Really honest answers please. Spending money?

[Theas18]

If you have a DC at uni how much spending money do they have each week/ month. Where are they and what is it expected to cover?

DS maintenance loan and a chunk from the bank of m&d have gone on hall fees ( fully catered. Self catering fees not very different at all!)but clearly he needs a top up too. He has a choral scholarship but that will cover a beer after choir and the tour at new year if we are lucky.
Not expecting him to get a job at the moment. I think he needs to settle into studies and student life at the moment.

We should know but dd managed on very little. He's talking about gym memberships etc already . I said run to lectures it's free!

Looking forward to hearing your experiences.

Daughter in self-catered halls. We are paying for the halls and she gets £3610 a year from the student loan company plus a scholarship (but that money is needed to fund her course annual trip). So, approx. £90 a week. However, a trip home booked in advance costs £50 and her course costs are not cheap - probably £10/week.

Albeit only week three, she is currently finding budgeting hard and going the opposite way - almost worried to spend anything beyond food and necessities. I have tried to get her to take her weekly money out and spend that way so she can get a visual handle on it but I'm not sure she is doing that yet.

Maybe he could have the Gym Membership as his christmas present?

We gave DS2 £50 a week when he was in catered halls.
When he lived in a house for 2 years we gave him £100 a week which had to cover his food, bills & going out socialising.
He also worked in ALL of his university holidays in catering / bar work at local race courses / events local to our home. This extra money also went towards his term time spending. He didn't work term time though.
He left Nottingham University in 2013.

Gym membership, lol. If your DD managed on very little, then he should, too.

Hi OP .

There's a great thread started a few weeks ago called something like 'I know all MNers kids have worked down the mines' lots of experienced parents on there saying how much dosh they gave their DC.

Sorry can't link for you- on phone. It's I the Higher Ed section in September.

When I was a uni in the 1990's my parents topped up my grant, and gave me £20 for spends I was so grateful and paid for all my trips home. My husband 'a parents have nothing at all although they could afford it . Now as a good earner I really try and treat my parents and mu husbands relationship with his family is poor. I did work as a waitress every holiday . I know times have changed but a regular weekly spend was a godsend!

I should add £20 a week!

Here's that thread. I found it very helpful.

We pay for DD3's accommodation and she funds all her other university and living costs herself from her student loan. She managed very well in her first year and didn't even have a job although she looked for one. he is now in her second year. She doesn't drink much and doesn't do clubbing so her costs are probably lower than some of her peers. However she does go out with friends and has a good social life.
She has a Sainsbury's meal card but I have only put money on that once last year she didn't really need it but I thought it would be a nice thing to do.

We have decided to commit to paying for their accommodation (have told them I will pay for sink-in-room but that if they want en suite or catered then they pay the difference!) and then they will have the maintenance loan to live on. They will also have some inheritance money and some money that FIL has saved for them (in their names, so becomes theirs when they turn 18 which FIL is starting to worry about a little bit!) so I guess it will be up to them whether they use that money to subsidise everyday living or keep it for special things or for post-uni expenses. It will mean they don't need to worry about getting a job during term time if that proves difficult.

It's only week one for DS but this is the plan. His loan covers the accommodation and we are giving him £300 a month. I will review it at Christmas.
He has a very full timetable and I think it unlikely he will get a job, or if he does it will just be the odd hour. He can do a few hours during holidays at his old part time job.
I want him to be able to afford to do sports and other activities, he is careful with money and is keeping a tally of his spending.

DD is getting £75 a week after accommodation (her entire grant went on that and we had to top it up too). That's for food, books, transport, entertainment - basic living stuff.

She's currently fuming because they didn't give her a sports scholarship even though she is a GB international. County level rugby players get one :( That basically means we'll have to pay for her sports equipment too as she was looking to use that to fund it.

skylark2 That's about the same as us then. I am surprised how expensive the sporting stuff is. £58 a year to start with, plus £6 per sports club and then on top of that some of them charge £3 per session. He has decided he won't be doing as much sport as he planned. also he forgot to pack vital bits of kit

DS is paying his accommodation (although this term we have to top it up, next two terms his academic scholarship kicks in and he gets £750 off each term) from his student loan. We are sending him £50 per week for food etc. He did though go with £700 savings from working over the summer, which he is using to fund his socalising and incidentals.

Luckily for him, the gym membership was free with the halls as he is in uni owned accommodation, he also gets his main text books free (although I did order one for him today that he really wanted and doesn't get)

We're paying for DSs accommodation (shared room, no en suite, self catering), and his loan should cover everything else. So he will have about £100 per week in term time only, but that has to cover food too. The accommodation works out to about £300/m which is reasonable for London. He decided he would rather share a room and have money to spend. He starts tomorrow, so fingers crossed he still feels the same way in a few weeks...

Of course it depends on your situation. We are paying DD's accommodation (catered) and then she has the maintenance loan to cover everything else - works out to about £100 per week. She has found that she has to spend a bit on food as the catering evening meal is early in the evening, so she gets hungry later on - but says she is trying to keep that cheap - pasta.

She has been surprised by sports clubs memberships, but she has a small uni award coming to her in Feb, so have suggested that she uses that for trips etc.

We are trying to put aside the amount we would have given her on expenses at home into a high(ish) interest account - we would like to help her pay this off once (if?) she starts earning enough to start paying back. However, the tuition loan she will have to pay back herself. Is anyone else trying to do this?

Oh - and I've let her order some course books from my amazon account - we'll see how that goes

Ds1 is now in his second week at university.

We are paying the difference between his maintenance loan amount and his Halls' costs (about £350 per annum) and then £45 per week for food and a few other small bits.

We will also be paying for books and other course necessities.

Before he went we also paid for a Sports pass, which entitles him to use the gym and membership of various clubs, and his Fresher's wristband, which is entry into many events. He was also given sums of money from relatives which meant he had a few hundred to go off with.

It was important to Dh and me that DS1 had enough money to feed himself, but that if he wanted to party a lot he would have to find a job and finance it himself.

Having said that, we are going to see him tomorrow and there will be groceries in the bags of stuff we're taking for him

I pay DDs accommodation and she lives on her maintenance loan. She worked all summer with the intention of saving for her year abroad, next year, but they promised her a transfer to her uni city so she spent pretty much everything she earned I don't know who she gets her expensive tastes from , apparently I've trained her well. It turns out the branches where she is are only franchises so she'd have to redo her basic training and train again to work in the holidays so our local branch have agreed to keep her job open provided she works at least 1 shift a fortnight. Thankfully her timetable and the fact that she goes everywhere on a kid's fare mean she can work 20-30 hours 3 days a fortnight and save at least £100 and go back with a bag of food

She knew she was well off last year, just living off her loan, compared to some of her friends/flatmates who get nothing off their parents or are dripfed £30pw even though their parents could afford more we both know them and appreciates what I do for her.

By the time she graduates my savings will be practically wiped out and things might've been different if DS had gone into halls but he chose to commute so I'm helping him with the cost of his post-grad training.

We are paying DD's hall fees (fully catered) and giving her £500 a month. I think we are probably paying too much from reading this, but we'll see how it goes once the big set up costs have dropped off.