How much do you give your Uni student child for food each week?

[papayasareyum]

Daughter is first year of Uni. Her maintenance loan doesn’t cover her accommodation, we have to pay £2,100 towards this. We pay the difference. Our daughter feels that we’re being stingy, so I’m just wondering, for those of you who do something similar to us, how much do you give them for food each week?

There was a similar thread in Further Education the other day. My DD's minimum maintenance loan just about covered the accommodation, but we also gave £500 per month for food and extras. We seem to be on the high side, but this was Oxford, so quite a lot of expensive extracurricular stuff going on, although food was cheap in halls.

We give £300 a month (but also contribute extras as and when needed).

we give her £50 a week (I also send her things like toiletries and we pay for her phone, Spotify etc) and she thinks we’re stingy as apparently her friends get about £70-100 a week!

We sent out daughter £50 a week and with her left over from student loan she had about £100 to live on x

£50 a week sounds great. I didnt have any help but did have a job as course hours werent that long on mine. However when I then did my PGCE to teach i couldn't have worked alongside that. Luckily I got a 1st in degree so had a big bursary! Its so hard now for parents with the crazy ramped up fees!

DD1 has £75 a week - we give her £75 a month, granny gives her £50 a month and the rest is made up of her student loan after hall rent is taken into account. That's to cover everything - food, going out, travel, whatever else 18 yr old girls spend their money on. I've sent a couple of online shops though this term to help out, and paid for her train ticket to come back this week (reading week). She seems quite happy with that amount - is eating well and has an active social life.

For DS1, we paid for accommodation and then his (minimum) loan was there for everything else.

£100 a week for food, travel, and everything else. And top up her loan to cover rent. So yes she's probably right most others will get what she says they get!

But if you can't afford it she'll have to budget!

we pay £40 a week - but he receives the highest possible maintenance and works occassionally

We give ds £250 every fortnight during term time only. He gets a partial maintenance loan which leaves him £1k short of his accommodation cost. So we cover that plus all other costs.

DD gets full maintenance loan.
We give her £20 per week top up and her GP’s give her £12.50 per week. I think after accomodation, across 44 weeks , this totals up to approx £100 per week that she has to live on. That is more than enough in my opinion, if she needs more, then it is likely poor budgeting and lifestyle choices on her part, And we would expect her to work for the difference. For reference we also pay her monthly phone contract, set her up with everything she needed before starting and occasionally buy her a weeks shopping as a ‘treat’.

Can’t she get a part time job?

We give dd £35 per week.
She says that is fine.
We gave ds the same. Again, he managed for his 3 years.
Both work(ed) during the holidays but dd didn't work at University in her first year. She is working this year as she's saving up for air fares and travelling next Summer, but, for all her general expenses, the £35 is plenty.

ds loan pays for his accommodation with a bit left over, we send him £300 a month whilst he is away.
He works in the summer too.
We don't pay for anything else, he has to budget for himself.
We're as generous as we can afford to be, I think he does ok.

£70 a week last year. It was plenty. Treated her to some clothes and goodies, and we paid for her phone. This year she's joined uni temps and works random shifts when she wants to..

Currently dd is boarding (6th form) so fully catered, I buy toiletries for the term and give £50/month allowance on top. Next year we will pay for halls only (self catering basic room rate) the rest she will need to fund from her bursary which is about £4K a year I think, including any upgraded en suite room costs she is planning. She won't be taking loans, we've saved the money along with grandparents.

DS gets almost a full loan for everything but we also out in the odd 20 when he needs more. He's actually very good at managing so that's a relief. Granny also gave him some at the beginning of term and is sending him a bit more - which will add up to about 400 from her.

Oh we also pay for his phone!

I also send her things like toiletries and we pay for her phone, Spotify etc

I'd advise figuring out what all that costs, then sending it all as money, and not paying for anything.

Then she can decide for herself whether to prioritise premium Spotify or a couple of bottles of wine, and can bring down her phone contract to the minimum or cut back and get the latest iPhone.

She should as much as possible be making her financial decisions independently.

£100 during term time for groceries/ socials/ travel/phone.

However DH is visiting him this weekend and has just WhatsApp'd a picture of a £120 Superdry coat he's just bought him "because he was cold" (Northern Uni)

We do a shop at the beginning of term. Other than hat she works in the holidays and funds herself - manages to go out and is enjoying this year.

If you want to know what it costs to live in a particular area at university look on their website. They will publish detailed budgets as these are required for foreign students. We give DS £450 a month.

We pay for accommodation and DS lives on minimum maintenance loan plus a bit extra he earns as a football referee. He manages fine, but doesn't drink.

We pay for his accommodation and he gets £40 a week

We pay for the phone car insurance etc

Bit of money for petrol sometimes