1st year uni - how much do DCs life on (exclud halls)

[ifonly4]

Can anyone tell me roughly how much their DC spends in first year at uni EXCLUDING halls (and whether this includes food for self catering). I know there are similar posts but it's hard to work out how much they're actually spending as everyone is offering different support to their DCs

Hoping her grant will cover halls (although they vary so much £4800-7400!), so trying to get an idea of how much we might have to support her ourselves.

DD's minimum maintenance loan just about covered her halls. She had to pay extra for catered food in hall, and also for her day to day living expenses. We gave her £500 per month, although we did have to sub an extra couple of hundred two or three times a year for extra expenses, like balls or weekends away, so about £6,000 per year cash.

If you exclude halls then lifestyle is a big factor. As is location.
My two were both fairly low spenders, never bought much in the way of clothes, basic PAYG phone and low key social lives. They did go out and party, just not as much as others.
Youngest is still in halls and has £250 a month to live on. This covers everything except for travel home which I pay on top.

Another thing that makes a big difference is whether they want to do sport. Elder DC was very sporty and the cost of participating was ridiculous. I can't remember figures but basic sports membership was £200+.

Ds has just started so we are still at the 'suck it and see' stage. He is in self catering accommodation and gets 500 per month. I think he will need less in the future, but as pp mentioned his sport costs are high - about 250 for the year and three books for his course were over 120 so it was an expensive start to the year!

Just graduated. Never had financial support from parents as I was entitled to full loan/grants/bursary. Nevertheless, after rent and bills I lived off an average of about £80 a week during term time, which was pretty decent compared to some of my peers.

I spent about £30 a week on food and about £50 on lifestyle. Some weeks at the end of term I would live off £20 and other weeks I would have a splurge (beginning of term)- due to my own poor management.

If you’re going to send money then I’d recommend by starting the payments weekly for the first year (or semester at least) and then transition into monthly payments.

Also, it depends on the area but I think £500 a month of disposable income is rather a lot for the average student.

Oh and a tip- most of the time students won’t have to purchase their own books as the library will stock all essential reading material.

"If you exclude halls then lifestyle is a big factor."

This ^^
DD's boyfriend is in a "party flat", and the vast amount of spends is on alcohol. He eats cheaply and badly because he prioritises spending on his party lifestyle.

Both mine were in self catering accommodation. After rent (which includes bills) both said the £35pw we gave them was plenty, on a week by week basis.
Both mine have worked in the holidays, but neither got a job in first year in their University towns. Holiday money is for extras (like their holidays), but in terms of 'what they need to spend on a week by week basis', both were fine on the £35pw.
That is for everything - they pay their own phones, etc. - though we stocked both of them up with a 'big shop' at the start of term.
Does vary massively though on where they are in country, and what their 'expectations' are - as with all these money threads.

We give dd £30 per week. That includes lunches (breakfast and evening meals are included in her accommodation. We also pay her phone contract £10 per month.

My DD has just finished at Uni - she was in London.
She was unable to work so we gave her £100 per week - this covered food/travel/toiletries/laundry etc

My DD spent very little in her first year. We paid her accommodation, and she received a student loan of about £3600, spread over 3 installments. She saved at least £1500 of this.

Her main outgoings were food (Aldi/Lidl) and she ate all her meals in her flat, or freebies at her church and Christian Union. This meant she lived on just a couple of pounds a day. Going out meant Wetherspoons once or twice a term. She walked everywhere.

She paid for flights home 3 times and her final train journey home.

She spent about £100 second-hand text books, which she has now sold on.

She also paid for her flights to the USA for summer camp, and put a deposit on her flat for this year.

DS has only just started so we've not got the true picture yet.

We're paying for catered halls which I expect will be about £1600 per term. He has the minimum loan to cover everything else. That's over £100 per week. He's in an expensive area though, in the SE. That would go a lot further in a northern University.

I trawled through a long thread on here for something similar. I worked out that on average students had £200 on top of whatever their accommodation was. Of course, there were some who rarely went out and were generally very careful, others that were luckily through parents and possibly job to have a lot more and spend it.

Funnily enough, the loan we expect our DD to get will mean we'd have to make it up close to £200 pm to what would be the maximum government loan. She has £100 a month which just gets her by for going out, clothes etc and the extra £100 would go to her food.

DS1 got the full loan of around £8k. Halls were cheap at his uni, around £3k so he had £5k to live on to include food. It was plenty for him, he lived fairly frugally, with a bunch of similarly minded friends and actually had money over at the end of the year. So I'd say £4K is enough to live on including food, if they are careful and don't go mad. Any more they'll need to get a job. DS1 worked for 8 weeks in the summer to top up his money, but being a careful lad he has saved this in an ISA.

Dd1 has just started and gets full loan but currently pays for halls and self catering plus everything else. I give her £25 a month plus a little parcel of treats once a month.
She’s very careful and not a big partier though.

She plans to get a job but says she’s fine at the moment.