AIBU not to pay for DD's train ticket?

[SilverBirchx0x0]

DD started uni in September. She was supposed to be coming home this weekend. She has rung to say she is expecting us to pay for her train ticket.

I am quite shocked about this. She is on a full student maintenance loan and has received £1000 bursary this term on top of her student loan. One of her grandparents also gave her £1000 at the start of term. She hasn't run out of money. She said the other day she still had £1700 to last until the end of this term.
I think that she is now an adult and should be covering her own transport costs to come home for the weekend. DD says all of her friend's parents pay for their rail tickets when they go home (or come to pick them up) .

We are 4 hours away so not easy to pick her up for a weekend home.

We have already been down to visit her and stayed in a hotel for a weekend. As it is pricey, we can't keep doing this.

AIBU to expect DD to pay her own train fair to visit us this weekend?

Just out of interest, did you pay for the petrol?
Seem like the equivalent if not

Last minute train tickets are extortionately priced OP.

I'd probably pay for this time as a one-off, then invest in a railcard and have a discussion about funding tickets if she can book say a month in advance.

That said, I lived in London at uni and home was Yorkshire, neither my mum or I could afford train tickets. I spent many, many hours schlepping to Victoria coach station, 4 hours on a coach then an hour onward journey to get home, about 7 hours door to door. Coach is MUCH cheaper than train travel, even last minute. Have a look at the difference in prices, good opportunity for a discussion about planning, value for money, responsibilities etc.

Where did you see she had a toddler ‘shit fit’….

I read ‘expected us to pay’ and ‘not particularly impressed by’ the offer of a train ticket as a birthday present.

your toddler must have been impeccably well behaved if you see the above as a shit fit….

I’d pay - but I’d make sure it was the cheapest ticket (even if that was a stopping train or round the houses a bit). But I’d also try and set reasonable expectations for the future - ie frequency and cost.

I was going to suggest her rail ticket would make an excellent Christmas present.
This is the time she learns to be an adult —- mine ( both DDs ) expected to support themselves from going to Uni onwards. My contribution was sending them back with a couple of boxes of groceries, cleaning stuff, toiletries.

Being careful with your own money but expecting others to spend theirs isn’t good, it’s just tight and cheeky fuckery. There are threads complaining about these sorts of people on here all the time.

And surely ‘expected us to pay’ could mean - had the expectation- not stomped feet and demanded!

my son expected us to help him out at uni, but it has been met by gratitude - so an expectation doesn’t have to mean a demand….

The rail card is worth its weight in gold! I bought one the other day and when i used it to go to London with my ds it saved me very nearly the price of the ticket. One more trip in 12 months and it pays for itself

@SilverBirchx0x0 tbh, the rail ticket and rail card isn’t the most exciting of gifts, I’m buying new clothes for birthday/Christmas as ds has nothing, but none of that is exciting sadly. I’ll need to find something he actually wants as well

We didn’t have a huge amount of money growing up but my mum and dad always slipped me money when I was heading back to uni - or indeed loaded my bag with food! I’m talking a fiver, 40 years ago. Maybe it’s the asking is annoying you?

Well done to @SilverBirchx0x0 for using AIBU to seek views, graciously consider them and genuinely change their approach as a result of feedback. Happens very rarely!

"Maybe it’s the asking is annoying "
Or maybe OP like most of us is trying to balance the household budget in the lead up to Christmas

I used to pay for my own train tickets but I would pay for my DS. I have paid for lots of things for my DS.

A railcard is a good idea to make things a bit cheaper.

I think she should pay it. Yes I have children at uni.

She has £1700 in the bank and is in catered halls to last her until the end of this term, another 4 weeks. She will get another maintenance loan payment in January and again in April as it is in 3 payments not one.

You will no doubt be funding her food when she is home at Christmas, Easter and a massive summer holiday. We top our children up to the maximum loan. They still have a lot of money to live on each week. It covers them in the holidays too for any socialising. Your DD is on a full loan due to household income so why should the parent fund it? Hardly rolling in cash are they.

I would pay the fare, without a second thought.

We paid the train fares for DS1 to come home.

As posters DD receives the full loan it means the household is on an income of 25k pa or less.

There is no right or wrong here because of what others peoples parents paid for or because of what they pay for their own student children.

I have had students who receive nothing at all from parents, single parents that’s also work and study and I honestly don’t know how they managed it up to ones that’s parents just buy them a house for the duration of their course without so much as batting an eye.

@PicturesOfDogs

No i didn't pay for the petrol. The deal was I would get a (free) lift to uni and back at the beginning and end of each term but that was it.

If I wanted to travel home or anywhere else during term time (as OP's daughter is planning to do) then that public transport cost needed to come out of my budget. There were no mid term lifts!

Unless you're really hard up I would pay for ticket (mum of 2 teens here).

She's clearly being sensible with her money which is to be encouraged

We don't pay for their train fare it's part of the money we give them.
I remember in Ds's First Year him discussed with me the merits of him flying home because it would save him time and it only cost £50 more than the train and I told him it was his money and if he wanted to spend £50 to save a couple of hours then great. Penny dropped. He came home by train - and found a cheaper route, happy to drive to the station a bit further away but he needs to check my diary is free, that screw-up cost him a few hours.
We give them plenty of money - they need to learn to make good choices, it's part of the "becoming a fully functioning adult plan".

If you can, then pay, or maybe go halves? Its lovely she wants to come back to see you, and it's sensible she's saving her money, she might have £1700 to last until end of December but with the cost of living increasing loads in the new year with heating and food bills going up when she returns she will probably get through that pretty quickly! Maybe make a plan with her going forward, how many times you can go there, and if she wants to come back how to decide who pays?

My dad is fairly tight with money but he always had the rule that he paid travel home, so that we would never say "oh but I can't afford to come home" (because they wanted to see us)!

YANBU to not want to fund a ticket for a random weekend home midterm especially last minute when tickets will be more expensive than if it was agreed earlier and pre-booked ahead of time.

When I was at Uni it wouldn't have even entered my head to ask for my parents to pay for my train home, especially if it was just for a random weekend, unless I was literally broke or they had specifically asked me to come home for a family event etc. If it was just a random weekend home because I wanted to visit then it would be my responsibility to fund it.

It was agreed that they would drive me to/from halls at the start/end of the year when I had to move everything in and out (and from the 2nd year I had my car with me so they only moved me into my house share in 2nd year and out at the end of 3rd year bc I didn't have to move out in the summer) but for Christmas and Easter I had to sort my own transport home. When I was visiting home my parents would usually give me £100 before I left "to cover the train here and back and a supermarket shop when you get back to uni" but that was never asked for or expected.

So because I knew I was paying for my own ticket (even just initially) I would make sure to use my Railcard, book in advance to get cheaper tickets and book the most direct option based on my budget. I went to uni in Leicester and home was the Lake District so sometimes I could get a Megabus/National Express coach for £5 each way from Leicester - Manchester and then a cheap advance Manc - home return train would be about £20; other times I could get a cheap advance return fare on the train from Leicester - home for about £40 so I would pick whichever was more convenient (ie which one didn't require me to leave the house pre lunchtime)

The OP has said her DD is in catered halls so heating/food bills are irrelevant as the DD has none of those costs (beyond discretional buying of food outside of her meal plan) and the £1700 is literally discretional spending money, that's about £200 a week from now till December, and more than enough to cover a train ticket home for a random weekend.

Ah I missed that! God thats a good deal for DD! Where can I sign up 🤣 yeah that's a lot, I mean I'd be inclined to encourage saving the money given by family, but like a long term 2 ye fixed account or something (basing this off when I was given money at 18 and it did not go on something sensible, and instead funded a pub for a month 🤦🏻‍♀️) but that's only because I think it's so rare to be gifted money it's a great way to boost savings. Even if she's going from one end of the country to the other, what she has left over would get her home easily!!

I’m amazed at how many people think you should pay, my parents never payed for my travel costs, I had a part time job to cover my expenses and wouldn’t ever had expected my parents to pay for anything like that.