colleges, this would leave them getting a bit less than someone on maximum loan, but that is rare. I would estimate your DC’s rent would be more like £7k, so if you pay that, their total rent plus spending is more than £2k more than the maximum loan so, as pp have said, you would in effect already be subsidising them, and they would have a comfortable weekly sum if spread over the circa 9 month of term.

A more austere approach is to top up to max loan and that sum has to cover both accommodation and spending, but in some locales that could be pretty lean.

Both systems break down a bit in London - my DS’s rent is barely less than the London max loan, but to give the whole minloan as spending money at £6166 or £158 a week over 39 weeks seems a but much perhaps as part of the London uplift is to cover more expensive accommodation.

My DD also going to Bristol - thanks for all the help everyone. I’m thinking once accommodation paid for, making sure she has £100 a week

Please see this article from 2019 and scroll
down to see the tables.

blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2016/09/how-much-are-parents-supposed-to-give-their-children-when-they-go-to-university/

DS is getting the minimum maintenance loan. We will pay his accommodation and he will use the £4.5k for everything else. In reality he will get the loan each term and pay to accommodation and we will top up for the term and then give him £150 a week (30 weeks a year) on a Monday until such a time he feels he can budget adequately for longer than a week. In the real world many people struggle to budget if paid monthly so at least in the beginning I think weekly payments make more sense.

My DD in her first year had hall fees of about £5200 and a loan of about £6800, so a surplus of about £1600. That's £40 a week. I gave an extra £20 a week on the basis that she would always have food. She's a veggie and doesn't eat that much so that was plenty.

DS2 in halls this year has very low fees of less than £4k, a similar loan so I might sub him similar as he will spend more on food and activities (very sporty). OTOH no bus pass needed which was a big expense for DD.

I am always amazed at threads where people are paying hall fees then thinking of supplementing a minimum maintenance loan - as if £100 on food and fun a week wasn't enough! Wish I had that much to spend!

Pushed post too soon there. My DC’s bill for catered halls is £7k a year. £7k + £4.3k = more generous than maximum mai tenancies grant and should be plenty.

We had this conversation today too. The minimum grant of approx £4K per year is plenty of ‘spending money’ IF you are covering the accommodation/catering separately as well.

If you’re already paying the accommodation, the minimum maintenance loan is more than enough for food/spending money.

I'd also agree if may be worth asking MN to move the thread to the Higher Ed board.

First of well done to your DD for securing a place at Bristol @mrsmootoo

I will have two at Uni this year, Fresher and Finalist. Accommodation - self catered hall and private rental - will be paid leaving them the minimum loan. Given they are there for 32/33 wks actual term time that works out at over £130 per week. My personal view is that such an amount is more than sufficient.

Worth remembering that Freshers, or Welcome Week which I think most now call it, can add some extra expense. But in the case of my youngest I'll expect him to manage his money accordingly. The maintenance loan gets paid early on, and he has his own funds he can draw on if need be were there any delay in that coming through. Equally I've expected all mine to use the budgeting skills they have learned growing up and prioritise spending, with this no different for the youngest heading off next month.

As others have suggested there may be other up front expenses depending on course etc. None of mine have ever needed anything more than a fairly standard spec laptop / chrome book; but for some courses something much higher spec could be needed if not already owned. I need to check that DS3 still has a suit that fits as he does have at least one formal event at Uni quite early on. So having some formal clothing might also be a consideration for some.

such a good thread OP thank you - have been wondering the same but cannot ask people we know !