Novice University Parent Questions.

[Dominicgoings]

If anyone can help

DC qualifies for enough maintenance grant and a couple of bursaries to cover pretty much all accomodation fees apart from a few weeks worth.
Our plan then is to let them do a monthly online shop for food basics, toiletries etc and we’ll pay for that. Will also continue phone contract and Spotify.
DC has always worked part time and will be able to hopefully get a part time job.
They’ll be in a city centre location.
So budget wise. We can reasonably afford another £200 a month to cover other costs.
Is that about right? Or an I totally off the mark?

I’d give them an amount per month (or week) and let them do their own weekly food shop out of that-then they can learn to budget themselves.

Ours had £250 a month for all expenses bar phone and accommodation whilst studying intensive courses with high material and printing costs (unable to take part time jobs), so I would think £200 is reasonable. One found it very easy to budget, cook from scratch etc, the other always ran out due to his expensive habits.

Lots of threads on HE on this.
A good rule of thumb is to make the lian up to the maximum.
£200 a month on top of food and phone seems reasonably generous. Some will be worse off and some will be better off.
The first term tends to be the most expensive of the three years.
Also depends whether they have expensive interests - sporting clubs at uni can be very expensive.

Bare in mind that most accommodation will not give them enough kitchen space to store a months worth of food.

Thank you all -have now found the HE topic ( wasn’t there before honest )

I intend to make up to the the maximum grant, plus will continue paying phone contract and one-off expenses, and train fares to/from home.

DS has asked that I pay the accommodation and he will budget with the minimum maintenance grant (plus any top up from me - we haven’t worked out the exact numbers yet).

Come and join us on the long running university 2020 thread — www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3996883-University-2020-8-Use-the-CAGs-don-t-use-the-CAGs?msgid=99204090

It’s rather dominated by the grades debacle at the moment but that will ease off, fingers crossed.

I would doubt they'd have room to store a month's worth of groceries in a typical halls flat. It could also be a chore to carry it all up 3 flights of stairs. I gave my dc a monthly allowance and they had to budget for everything except their phone contract. That way they soon learn to avoid branded foods if they want more money to spend on clubbing!

We give £250 a month for food and outgoings. Loan covers accommodation just about. We pay for phone and a monthly travel card on top of that. Teach them to batch cook and they’re set for life as well as uni. Mine has part time job as well to save for holidays and treats.

I can't comment on how much your DC will need as it's now a good few years since my DC went to university. I paid a monthly amount into their bank account for food, but I also got them one of these. It meant that if they ran out of food, I could pay money on to the card at my local store and he could use it immediately in his local store. It was also a good way of making sure that now and again he had money for extra treats. If both you and DC are within a reasonable distance of sainsburys, it's definitely worth considering.

My ds has a small kitchen cupboard and shelf in a fridge to store stuff in his kitchen. He shops every 5-7 days depending on his schedule.

Eric thank you. That’s brilliant

Have you had any info on the accommodation to see what the kitchen is like?
I have 3 dc in uni. In general they get one drawer for cutlery / utensils and one possibly 2 cupboards for food and cooking utensils.
Fridge /freezer spaces vary though but in general it’s one fridge shelf and one freezer section.
In dds uni some rooms had a small fridge in them but that’s probably not standard, however there might be space in their room to store a box of non fridge stuff drinks and fruit. But as pp have said I doubt they will have space for a months worth.
When we took them up we did a big shop to set them up - cleaning stuff, toiletries food such as pasta rice breakfast stuff milk etc A bit of fresh stuff and a couple of ready meals and left them to sort out their routine once settled in.

If a flat mate has a car or local supermarkets are a quick bus ride then they can shop locally. Clubbing together for an online shop is quite common too.
We carried on with mobile phone contracts and family Apple Music and have paid for one off big costs like an annual bus pass, if needed and deposits on the accommodation / next years accommodation so I would play it by ear.

Batch cooking also not easy given lack of freezer space!