Food cost per week

[thepurplehen]

I know it's a bit, "how long is a piece of string" but how much would you say an average uni student spends on food?

We have two kids off to uni soon. One is going catered, one self catered. We have said we will cover the cost of their accommodation for them but expect them to buy their own food.

So we need to reduce the amount paid to the catered student (as food is included in accommodation cost) to make it fair.

I was thinking £30 a week?

I have two off to uni for the first time this month. We are giving them £35 a week, £5 a day. Accommodation costs and top up from student loan and us so they don't have any other money except a small amount of savings. Not sure this will be enough but we didn't want to start too high. We will put it up if necessary. I want them both to get some work at least to cover their social lives.

Ds reckoned to do a 'big' shop about once a fortnight which cost about £50 with a little bit of top up in between for milk or more bananas (he eats a LOT of bananas!) so yeah £30 - £35 a week sounds perfectly reasonable.

It's not a one size fits all unfortunately! Depends on the size/appetite of the student, how much sport they play, how good they are at cooking cheap but nutritious meals, how much you want/can afford to give them etc etc.

My ds2 plays a lot of sport and loves healthy food. We pay his rent and he has his (minimum) student loan to live off. Seems to manage fine. By comparison, ds3 doesn't eat as much and just sees food as fuel so I can't see him spending as much. I think all you can do is take a guess based on their eating habits at home.

£20 is doable according to DS's very skint girlfriend so I think £30 or £35 a week sounds ok.

£5 a day sounds like a nice round number.

Catered doesnt always cover all the food.

This is good to know. My daughter is in non catering and I was thinking along the lines of £50-60 a week.

I don't want her starving but she has no idea about budgeting. I'm expecting her to get a job so don't want her to be too comfortable or she won't bother.

Thanks for all the replies.

Ds uni accommodation does include 19 meals a week, which is unusual, I know.

I think I'll knock off £30 a week, which is about what I spend on each of us on our current food bill anyway.

If you start them off wuth s big basics shop, massive bags of pasta rice, tins tomatoes, pulses etc, and a fair wack of freezer stuff every term then weekly can be done on a small budget, we give about 25 per week, and dd buys veg, fruit milk etc, she has never once ran out of food or money last year and eats very well at uni, i also stocked her up with shampoo, washing powder and cleaning stuff.

It is more expensive to cook for one that a quarter of the cost of cooking for four though. Also, depends somewhat on what level of cooking facilities are available and if others are going to nick stuff from the fridge. Also, if you are budgeting for any meals to be eaten in student cafe or equiv. It seems slightly unfair that one DC gets all their meals cooked and the other has to prepare all theirs from scratch, so you might want to be a bit generous with the funding difference to compensate. Or if there was a non catered option in a more or less equivalent hall for the catered DC, use that as the amount to subsidise them by (even if it wasn't something they could have taken up due to oversubscription for example).