Uni weekly allowance

[Alwayswonderedwhy]

DD will be going to uni in September and just wondering how much people give their DC to live on at a Midlands Uni? Excluding accommodation how much do you give your DC to live on? She'll be on campus so shouldn't need too much for travel costs.

We paid for accommodation, that was it. Mine worked PT as well.

Thanks. I was wondering about actual costs as it seems to vary massively from what I've seen online.

If you are paying for accommodation then they can very easily live off their loan

We give ours £100/week September to June plus pay for their accommodation. Summer holidays they live at home for free and work for spends.

Ours are both down South (not London), not Midlands though.

Midlands varies too. Leicester and Nottingham they should be fine as long as they have the equivalent of the full loan (unless they have very expensive accommodation) whereas Birmingham is a bit more generally

She'll get minimum loan so I'm trying to work out what we'll need to contribute..

So they live off £100 per week in total?

My DD will get minimum loan which just covers accommodation. We’re planning to give her £100 on the first of every month plus £70 per week.

We give my SD £125 a month, not sure if her mum gives her anything too. She has a small loan and a job though so I think she's doing ok.

I worked it out on what was needed so accommodation, food, travel and social, phone, clothes etc. Did a little spreadsheet and basically she got a loan that covered around 50% of her accom so we paid the rest then she had 210 a month of us for year one. Year two she is in a flat so did a cash flow of basics including bills now and works out 1500 1st month then 400 a month thereafter plus she gets loans at around the same rate as last yr - 8k a yr approx. I also pay her phone @16 quid a mth. She is in London so its expensive, but we live midlands way I would say costs would be around 20% below that for accom - bills and food not alot different, travel prob less etc. You can see on line what accom costs are yr 1 and it pretty much covers everything bar phone, Food and Travel. We went round a few halls in Brum and cant say I thought they were good quality, not compared to what she has in London but they were alot cheaper. As an idea hers were around 270 a week so yeah ouch

Should say she works too getting 4-600 a month with that

Ok if she is only receiving minimum loan due to your incomes then ideally you should top up to 10K. (See Martin Lewis).

Our YP’s (we have two at Uni at the same time) pay us the minimum loan each term and we use this towards paying their rent and we also have to top this (as it doesn’t cover it) and we also give them a monthly allowance which equates to just over 10K per year combined with rent top up (spread between Sept to June).

They don’t work during term time but both work hard over summer (they use this for luxuries i.e. little treats and as a cushion in savings) in summer and outside of term time they live at home rent free and only pay for individual toiletries and socialising etc.

A minimum loan works at about £90/week all year round. That's plenty if parents are paying for accommodation.
People seem to suggest £50-100/week but that's if the loan is totally swallowed by accommodation. Your DC will be on the top end of that with the loan, so you shouldn't need to top up at all.

Mine is in Nottingham … she gets full loan ( which after accommodation for the year left her with roughly £30 per week for everything else ). Obviously that isn’t sustainable so she’s been working part time and ends up with approx £100 per week to live off. Uni accommodation was approx £165 per week last year. It took a few weeks when she got there to sort out a part time job.

She has her bus pass for the year paid by family.

This year her rent in a house is £135 per week including bills ( water, gas, electric, tv and internet ) so that gives her a bit more per week and she already has a job to go back to which gives her the flexibility to pick up
more hours if she wants them when they are available.

We are paying accom and utilities, plus phone, contact lenses, special dermatology toiletries/cosmetics, textbooks, subs, some event tickets & travel home. She gets about £90/wk loan to live on.

It depends on the degree imo. Some degrees require a lot of practical placements where students really can’t fit in part time work. It also depends on what you can afford and if you want them to have to repay a loan. We didn’t want any of ours to have to replay loans. One of their degrees was very intense, we also didn’t want them worrying about money while studying. 2 DC lived in my old flat near the Uni and we paid all bills, gas, electric, internet etc as well as any repairs and decorating. We also paid car insurance. A grandparent wanted to pay for books so they were covered. We gave all of them an allowance of £200 per week but they did offer to return approx 40% of that after they finished Uni as they never used it all.

As I said, it really depends on the degree and what you can realistically afford. We had 3 at Uni once at one point and it was tight money wise for us for a year or so.

I went to uni in Bristol so not the same but I had a student loan, also had a part time waitressing job working around 25 hours per week earning about £180 per week which was plenty to live on. My course was only intense in the final year but I managed to juggle it with working.
That was a long time ago but I think £100 a week and tell her to get a part time job.
I interview so many grads that don't have much of a work ethic these days, didn't work at uni and feel entitled and they really struggle in the real world - not used to budgeting, working with people, social skills, professional behaviour. You can really tell.

If she receives minimum loan, and you are paying the accommodation, then that should be enough.

However, having been on hundreds of these threads over the years (on other forums as well as MN) you will find this is a very long piece of string.

You'll have people in utter disbelief that anyone can live on less than £200 pw, and you'll have others who, however much they would like to, aren't able to top up the amount of the full loan, so the students have to earn everything they need.

After rent, our dc lives on £45 pw from us, Sept - June. She has always worked alongside her studies which pays for her treats of choice (holidays, going out, etc).
She doesn't struggle at all.

My 3rd and 4th are currently at uni. For dd1 we paid her weekly groceries year 1 and half of year 2. She then manages last year 2 and half third year when lockdown hit and she moves home. (She was in cantebury)

Dd2 did 2terms year 1 on her own when lock down hit. By year 2 she needed very little help had a good job and was very steady year 3 she needed a bit of support as in expensive accommodation. She was in London.

Ds is at Essex has needed no support at all he has had work through out. We do send him the odd extra but he has managed well.

Dd3 is at Aberystwyth she did foundation year on her own and year 1 but lost her job in June. So I suspect we will be paying for food for a good while. With her agreement we have said £30 a week for food an extra £20 for nice stuff. Then she calls and asks if she needs something further.. dh and I are not in a great place ourselves so can't help a lot but I will ensure she is fed even if it's a bit borring for her.

Sooo grateful mil had done some savings for them it has helped them all with deposits etc.

Following! DS about to start A levels but has lots of questions about uni and things have changed since the first two went (20 year age gap). Not keen on them having to work, would rather they put all their time and effort into studies.

We top ours up to the maximum loan. That's the least you should be doing. We do help out a bit more if needed (and pay for contact lenses), but that's where we start.

Worth remembering that in England the maximum maintenance loan outside London at just over £10,200 for 24/25 has fallen well behind inflation, and is not far off £2000 lower than where it might otherwise have been. For comparison a student from Wales would get just over £12,000 outside London.

if you are paying accommodation (and assuming that is not catered) then the minimum loan should be more than adequate.

For people saying the OP should top up to the minimum loan at least, it is very, very, likely that if she is paying the accommodation, then that will total more than the top up to the full loan.

What is being asked is how much a week is a reasonable amount to live on.

3/4 years ago we were giving ours £50 a week. He managed fine on that but there are so many variables. He didn't have time to work in term time as he was in labs a lot - dd on the other hand got more free time so worked a few shifts in retail (was also a bigger spender on clothes/makeup up)

He would cook proper meals which I think is cheaper than buying convenience food - not massive amounts of meat but pasta/rice/veg based dishes. He also wasn't a big party animal which helped, they would have drinks at the flat and go out late to the occasional student night and just have a couple after pre drinks.

Does your YP have a monzo? It's good for them to keep track of where their money is going.