Money advice/talking to for HE students

[WelshCerys]

I'll keep this brief - have posted elsewhere about the huge difficulties this is causing.

Anyone know of any services out there which advise students about budgeting, spending wisely, personal financial responsibility? DS home soon, first year Uni, and his finances have been a disaster. Loan seemingly mostly spent and Uni accomm not paid for. We can only afford to pay a small balance.

Does Connexions to this or another youth service? Thanks!

Sorry don't know of any youth service that could help. Many of the university websites have student budget calculators which may be useful e.g.
www.dur.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/finance/managing maybe you could sit down with him and go through it all. I appreciate an outsider is often better but this might be a start point.

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/yourmoney/life_work_and_study/default.aspx offer face to face or telephone advice to young people on budgeting etc.

Student serivices at his Uni would help. The one at my Uni did allsorts. Especially for those going into second year ad moving out of halls so how to sort basic bills like council tax and electric etc etc. So I'm guessing they could help with other £ stuff. They also helped with volunteering work, interview skills etc etc

Cab might have someone to talk to him, but probably not time to arrange that. See if this helps www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-money-saving

Has he got a Christmas job? If not he needs to see if he can find one and be looking at how he might find a job at university.

forgot - he should also see if there are any scholarships he might apply for

Thank you ALL - this is so helpful and supportive (I am very concerned). Once the welcome is over, I will go through the Durham site with DS - it does look good. Will also look at the pages that ellisbell recommends (I like that site, anyway). And think about the bank o/d (would be reluctant but I can it as a possibility). Sadly, no funds from the Uni available as he didn't put it down as first choice - at his Uni, if you do, you stand to gain enormously.

Thanks again -

Don't forge the student's union, they have financial advisors and regardless of his choice of uni there are also hardship funds.

Make a spreadsheet with incoming and outgoings - rent has to go first.

Check out if his uni has a way for you / him to buy meals. UCLAN have a prepayment card you can use in its shops / cafes. You get a discount and you can only spend money on

food
books
stationary

alcohol if bought in the posh cafe as part of a meal.

Some other places have similar schemes.

Talk about him getting a part time job - again the SU often has vacancies

Try some of the banks - I know NatWest has a big financial literacy programme (MoneySense) with info online

Great advice from their posters. Prioritise paying off the uni accommodation. I think all Unis stop you graduating if you have debt but some may stop you starting the next year....

Don't be too hard on him, the loan these days is very small and I don't think its actually possible to live on it - I know last year it would not even covered my DS' self catering accommodation. He will be mixing with young people, like my DS & all his friends, who have their accomodation and lots of their other spending covered by their parents and then the loan on top for food / books & going out. I would suggest you do your best to help him find full-time work for the whole summer, that will help boost his CV & his bank balance.