How much for a student to live on per week?

[bonnyshide]

My DS will be staying in self catered student accommodation (with utilities & WiFi included in the cost) we will use his maintenance loan to pay for this (which won't cover it, so we will pay the shortfall)

How much will we need to give him monthly to cover: food, clothing, toiletries, travel (train travel home only), books / stationery, recreation money?

We will continue to pay his mobile phone contract.

As we probably can't afford to cover everything he will need to get a job, I am just looking for a rough idea of monthly costs as a starting point.

Some high amounts on here.
dd uses her loan to pay her (all bills included) rent - we top up the difference, then she gets £35pw for all outgoings. She is self catered, so that includes food. She pays for her own phone, and she runs a car out of the money she earns in the holidays.

bonny DS1 has just graduated. I reckon between maintenance loan element and our contribution (eg the two combined), he probably had around £7.5k per annum, so slightly below the rule of thumb maximum maintenance loan comparator. How he used it very much up to him. I wouldn't call him spendthrift, but equally I don't think he led a monastic lifestyle either:)

but ,

he had a quite a well paid job, for an 18 yr old, before he started university; plus had similarly well paid jobs in the long summer holidays, and,

he was at a very wealthy institution with things such as food, sporting and social activities heavily subsidised.

So if your DC can build up there own financial buffer that would stand them in good stead. However the expectation behind the maintenance loan system is that parents / carers will need to contribute quite a bit, and that this kicks in at a relatively modest income threshold.

Cost of accommodation and size of bursary will make a huge difference especially when parental income is low. My friend’s Dd returned from a welsh university with £1000 of unspent loan.

@Blushah

It actually turns out that dd's friends whose parents have the lowest income (or whose parents play the system to maximise the loan) have the most money and pay for ensuites etc.

For us, high income but four kids, old parents bought a house late so still paying a high mortgage as condensed to 13 years due to age , it's financially so difficult to top up.

Dd has her accommodation paid for by us and lives on her (minimum) loan which is about £3700. She worked out that over 52 weeks a year she has £70a week to live on. She works during the holidays when at home but not during term time. When she goes back at the beginning of each term I start her off with a food shop and I sometimes help with the train fare if she comes home for a weekend. She considers herself to be financially comfortable.

My DD, and most of her friends, are only actually living away for a maximum of 38-40 weeks a year.
On a £3700 budget that would be £92-97 per week to live on.

That's what I was thinking 3cats
When my student dc are home in the holidays, I don't charge them anything for living here, so their 'living costs' are only term time. "going out" expenses surely must be expected to come from what they earn.

dc 1 managed (self catering) on £30pw in first year, £33 in second and £36 in 3rd
dc2 gets £35pw having completed her first year.
Both said that is planty, per week for ongoing expenses.
ds graduated with overdraft as he prefers to spend rather than save, and went abroad for 3 holidays in that time and likes his take aways / meals out. His overdraft was less than the cost of the holidays though.
dc2 says it has been fine.
Both work in the holidays.

Dd uses her maintenance loan for rent however the first year she was in halls so we had to top it up.
We pay for phone, contact lenses and transport home. Also pay for car insurance and mot(car kept at home but needs in in holidays as we live in a rural village)
Then we give her £50 per week that we pay 4 weeks at a time.
She works in the holidays supplement her nightlife
She's very good at budgeting and cooks from scratch also they tend to have a few drinks before they go out so don't spend loads on a night out. Lives in centre of Cardiff, so it's only a walk into the city and to uni.

This is really interesting. DS will go to Oxford if he gets in. We were planning on paying for accommodation and food in halls. He can then use the (minimum) maintenance loan for everything else. They aren't allowed to get jobs as the 8 week terms are very intense. I was worried that he might struggle!

Is accommodation paid for termly or annually if in halls?

Termly. Usually due just after the loan payments come in.
The bit that takes you by surprise is the deposit before they go (from when the room is allocated, not lived in), and then the deposits for Yr2 houses, from about January of Yr1.

This has made me think back to when I was at uni (graduated 2010). I had about £100pw to live on after all bills were paid (£150 allowance from Mum and the rest saved from summer jobs).

I always felt skint! But it’s the wealthiest, in terms of disposable income I’ve ever been 😂. Now I have £100per month to play with after covering all other costs.

Having children is expensive!

Yup deposit on 2nd year house had to be paid out long before halls deposit was returned. Not to mention 2nd year accommodation has had to be paid from June ( a month in advance). Over the year it will even out eventually.

I have two sons at Uni and I have just finished Uni myself. I sent them nothing. One son is not great with money but is great with working a succession of jobs to pay for whatever he wants. The other son is great with money and doesn't work - because he struggles with academia more and needs more time at it. He hasn't used any of his overdraft.

They cut their cloth accordingly because they are adults.

We paid accommodation, and give £125 per week in term time from which he is supposed to save some for holidays. He is at uni in UK, so he gets more so he can have a buffer if he needs it, in case he can't get hold of me to transfer money if needed.

Am looking forward to August (as he is doing his MA and is still in Halls doing his final project) being the last allowance due to be paid for him. The last Hall fees were paid in June. His PhD is down to him if he ever does one.

I asked a similar question on here a while ago. I averaged it out and the average was about £65 a week.

My dc spend quite little although use their loan for accomodation and other living expenses and have part time/holiday jobs for other expenses.
Neither are big spenders, both veggie diets and batch cook so around £10-15 a week food, both walk in uni towns and after first year costly social events were limited till birthdays or celebrations
They would book in advance train tickets and if couldn't get a low fare would use the coach.
For my DD a big expense is her washing she has remained in private halls after first year and the downfall is £5 per wash (i think dryer is £3.50) for a small washer and due to her sport stuff she does a minimum 3 washes a week but it's too far to bring home.

I would work out approx costs that are predictable- food shop, travel, washing, and social activities them go from there you can always add to it if need be.

Hmm, interesting food for thought here. DS will get minimum maintenance loan so approx £4k. This doesn't cover his accommodation. The plan was i would pay accommodation and he would use his maintenance loan and budget it for food/living expenses etc.
I'm now thinking £4k is way too much (i expect him to get a part time job to fund social life). Looks like they're only there for 28 weeks in total! Which would mean he has £143 pw, which i think is far too much. He'd need to pay gym membership and lauderette (expensive) out of this, but still. May decide that he needs to refund some of the accommodation costs to us which we can always use to top up if struggling.

I just graduated and last year I had about £4000 loan which covered my accommodation + car insurance. I topped that up from my savings from working previous summers, which was about 2000. This left me with around £40 week after bills.

Tbh this was really tough, I did run a car with that but also got some travel expenses bursary which covered most of the petrol. Previous years I had about £70 a week and that was plenty.

I think realistically to eat healthily for one you need about £30-35 a week on food from Lidl (with maybe a cheap bottle of wine in there), you can eat for less but generally people who do that dont eat very well so to make sure they have plenty of fruit and veg i would say thats about right. Extra uni expense are maybe £10 a week and then £20 on social things like nights out, coffee, trips to the beach etc. That's about 60 but 70 will be more comfortable.

Even if you don't drink or go out you need extra things like coffee or a pizza or something when you have lots of work on because it gets really depressing!

One thing my parents did was a big shop at the start of term with some nice peanut butter, coffee and things like that to keep me going so something like that is always nice rather than just cash.

I gave mine £250 pcm and they used Amazon Prime for books if they needed new ones - dd1 did with Law - often from our account to start with when they needed a lot. They each had an emergency extra charge card on dh's account for travel home but hardly ever used it. They worked in summer holidays but not term time due to full on degrees.